Apple tries to make the iPhone as simple and intuitive to use as possible—and largely succeeds. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t some more advanced features available, if you’re prepared to do a little digging.

We’ll help you with your digging with a few iPhone keyboard tricks you might not know. You no doubt spend a lot of time tapping away on it, so make sure you’re aware of everything it’s able to do for you.

Slide to type

Some people find it easier to slide across letters as they spell them out, rather than tapping on each letter. This is enabled by default on the iOS keyboard, so try it to see if you like it: Just slide your finger across to the letters you want, briefly pausing at each one. If the feature has been turned off somehow, go to General and Keyboard in iOS Settings, and turn on Slide to Type. The Delete Slide-to-Type by Word toggle switch determines whether pausing on the delete key erases the last character or the whole of the last word.

Replace text

If you’ve got a host of phrases that you turn to again and again in your typing, you can set up text replacements for them. You could use the code “myad” to insert your full address, for example. To set these handy shortcuts up, open iOS Settings, then pick General, Keyboard, and Text Replacement. You can use the same feature for words that are always getting corrected by the iPhone—particular surnames or place names, for example.

Trackpad mode

Did you know your iPhone keyboard has a hidden trackpad mode you can make use of? It’s particularly helpful when you’re trying to select something precisely, or when you need to edit text and you’ve got to get the cursor in exactly the right spot. Tap and hold on Space on the iPhone keyboard until the keys go blank, then move your finger to work the trackpad. It’s not available at all times though—only when the keyboard is active.

Go one-handed

There will be times when you only have one hand free to type on your phone, and the iPhone keyboard has you covered here: Tap and hold in the bottom left corner of the keyboard, which will either be an emoji or a globe depending on how it’s configured, to get a pop-up menu. There you’ll see two icons for pushing the whole keyboard towards the left or right of the screen. Repeat the process to go back to the normal keyboard layout.

Tap and hold

You can unlock a whole host of special characters and variations by pressing and holding on keys on the iOS keyboard (you can also tap the 123 button to see more options of course). For example, press and hold on a text character to see variations with accents added, or press and hold on the dollar sign to see other currencies, or press and hold on the period to see an ellipsis. Another tip: Double-tap the Shift key to keep it enabled.

Switch to dictation

You can speak out what you want to say rather than typing it, if you want a change (or if you speak faster than you type). The feature can be turned on and off under General and Keyboard in iOS Settings, via the Enable Dictation toggle switch: As long as it’s enabled, you can tap the microphone button on the keyboard to switch between dictation and typing. You can speak out punctuation and even emojis as you go.

Make iPhone keyboard bigger

The size of the iPhone keyboard is tied to the text size of iOS as a whole, and you can adjust this by opening Display & Brightness from Settings, then choosing Text Size (you can also turn on Bold Text if you want). It’s also possible to switch to upper case rather than lower case for the iPhone keyboard: From Settings, tap Accessibility and Keyboards, and disable Show Lowercase Keys (the Shift key will still work as normal, however).

Configure the keyboard

Open iOS Settings, then go to General and the Keyboard screen, and you’ll see plenty of useful ways you’re able to customize the iPhone keyboard to suit your own needs and preferences. Autocorrect and spell check can be turned on or off as required, for example, as can automatic capitalization (so there’s always a capital letter after a space), and the smart punctuation feature (so curly quotes rather than straight quotes, for instance).

The post 8 handy iPhone keyboard tricks you might not know appeared first on Popular Science.

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Besides everything else your smart speaker can do—from weather forecasts to fact checks to playing music—it’s also able to help improve your sleep. That might be by playing sounds to help you drift off, for example, or by waking you up gently in the morning.

The sleep-boosting tricks we’re going to cover here can be used across smart speakers made by Amazon, Google, and Apple (as well as the smart displays)—so there should be something here that fits your smart home setup.

Make some noise

Your smart speaker can work as a noise machine if that helps you fall asleep—and you can even choose between several different colors of noise. If static isn’t for you, smart speakers can play a variety of natural sounds as well, so you can drift off to audio of a thunderstorm or the clack-clack of a train on tracks.

Getting this setup is as simple as saying “play white noise,” “play pink noise,” or “play the sounds of a thunderstorm” to your smart speaker, though they all work in slightly different ways in terms of how they respond. An Amazon Echo will try and find a specific app to help, for example, while a Google Nest might load up a track from YouTube—it really depends on what you’ve asked for.

Head into the companion app on your phone—so the Alexa app, the Google Home app, or the Home app for iOS—to see what’s currently playing and to set options such as a sleep timer. Most sounds can be configured to keep playing all night, or to turn themselves off after a specific amount of time has passed.

Evening and morning routines

Another way that smart speakers can improve your sleep health is by giving you nudges to help you stick to a routine. Every smart speaker can set reminders, for instance: Just ask for a reminder to be read out at a certain time, when you know you need to start getting ready for some shut-eye.

At the other end of the day, you can set an alarm in the same way to get you out of bed. The available alarm sounds—which can be set through the app that accompanies your smart speaker—include a number of gentle and soothing options. If you’re using a Google Nest smart display, meanwhile, in the alarm settings you can customize what’s labeled a Pre-alarm sound to come before the alarm too.

Smart speakers from Amazon, Google, and Apple can all trigger routines alongside an alarm, so you can have your smart lights gradually come on for example, or start a playlist specifically designed to get you out of bed without you having to resort to the snooze button (or a snooze voice command).

In the Alexa app, tap the + (plus) button in the top right corner of the Home tab, then choose Routine. Set the time you want the routine to start (it can start with the sunrise time in your part of the world, if you want), then choose what you want the Echo to do—some of the options include playing specific sounds, starting a playlist, and reading out the news.

In the Google Home app, head to the Automations tab, then choose + Add to get started. The options match those available on the Echo speakers pretty closely: You can pick a specific time for the routine to start or have it synced with your local sunrise time, and you can pick from a variety of sounds and audio sources to listen to, as well as control connected smart devices (so you can get your smart lights to gradually brighten to give you a more gentle wake up, for example).

If you’re using a HomePod, open the Home app for iOS, head to the Home tab, then tap the + (plus) button up in the top right corner. Choose Add Scene, then Custom, and you’re ready to get started: As on the Amazon and Google speakers, your options include being able to gently turn on smart lights, and broadcasting a specific playlist.

Other smart speaker relaxation ideas

There’s lots more you can get your smart speaker to do to help you wind down for bed—just think about all the different types of audio it can cue up. In addition to putting together a specially prepared playlist, you could also have an audiobook play while you’re drowsy, or perhaps run through an audio meditation session.

Sometimes you’ll be able to do this right on the speaker—as with the Guided Meditations skill for the Amazon Echo—and other times you’ll need to manage the audio on your phone and simply have it stream through your smart speaker (it’ll certainly sound better than it does on your phone), maybe through an app like Headspace or Calm.

You can connect to Echo speakers wirelessly via Bluetooth (just say “Alexa, pair” to get into pairing mode), to Nest speakers via Chromecast (tap the Chromecast button in the app you’re using), and to HomePod speakers via AirPlay (tap the AirPlay logo in Control Center on your iPhone). All the necessary settings, including volume and sleep timers, can then be set on your phone before you drift off.

The post How to use your smart speaker for better sleep appeared first on Popular Science.

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You might think physical media is obsolete. It’s possible to watch basically anything on streaming sites at this point. Best Buy is ending DVD and Blu-ray sales and so is Target. Many people no longer have Blu-ray or DVD players plugged into their TVs, assuming they even watch things on a TV at all. It’s understandable, given all this, that you might be eyeing your shelf full of physical media and wonder whether it’s time to throw it all out. 

That’s a mistake. There are all kinds of reasons you should keep your physical copies of TV shows and movies around. 

Content disappears from streaming services

A few years ago Warner Bros. started removing its own shows from Max, called HBO Max at the time. Among these shows was Westworld, a prestige HBO series that subscribers understandably thought would stick around on the service. Until that point no major streaming service had removed its own content—Netflix, for example, removed plenty of shows made by other companies but never one of its own originals. Warner Bros. broke this unspoken compact with Westworld. Today the only place to watch the sci-fi drama online is on TubiTV, but you can’t watch episodes whenever you want—it’s basically an online TV station that plays all the episodes in order. Warner Bros. isn’t alone here: Disney pulled several of its own shows from Disney+ last year, including a brand new TV show based on the movie Willow. 

Which is all to say that you can’t count on streaming services to offer all the shows you love in perpetuity. You know what you can count on? A physical disc. A TV show or movie you have on Blu-ray or DVD will keep working for you until the disc physically breaks down, and even longer if you back them up. If you want to make sure you can keep watching a TV show or movie you need to buy a physical copy. 

No internet? No problem.

Streaming services, for the most part, only work if you have an internet connection. Physical media keeps working, as highlighted by a piece in The Guardian about a Florida power outage in 2018 that made one family’s DVD and Blu-ray collection extremely valuable: 

Word got around. The family’s library of physical films and books became a kind of currency. Neighbors offered bottled water or jars of peanut butter for access. The 1989 Tom Hanks comedy The ’Burbs was an inexplicably valuable commodity, as were movies that could captivate restless and anxious children.

The internet goes down sometimes, for all kinds of reasons—natural disasters, yes, but also good old fashioned outages. Having some physical media around means you’ll still have something to watch. 

It might be cheaper

Some people like to binge watch the same show, again and again. Peacock, for example, owes at least some of its existence to dedicated fans of The Office, who from what I can tell, just kind of always have the show on in the background. That might be worth it to you, but here’s the thing, though: I found the complete run of the series on Amazon on DVD for $50, a total that could pay for just over four months of an ad-free Peacock subscription. You could probably get the series for even less if you’re willing to look for a used copy, meaning there’s no excuse to pay for Peacock just for one show. Buy the discs and you can binge watch as many times as you want, all without any ongoing subscription fees. 

You can lend them out

I love ebooks but tend to buy a physical copy of anything I truly love. Part of this is that I like seeing the books on my shelf, granted, but another big part of the appeal is that I can lend physical books out to friends. Physical copies of movies and TV shows work the same way: You can lend them to whoever you like, even as streaming services are going out of their way to stop you from sharing passwords. 

Of course, it’s not just on you to lend out discs: your local library probably does too, giving you access to all kinds of shows for free. In some places this is going even further: Little DVD libraries are popping up as a way to share discs with your neighbors. If you can physically hold something there’s no restrictions on lending it out, and that’s a real kind of freedom that streaming services can’t—or, at least won’t—give you. 

Special features

One last thing. DVDs and Blu-rays come with all kinds of special features, from behind-the-scenes footage to deleted scenes. Streaming services don’t offer these features—the best you can do is search for them on YouTube when you’re done watching. This only matters if you care about such things, granted, but it’s a big reason you’ll never get me to part with my special edition set of Lord of the Rings. 

The post Why you shouldn’t throw out those DVDs and Blu-Rays appeared first on Popular Science.

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You may not give it much thought while you’re listening to your favorite tunes, but just about every music streaming service out there comes with social features that help connect you and your musical tastes with other people.

It makes sense that you might want to share tracks and playlists with friends and family, but you likely don’t want to reveal all your musical tastes to the world at large. That’s why it’s worth running an audit of what you’re sharing and with whom in the music apps you’re using.

Here we’ll cover three of the most popular and well-known ones—but if your own streaming service of choice isn’t listed below, you may well find similar options by digging into the various settings and social screens.

Spotify

Did you know you have a Spotify profile that other people can see? Though they’ll need to know your username, or have you in their phone contacts. From the Home tab in the mobile app, tap your avatar (top left), then View profile to take a look. Tap Edit, and you can change the name and picture used on your profile.

Besides your name and picture, all your public playlists are shown on your profile. You can set whether a playlist is public or private by opening it and tapping the three dots at the top of the tracklist—tap Make private or Make public.

Tap your avatar (top left), then Settings and privacy and Privacy and social (Android) or Privacy & Social (iOS), and you can control whether or not your followers, the people you’re following, and your recent listening history show up on your profile.

On the same screen, the Listening activity toggle switch controls whether or not people who are specifically following you can see what you’re listening to (independent of your public profile). There’s also a Private session toggle switch, which you can enable to temporarily hide your listening from your followers.

Apple Music

Load up the Home tab in Apple Music on your phone, and tap your avatar (top right). On Android your Apple Music profile appears straight away, but on iOS you need to tap your name to see it —assuming it’s been set up (it’s not compulsory). Tap Edit to change what’s shown here, from your profile picture to any shared playlists you want to include (long press on a playlist in the app and choose Share Playlist to send it to your profile).

Profiles give Apple Music users the option to follow each other. On the same Edit screen you’ll also be able to allow Everyone to follow you without approval, or only People you approve using the relevant checkboxes. When people follow you, they see more details about what you’re listening to, besides your shared playlists.

To stop this detailed track-by-track sharing on your profile, turn off the Listening To toggle switch on the Edit page. Right at the bottom of the screen you can also tap on the Delete Profile button to scrub all your public-facing activity and just keep your Apple Music listening to yourself.

There are a couple of options you can set to make it easier or harder for other people to discover your profile on Apple Music, but they only appear on iOS (not Android). First, from the Home tab, tap your avatar (top right) then Allow Finding by Apple ID. Second, from iOS Settings, tap Music then Discoverable by Nearby Contacts.

Amazon Music

If you’re in the Amazon Music app, you can open up the Home tab, tap the gear icon (top right), then choose My Profile to check what other people are able to see about you—though they need to know your username to find you. Tap on the pen icon to make changes: You can choose a name, a handle, and a picture that’s visible to other users.

Select Profile privacy to choose whether or not other users can follow your profile. Amazon isn’t particularly clear about what this entails, but we’re assuming if someone follows you it means they can see more details about what you’re listening to—or maybe get updates from you inside the app. You might want to test it out with a friend to see what difference it actually makes.

Public playlists you’ve created on Amazon Music will appear on your profile to everyone, whether or not they’re actively following you. You can toggle between public and private states by opening up one of your playlists and tapping the three dots to find the option. This works separately to sharing playlists with specific people, which is on the same menu.

Compared to Spotify and Apple Music, the features for managing user profiles and following other users seem a little undercooked. If this is a music streaming app you use a lot, it might be worth keeping an eye on the profile and sharing options, to see if more configuration settings are added over time.

The post How to keep your music streaming private appeared first on Popular Science.

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Video games have been around for a long, long time now. Pong made its debut in 1972— though back then you needed a bulky arcade cabinet to run it. Nowadays, you’ve got a much more powerful machine right in your pocket with your smartphone.

Along with all of the modern games available for Android and iOS, you can also dig deep into vast libraries of retro video games from years gone by. Games from old consoles can be brought back to life right on your phone’s screen.

What’s more, the emulators that run these retro games are now available on the iPhone (they’ve been available on Android for quite a while). That means more people than ever can jump into the world of retro gaming.

The caveat: Are emulators legal?

Before you get started, you should be aware that while emulator software is legal, pirating video games isn’t—in the same way that torrenting software is legal, but pirating movies isn’t. At least, that’s the case in most parts of the world, and if you’re in any doubt you should check how the law stands in your country of residence.

Copyright infringement is black and white, but there are shades of gray around its edges. As per the US Copyright Office, you can make backup copies of computer programs you’ve bought, as long as no one else is using them—though it’s difficult to be definitive about the rules here.

Read up around the issue, and you’ll see that video game publishers most often take action against emulators that circumvent digital rights management, or against large distributors of ROMs (Read Only Memory files), which is the name given to retro game files shared online. We’re not going to tell you how to find any ROMs in this guide, so you’re on your own in that respect.

We’ll leave it to your own personal conscience about whether or not you feel comfortable playing retro games that you haven’t paid money for in the past, and which may have been developed by software companies that no longer exist, and which may or may not be still available to buy. However, it’s simultaneously true that video game piracy is illegal, and that these emulators have racked up millions of downloads.

Running emulators on Android

There are plenty of retro game emulators to choose from on Android. RetroArch is one of the most popular picks, and emulates classic consoles including the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), Atari 2600, Sega Master System, and Sony PlayStation 1. Other emulators are more focused, such as the Dolphin Emulator that covers the Nintendo Wii and the Nintendo GameCube.

Here we’re going to take a closer look at one of our favorite emulators for Android, Lemuroid. It’s developed and released as an open source project, and you don’t need to pay anything for it (and you won’t come across any adverts either). Get the app installed on your Android phone, and you’ll be met with a blank screen—you then need to point the app to a folder on your phone that has games in it.

Any compatible titles in the selected folder—and we’re using a free demo ROM of Goodboy Galaxy for the purposes of this guide—can then be selected from the Home tab. Lemuroid will install the necessary code for emulating the necessary game, and when you select it, you’ll see it appear with the relevant on-screen controls. The Favorites, Search, and Systems tabs give you other ways to get at your games.

The final tab in the Lemuroid app is Settings. Here you can change the folder you’re using for games, run a rescan of the folder, enable autosave (so you don’t lose your progress during a game), configure external controllers you might have connected, and manage vibrations and haptic feedback for your games. There’s also a Display filter setting you can experiment with to improve the look of older games.

Running emulators on iOS

Emulators are new to the iOS App Store, so you won’t find as many available as on Android—though the iPhone is catching up fast. One of the first to appear for Apple phones was Emu64 XL, which emulates the classic Commodore 64 computer that first made an appearance back in 1982. The app has support for game graphics, sound, and even peripherals (including joysticks).

The app we’re going to look at here is Delta, which emulates Nintendo consoles such as the NES, the Nintendo 64, the Game Boy Advance, and the Nintendo DS. Again we’re going to use the freely available and legally legit Goodboy Galaxy demo to show you how it works: If you like the demo, you can pay for the whole game.

Open up the app, and you’ll need to point it towards some ROM files—use the + (plus) button up in the top right corner to do this. The files can be anywhere on your iPhone, or you can sync them over from iTunes. When a recognized ROM is found, it’ll be added to your library, and Delta loads up the relevant emulator interface, complete with the appropriate on-screen controls.

Tap the Menu button in game to save or load game stats, to configure button holds, to enter cheat codes, or to head back to the main menu. You can also tap the gear icon up in the top left corner of the game library screen to access Delta’s various settings, which include visual skins for the emulators covered, external controller configurations, on-screen control opacity, and haptic feedback.

The post How to use emulators to play retro video games on your phone appeared first on Popular Science.

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We all carry around a lot of private and sensitive material on our smartphones. That includes text messages—and there might be times when you’d rather certain messages weren’t available for public viewing, even if you still want to save your text messages.

You may have a robust lock screen mechanism in place, but there’s always the chance someone else could get access to your phone, or you might voluntarily lend it to a friend or relative. Whatever the case, you don’t want someone else scrolling through your texts, and here we’ll focus specifically on how to hide text messages on an iPhone.

Another reason for hiding text messages on an iPhone without deleting them might be simply to reduce clutter: Maybe you don’t want to have to sift through a load of messages to find the important ones.

Whatever the reasoning, this is one of those iPhone message tricks that a lot of people are keen to know how to do. The approach you need to take to hide messages on an iPhone depends on the apps you’re using most often, and how exactly you want to hide specific text messages on your iPhone. It’s also worth bearing in mind that these texts can show up in other places where your Apple ID is linked—like iCloud, or your iPad or Apple Watch—so you might want to hide them here too.

Hide text messages on the iPhone lock screen

Depending on your iPhone settings, text messages and messages from other apps might show up on your lock screen—not ideal if you get an incoming message that you’d rather keep private, and someone is looking over your shoulder, or your phone is face up on a table when other people are around.

To stop this from happening, head to Settings in iOS, and tap Notifications then Messages. Choose Show Previews and change this to When Unlocked (Default) to stop the previews from showing up on the lock screen, or Never to stop them showing up anywhere—so you’ll have to go into the Messages app to read them.

You’ll find the same Show Previews settings in your other messaging apps, from WhatsApp to Google Chat. The other option, which you can find on the same screens, is to turn off notifications for these messaging apps altogether.

Hide text messages in iPhone apps

If you know your iMessage tips then you’ll know that both standard SMS text messages and messages using Apple’s iMessage platform appear in the Messages app on your iPhone. However, there’s currently no way to hide messages from the main All Messages list, which shows incoming messages in reverse chronological order.

Your only options, which you can see by long pressing on a conversation, are to delete the message thread entirely, or hide alerts for it—either of those options may match what you’re wanting to do, but when it comes to the question of can you hide messages on an iPhone, it’s a no for the main Messages app.

You do have the option to block contacts, which means their messages will never be delivered to your inbox in Messages (they won’t know about it): It’s an extreme way of hiding texts, but it works. In any Messages conversation, tap the name or number at the top, then the info button (the small person icon) and Block this Caller. You can see blocked contacts from Messages > Blocked Contacts in Settings.

Other apps work differently though. In WhatsApp, for example, you can long press on a conversation thread (either a one-to-one chat or a group chat), and then choose Archive to dismiss the chat from the main inbox. Archived chats don’t prompt notifications unless you’re specifically mentioned or replied to, and you can get at your archived conversations by tapping Archived at the top of the Chats window.

Tap Settings and then Chats, and you’ll find the option to archive all your chats at once, leaving you with a clean inbox. There’s also a Keep Chats Archived toggle switch—this is enabled by default, but if you disable it, archived chats will pop back into the main messages list whenever there’s a new message.

WhatsApp lets you lock chats too—this is like archiving chats, but lock chats can only be viewed with the passcode for your iPhone, or via Face ID or Touch ID. To lock a conversation, tap on the bar at the top of the chat, then choose Lock Chat. To get to these hidden messages, you need to tap Locked Chats at the top of the conversation list.

Facebook Messenger for iOS has an archive feature too, and again you get to it by long pressing on a message then choosing the Archive option that pops up. Tap the menu button (the three horizontal lines, top left), to find the Archive folder: Head into the folder to read archived messages and restore them to the main chat list.

Secret text conversations on your iPhone

Another approach you can take to hiding text messages on an iPhone is to send chats that vanish once they’ve been read, or after a specific period of time. This is something WhatsApp can do, for example: Tap the bar at the top of a one-to-one or group chat, then pick Disappearing Messages to set the options.

You might also have heard of the invisible ink iPhone trick, which works in the default iOS Messages app. When you’re about to send a chat over iMessage, long press on the blue send button, then pick the invisible ink option before sending it—it means the message won’t be visible to the recipient(s) until it’s tapped on. It’s another way of hiding text messages on the iPhone.

It’s worth spending a little bit of time to see what the options are inside your messaging app of choice when it comes to hiding messages, or at least muting their notifications. It’s not possible to hide text messages on every chat app on the iPhone, but many of these apps do have a few related options you can play around with.

The post How to hide text messages on iPhone appeared first on Popular Science.

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The streaming landscape has changed dramatically in recent years. There are now more platforms, movies, and shows to keep up with than ever, and that means more money heading out of your bank account every month if you’re keen on catching everything you want to see.

It also means an opportunity for apps that collect information on everything playing across streaming services because it can be a challenge to figure out what’s showing where, and which app you need to watch what you want.

These apps can also help you decide which streaming services you might want to unsubscribe from, at least temporarily. You don’t have to sign up for every one every single month, and we’ve included three apps below that will tell you which streaming platforms are currently worth your while.

Watchworthy

You can sign up for Watchworthy for free through the apps for Android or iOS. During the setup process, you’re asked which streaming services you’ve already signed up for, and prompted to rate a few movies and shows so that Watchworthy can get an idea of the sort of content you’re interested in.

As time goes on, you can continue to add ratings. The primary goal of Watchworthy is to direct you towards films and TV shows that it thinks are worth your time, based on what you’ve previously liked. Head to the Worthy tab in the app to see a list, to get more details on a movie or show, and to see why it’s been recommended to you.

Over on the main Home tab, you get a list of titles that you’ve queued up to watch next, together with selected highlights of what’s proving popular with other people, and what’s just arrived and is now available to view across multiple streaming services. You can also tell the app what you’re in the mood for watching right now.

Most importantly for this article, if you tap on Discover, you’ll see a link for Recommended Services: If you tap on Find Out Now, Watchworthy then tells you which streaming services are best for you, based on your recommendations and watchlist. Tap Customize to change the selection based on everything that’s ever aired on a service, or what’s been made available to stream recently.

Queue

Queue for Android and iOS is first and foremost a recommendation service for films and shows, and the idea is that you’re never stuck for something to watch in your queue—no matter which streaming services you’re already signed up for. To get the app’s algorithms started, you’ll be asked to add a few titles you’ve already seen when you sign up.

You’ve then got a few options for finding new content to watch, across the various taps in the app. If you go to My Queue and then tap Spinner, for example, you’re able to ‘spin the wheel’ to get something to queue up next—you can set all kinds of criteria before spinning too, such as the streaming services to include, and the genre you’re in the mood for.

The Updates tab gives you a constantly updated feed of movies and TV shows that are recommended for you, and in each case you can see more details about the recommendation, add it to your queue, or give it a rating if it’s something you’ve already seen. As you would expect, the more ratings you add, the better the recommendations get.

When it comes to weighing which streaming services you should actually be signed up for, it’s the Discover tab that’s the most useful. You can view recommended movies and shows split up by streaming service, so you can see at a glance which has the most compelling offerings, and the options along the top of the screen let you have a look at what’s just been released and what’s coming soon.

JustWatch

JustWatch is one of the best resources out there for finding out which movies and TV shows are on which streaming services—and so it’s also very useful for deciding which streaming services you should be signed up to. You can sign up for a free account with JustWatch on the web, or in the apps for Android or iOS.

You’ll be asked to tell JustWatch about the streaming services you’re currently subscribed to, and the films and TV shows you’ve already watched. Anything you’ve already watched can be rated too, which then feeds into your recommendations about what you should be watching next—most of these recommendations are on the Home tab in the app.

In terms of comparing streaming services against one another, you can use the search tool from any tab by tapping the magnifying glass icon up in the top right corner. You’ll be told which platform a particular title is streaming on (or available to buy or rent), so you can see what’s on where and which services are most useful to you.

Head to the New tab in the JustWatch app and you get a useful breakdown of the movies and shows that are newly added, coming soon, and leaving soon, across all the major streaming networks. This is another useful screen to refer to, because you can make sure you don’t unsubscribe to a streaming platform right before it adds something you’re interested in watching.

The post How to break up with the streaming services you’re not watching appeared first on Popular Science.

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Whether it’s your bathroom, bike, car, or garden, a little bit of regular maintenance makes a big difference—and this applies to your desktop or laptop computer too. Put in a few minutes every week or every month to attend to a few small jobs, and you should get yourself a computer that runs more smoothly for a longer time in return.

We’ve collected seven of the most important computer maintenance tips, and they apply to both Windows and macOS. They’re not difficult to do and shouldn’t take you too long either. And don’t worry if you’ve never done any of them before—you can start now and enjoy the benefits right away.

1. Delete files you don’t need

Computers are happier and run faster when there’s plenty of storage space available. Otherwise they have to work harder—and you might start seeing error messages when space starts to run out completely. You want to get ahead of the problem well before that happens.

In terms of manual steps, be sure to delete files you’re done with (such as downloads from the web). It’s helpful to create a desktop folder for temporary files that you don’t need long-term, which you can then empty on a regular basis—doing an audit once a month or so should be enough.

On Windows, you can choose System and Storage from Settings to see what’s taking up room, and get at the Storage Sense feature that cleans up some temporary files for you. On macOS, select General, then Storage from System Settings to see what’s taking up most room, and access some useful automatic optimization options. You can choose options like Empty Trash Automatically or Optimize Storage.

3. Update your software

Update your operating system, browser, and apps regularly—in most cases, you’re going to be pushed to do this anyway, but it’s worth double checking. It means you’re always going to have the latest bug fixes and security patches installed, as well as the newest features Windows or macOS has to offer.

When it comes to Windows, you can check for updates from Microsoft by opening up Settings then clicking Windows Update. Over on macOS, open System Settings then head to the General tab and select Software Update. In both cases you can check for updates as well as making sure that available updates are automatically installed.

Don’t neglect smaller updates like graphics drivers either. If you have an Nvidia or AMD graphics card installed in your system, use the utilities bundled with the GPU to see if any updates have been pushed out for your hardware. Again, these updates should squash bugs while improving performance.

4. Run a privacy check

Windows and macOS both handle security and privacy pretty well, but it’s worth checking the permissions that apps have every month or so. Go to Privacy & security in Windows Settings to see these permissions, or Privacy & Security in macOS System Settings. Pay particular attention to programs that can get at the camera and mic, and see your location.

5. Tidy up your browser

Many of us do a lot of our computing inside a browser nowadays, and with that in mind it’s important to make sure your browser’s well maintained too. Part of it is keeping your browser software up to date, as we’ve already mentioned: All modern browsers will give you a notification when there’s a new version ready and waiting.

You might also want to clear out the cache of temporary data accumulated by your browser, which may be taking up room unnecessarily. Most browsers have the feature somewhere in their settings: It’s under Privacy and security in Google Chrome, for example, and under Privacy & Security in Mozilla Firefox.

Then there are browser extensions: Stick to the ones you’re actually using, and that you absolutely trust. Keeping the number of add-ons you have installed down to a minimum means less of a strain on your browser, fewer potential security vulnerabilities, and a more lightweight browsing experience in general. In Google Chrome, you can access your extensions by clicking Window and Extensions, or by clicking the puzzle piece icon next to the address bar. 

6. Remove unused apps

Clearing out apps you’re not using can free up storage space and keep the operating system less cluttered. On Windows, head to Apps and Installed apps to choose apps to remove; on macOS, open the Applications tab in Finder, then use the uninstall utility included with an app, or simply drag the app down to the trash can on the dock.

7. Backup your files

If you only take on board one idea from this article, make sure it’s this one: Backup your files so that if something happens to your computer, your data isn’t lost. You should really do this at least once a week, and make sure you have a couple of backups in place, in case something happens to one of them.

There are lots of ways to do this: We won’t go into all of them in detail, but they range from using an external hard drive (most external drives come bundled with their own backup software), to sending your files to the cloud via a service such as OneDrive (built into Windows), iCloud (built into macOS), Google Drive, or Dropbox.
You’ve got backup tools built into the operating system as well. Look for Windows Back Up on the Windows Start menu, or Time Machine under the General tab on macOS System Settings. Both of these tools let you pick the folders and files you want to create backups of, and can handle the data transfer in the background while you keep working.

The post 7 computer maintenance tasks you should do every month appeared first on Popular Science.

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Best overall		Mount-It! (MI-1772) Dual Monitor Arm		SEE IT	Full articulation and ease of use are what make this dual monitor arm stand out—especially if you don’t have a lot of desk space.
Best wall-mounted		Mountup Dual Monitor Wall Mount		SEE IT	The Mountup Dual Monitor Wall Mount conveys is a more affordable choice if you’re okay installing a more permanent dual monitor setup.
Best budget		VIVO Dual Monitor Desk Mount		SEE IT	VIVO’s Dual Monitor Desk Mount has more features than its modest price suggests.

Using a dual-monitor stand, whether it’s something you put on your desk, a mounted monitor arm, or a bracket you mount on your wall, gives you the freedom to place your screens as you please for both maximum comfort and efficiency. There are many ways to optimize your two-monitor setup: The best dual-monitor stands ensure maximum flexibility, regardless of your approach.

• Best overall: Mount-It! (MI-1772) Dual Monitor Arm
• Best desk-mounted: Ergotron LX Dual Monitor Arm
• Best wall-mounted: Mountup Dual Monitor Wall Mount
• Best freestanding: ErGear Freestanding Dual Monitor Stand
• Best vertical: Hemudu HT05B-002 Dual Monitor Stand
• Best premium: Ergotron HX Desk Dual Monitor Arm
• Best budget: VIVO Dual Monitor Desk Mount

How we chose the best dual-monitor stands

To make our selections, I paired my own personal testing and experience with professional reviews and consumer feedback on Amazon. Our favorite monitor arms and monitor stands for dual-display setups provide a wide range of use cases, installation types, and prices. We also kept brand credibility in mind: Among monitor arm manufacturers, there are a handful of respected companies and many lesser-known brands that often offer cheap prices but without the reputation or warranty to back them up.

Best dual-monitor stands: Reviews & Recommendations

So you have two monitors, and you want to put them up on a single adjustable stand. Now that you know the basics of what to look for, we have a few recommendations for the best dual-monitor stands, including desk-mounted, the best TV wall mounts, and freestanding options. No matter your home office or PC gaming setup, there should be a decent option for you among these picks.

Best overall: Mount-It! (MI-1772) Dual Monitor Arm

SEE IT

Buy it used or refurbished: eBay

Why it made the cut: Mount-It’s monitor arm makes it very easy to maneuver two big displays without any friction.

Specs

• Mount type: Desk
• Compatible VESA mount sizes: 75mm x 75mm, 100mm x 100mm
• Adjustment mechanism: Gas-spring mount/free moving
• Weight range: 20lb per arm
• Display size range: 19-32 inches
• Available colors: Black, Silver
• Price: $121

Pros

• Requires very little desk space
• Offers fine-grain control over the monitors
• Easy-to-move displays

Cons

• Price

We’ve had great success in our tests of Mount-It!’s single monitor arms, and feel very comfortable recommending this dual-display version to anyone who needs a lot of extra digital real estate to work. The arms can hold large, heavy displays, and each one can be twisted, tilted, and turned in several directions. This level of control can accommodate many work styles: video editors who want to see how their color grading tweaks are affecting the look of footage in real time, office workers who want to dedicate a vertically oriented monitor to their e-mail or messaging client, or gamers who want to monitor their Twitch chat.

Two features that impressed us with Mount-It!’s other monitor stands apply to this one: The ease at which they allow you to control your monitor and how well their clamping mechanism keeps it firmly attached to your desk. We’ve had no issues moving a 27-inch monitor with one hand, and the ability to move your displays closer and further from your face comes in handy more frequently than you’d expect. If you don’t have a lot of physical desk space, this monitor’s clamp will be incredibly helpful. A monitor stand’s feet can take up a lot more room than you think, and having more area back for your go-to tech accessories is very useful.

Best desk-mounted: Ergotron LX Dual Monitor Arm

SEE IT

Why it made the cut: The Ergotron LX Dual Monitor Arm is a slick desk mount that balances great build quality and the price that comes with it.

Specs

• Mount type: Desk
• Compatible VESA mount sizes: 75mm x 75mm, 100mm x 100mm
• Adjustment mechanism: Gas-spring mount/free moving
• Weight range: 7-20 lbs
• Display size range: 27 inches
• Available colors: Black/white/silver
• Price: $297

Pros

• Superior build quality
• Plenty of ergonomic options
• Easy to install
• Lots of color options

Cons

• Expensive

When you think of monitor mounts, free-moving gas-spring arms typically come to mind. They offer smooth action that allows you to move your screens with precision easily. Though it costs more than many other brands, Ergotron’s LX Dual Monitor Arm dual-monitor arm has a higher quality that justifies the price. Plus, it comes with a 10-year warranty, so you know the company stands behind its product. The Ergotron LX Dual Monitor Arm doesn’t do anything flashy. It just does the basics very well.

Best wall-mounted: Mountup Dual Monitor Wall Mount

SEE IT

Buy it used or refurbished: eBay

Why it made the cut: The Mountup Dual Monitor Wall Mount looks sharp, and strikes a balance between price and features.

Specs

• Mount type: Wall mount
• Compatible VESA mount sizes: 75mm x 75mm, 100mm x 100mm
• Adjustment mechanism: Gas-spring arms/free moving
• Weight range: 3.3 – 17.6 lbs
• Display size range: Up to 32-inch
• Available colors: Chrome/Black
• Price: $49

Pros

• Great price
• Very adjustable
• Detachable VESA plates

Cons

• Requires tools to install
• Requires brick, concrete, or wood anchor

If you’re ready to commit to a specific home, spot, and desk setup, you can save a lot of money on a really great dual-monitor arm with the Mountup Dual Monitor Wall Mount. It looks sharp, carries a lot of weight, and costs less than half as much as our desk-mounted pick. That said, this is a heavy dual-monitor arm. Not only do you need to attach it to the wall, the manufacturer specifically calls for you to anchor it on a brick, concrete, or wooden stud. Drywall alone may not hold it up. That’s a huge limitation, but if you have the right setup, this is arguably the most stable way to mount your monitors.

Best freestanding: ErGear Freestanding Dual Monitor Stand

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Buy it used or refurbished: eBay

Why it made the cut: If you don’t want to mount your monitors on arms, ErGear makes a more conventional dual-monitor stand that’s sturdy and offers strong adjustability.

Specs

• Mount type: Desktop stand
• Compatible VESA mount sizes: 75mm x 75mm, 100mm x 100mm
• Adjustment mechanism: Pole-adjusted height/static arm
• Weight range: Up to 22 lbs
• Display size range: 17-32 inches
• Available colors: Black
• Price: $55

Pros

• Glass base
• High weight tolerance
• No “install” time
• Price

Cons

• Fewer placement/ergonomic options
• Base takes up space on your desk

We often recommend desk-clamping or wall-mounted monitor arms for their great adjustability and their ability to free up desk space. However, not all of us can use those options: We can’t all drill holes in our walls, and some desks aren’t clamp-friendly. Whether your options are limited, or you simply don’t want to install anything, a desktop or “freestanding” monitor stand is the way to go.

ErGear’s Dual Monitor Stand features a static base column with adjustable spokes for both monitors. It is as adjustable as a dual-monitor arm, but you can still adjust height, tilt, swivel, and rotation to get very good, ergonomically mind positioning. It’s all held down by a large, sturdy black glass base that has enough room under it to route some cables. While it doesn’t free up as much space as a desk-mounted stand, putting both of your monitors on a single stand still opens up your workstation quite a bit.

Best vertical: Hemudu HT05B-002 Dual Monitor Stand

SEE IT

Buy it used or refurbished: eBay

Why it made the cut: The Hemudu HT05B-002 allows you to set up a vertical stacking configuration without sacrificing stability.

Specs

• Mount type: Desktop stand
• Compatible VESA mount sizes: 50mm x 50mm, 75mm x 75mm, 100mm x 100mm
• Adjustment mechanism: Static mount
• Weight range: 44 lbs per arm
• Display size range: 13-34 inches
• Available colors: Black
• Price: $42

Pros

• Can handle very large and heavy displays
• Has plenty of ergonomic options
• Easy to move

Cons

• Fewer adjustment options compared to free-moving arms
• Still takes up desk space

Ergonomics are, ultimately, the core advantage of using a dual-monitor arm. Putting your displays on a single, adjustable mount allows you to position your displays to reduce the number of neck movements you have to do in your daily work. No matter what you do, though, putting two widescreen displays right next to each other ensures that you will need to turn your head to focus on one screen or the other. Suppose you are the kind of person who uses one display most of the time and only occasionally glances at screen number two. In that case, a stacking monitor stand, which mounts the two monitors in a single column, might be useful. Craning your neck to look up isn’t great, ergonomically speaking, but if you only look at that second monitor every once in a while, it may lead to a net reduction in strain.

If you want to set up a vertical stack, we recommend a desktop mount like the Hemudu HT05B-002, rather than a desk-mounted one. With a vertical setup, you’re putting a lot more stress on the stand arm, and a flat stand handles that extra weight better. The HT05B-002 can handle two 34-inch, 44-lb. screens. It features removable VESA plates for easy installation as well. A wide base limits your desk real estate gains, but you can rest easy knowing that the stand will support your monitors’ weight(s). It’s a small consolation, but the feet under the base raise up enough to fit some of your other cabling underneath.

Best splurge: Ergotron HX Desk Dual Monitor Arm

SEE IT

Buy it used or refurbished: eBay

Why it made the cut: If you’re willing to pay a premium for a reliable brand, the Ergotron HX is as sturdy as they come.

Specs

• Mount type: Desk-mounted
• Compatible VESA mount sizes: 75mm x 75mm, 100mm x 100mm (More available with optional bracket adapter kit)
• Adjustment mechanism: Gas-spring arms/free moving
• Weight range: 35 lbs per arm
• Display size range: Up to 32-inch
• Available colors: White, Silver, Black
• Price: $585

Pros

• Killer looks
• 15-year warranty
• A trusted name in ergonomics

Cons

• Very expensive

It’s easy to find a monitor arm for under $100, but they’re almost always a gamble. You’re buying a relatively untested design from a brand with little to no reputation, which can be a risky proposition with a dual-monitor stand that holds and protects two pieces of equipment that cost hundreds or even thousands of dollars. If you have a pair of very expensive displays, you may want to consider spending a similarly luxurious amount on your stand. 

Ergotron is one of the oldest and most reliable names in the monitor stand game, and its HX dual-monitor arm is a deluxe desk-mounted stand. It has some of the flourishes from our other top picks, including a 15-year warranty and detachable VESA mounts for easy mounting. It also features a unique handlebar beneath the screens that allows you to adjust both displays at once. Those things are all just gravy, though. In this case, you’re spending a lot of extra money on the peace of mind that comes with buying a trusted luxury brand.

Best budget: VIVO Dual Monitor Desk Mount

SEE IT

Buy it used or refurbished: eBay

Why it made the cut: VIVO managed to make its dual-monitor stand comparable to more expensive models without many compromises.

Specs

• Mount type: Desk
• Compatible VESA mount sizes: Gas-spring arms/free-moving
• Adjustment mechanism: 75mm x 75mm, 100mm x 100mm
• Weight range: up to 22lb per arm
• Display size range: 13-30 inches
• Available colors: Black, White
• Price: $28

Pros

• Gives you a fair amount of control over your monitors
• Won’t take up a lot of room on your desk
• Price

Cons

• No automatic height adjustment

If you’ve invested most of your home office improvement budget on your new displays, it makes sense to save a little bit on a dual-monitor stand. This model from VIVO has most of the features found in our best overall pick, but at a quarter of the price. Each monitor can be tilted and twisted individually, but you can only adjust their height by loosening and tightening a screw on the back. Both monitors have to be set at the same height, which may matter depending on the type of work you do. This stand works with monitors up to 30-inches wide, but VIVO offers a model that can handle displays up to 32 inches if necessary.

We like monitor arms that can be clamped onto a desk rather than sit on top of it because of the space savings, which is why VIVO’s is especially appealing to us. We’re also impressed that it can control monitors up to 22 pounds, which means the arms on this stand are stronger than the ones on our best overall pick. If the lack of height adjustability isn’t a dealbreaker, there’s no reason to spend more money on a dual-monitor stand.

Things to consider before buying one of the best dual-monitor stands

Even if you know exactly which dual-monitor stand or arm to buy, it helps to know a bit about the basic mechanics involved. Different stands require varying amounts of installation at setup, and not every monitor can be mounted on a third-party stand. Understanding these basics will help you pick the right stand for your displays, and ensure you’re ready to install your stand (or call someone who can.)

Why should I use a dual-monitor stand?

There are many reasons to mount your monitors, ranging from purely cosmetic to enabling better ergonomics. The stands with PC monitors vary widely in construction quality, appearance, and features. Some stands take up tons of desk space without offering any additional utility. Others may not allow you to adjust them properly, forcing you to twist or crane your neck to look at them, which could lead to long-term strain. And some of them may just look ugly. When you buy a monitor for its great specs, which you should, it potentially opens the door for you to end up with a huge, ugly stand that gives you a sore neck. Luckily, most monitors allow you to remove the actual display from its stand and mount them on a third-party stand. 

A monitor stand, whether it sits on your desk, clamps on at edge of it, or bolts onto the wall behind it, can solve all of these issues at once, giving you the ability to place your monitor exactly where you want it, reclaiming your desk space for more useful tools, and swapping out what may be garish design for something more subtle and clean.

Stand, clamp, or wall mount?

When moving to a dual-monitor stand, you must choose between a conventional desktop form factor, a clamping desk-mounted design, or a wall-mounted one. Often, picking one versus another comes down to what kind of desk you have, how important it is to reclaim desk space, and the likelihood that you’ll need to move your setup.

If you have a flat desk with an edge or lip, we like clamping monitor stands that clamp to the rear edge of your desk. They’re sturdy, highly adjustable, and easy to install or remove without damaging the desk. (Some offer an option to drill a hole into your desk as an anchor, but it isn’t necessarily mandatory.)

That said, if you have a glass desk, an executive-style desk, or something with lots of cable guides built into the back, a clamp might not be a good fit. In most cases, there’s just no spot to install the clamp. With glass, it could literally shatter the desk. In those cases, a desktop stand makes more sense. Though you won’t get as much space back, a desktop with a dual-monitor stand still consolidates two screens onto a single stand, reclaiming some desk real estate. Also, desktop stands are very sturdy, so it makes sense to use them for larger, heavier screens.

Finally, there’s the wall mount. Whether you use a set of monitor arms or a bracket similar to what you’d use when mounting a TV, the wall mount is an extremely sturdy choice but requires serious installation. To install it, you’ll need to find a stud, drill some holes, and bolt your monitor stand to your wall. Once you install it, your monitor stand isn’t going anywhere, which means your desk setup isn’t going anywhere, either. That lack of flexibility makes it a very niche choice. You don’t want to have to spackle and repaint your walls every time you think your desk would look better over by the window.

Before you buy: Make sure all your monitors have VESA mounts

If you peek around the back of most computer monitors, you’ll notice that the stand for your display probably attaches via four screws in a square configuration. This is a standard configuration maintained by the Video Electronics Standards Association, commonly known as VESA, meant to make stands as close to universal as possible so users can buy new stands easily. 

VESA mounts can come in many sizes, but most PC monitors fall into one of two options, 75mm x 75mm or 100mm x 100 mm. That makes everyone’s life easier: All of our picks support both sizes, as should most third-party monitor stands of any shape and size. That said, you should still double-check your monitors’ specs to see VESA mount sizes you’ll need before buying a dual-monitor stand, if only to ensure your monitor can be mounted. Some very cheap monitors (and a few very expensive ones) build their monitors permanently attached to their stands.

Double-check the weight of both of your displays

Monitors are heavy and expensive. Before mounting them, you should ensure your stand can support their weight. Make sure that your monitors are within the stands’ specified weight limit—don’t risk going above or below whatever limits the manufacturer sets. Most monitor manufacturers include the weight of the displays both with and without stands on their product pages. You have a little wiggle room on the size of the monitor, but consider the weight tolerances to be inviolable laws of nature in this case, or risk breaking hundreds or even thousands of dollars worth of monitors.

FAQs

Final thoughts on the best dual-monitor stands

• Best overall: Mount-It! (MI-1772) Dual Monitor Arm
• Best desk-mounted: Ergotron LX Dual Monitor Arm
• Best wall-mounted: Mountup Dual Monitor Wall Mount
• Best freestanding: ErGear Freestanding Dual Monitor Stand
• Best vertical: Hemudu HT05B-002 Dual Monitor Stand
• Best premium: Ergotron HX Desk Dual Monitor Arm
• Best budget: VIVO Dual Monitor Desk Mount

With so many options for mounting your monitors and such a wide range of prices, the best dual-monitor stands are a very affordable and useful upgrade for anyone using two monitors. Whether you’re rocking one display in landscape mode and one in portrait mode, pairing an ultrawide monitor with a standard one, mounting to a desk or a wall, there are dynamic stands for every type of home setup.

Why trust us

Popular Science started writing about technology more than 150 years ago. There was no such thing as “gadget writing” when we published our first issue in 1872, but if there was, our mission to demystify the world of innovation for everyday readers means we would have been all over it. Here in the present, PopSci is fully committed to helping readers navigate the increasingly intimidating array of devices on the market right now.

Our writers and editors have combined decades of experience covering and reviewing consumer electronics. We each have our own obsessive specialties—from high-end audio to video games to cameras and beyond—but when we’re reviewing devices outside of our immediate wheelhouses, we do our best to seek out trustworthy voices and opinions to help guide people to the very best recommendations. We know we don’t know everything, but we’re excited to live through the analysis paralysis that internet shopping can spur so readers don’t have to.

The post The best dual-monitor stands for home and office in 2024 appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

Steam continues to be a juggernaut in PC gaming—it recently set a new record for 36.4 million concurrent players all gaming at the same time. And it’s not difficult to see why it’s so popular, with an unbeatable selection of titles, a straightforward interface, and plenty of extras around user communities and content sharing too.

If you’re only using the Steam client to buy and launch your games though, you’re missing out on a lot of other features it offers too—from sharing games to managing the stress on your network. We’ve pulled together six essential Steam tips, which should be helpful for users at all levels of experience.

1. Put your games in collections

By default, Steam will simply catalog your games in a long list, ordered alphabetically—but as you start to get more and more titles added to your library, that can quickly become unwieldy. The built-in collections feature is one way to bring a bit of order to the chaos.

All you need to get started is right-click on one of your games in the list on the left, then choose Add to: You can pick a collection you’ve already set up, or create a new one. You can then select these collections from the main Library page.

2. Share games with your family

In the old days, you could just hand someone a disc or cartridge to share a game with them. These days, we’ve got Steam Family Sharing. It means up to five other people in your household can access the game library you’ve carefully curated.

From the Steam client, open the Steam menu, then choose Settings and go to the Family tab. From here you need to enable Authorize Library Sharing on this device, then use the Manage option next to Family Library Sharing to decide who gets access to your games.

When new users are added, they’ll get an email with an invite link that they need to click on. From there, they have access to your entire library, but you can revoke this access at any time by heading to the Family page in Steam Settings.

3. Choose controller configurations on Steam

Most Steam games work with gaming controllers out of the box, with no extra configuration required—but what if you’re playing a more obscure title? Or you want to change the default setup on your controller in terms of which button presses lead to which actions on screen?

That’s where controller customizations come in. If you open the Steam menu and then Settings in the desktop client, you can head to the Controller page and change the way your connected controller works—right down to the buttons and joysticks if needed.

Click Open next to Calibration & Advanced Settings, and you get a limited number of customizations specific to your controller (like vibration settings and joystick sensitivity). More comprehensive options can be found by clicking Edit next to Desktop Layout—you can even install configurations created by other Steam users.

4. Manage your network

Some of the biggest titles on Steam can take up gigabytes and gigabytes of space, and that means quite a lot of strain on your home network when you’re installing something new. If you’re trying to stream a 4K movie on Netflix at the same time, you might find yourself running into problems.

You can fix this by opening up Steam > Settings > Downloads from the desktop client. Enable the Limit download speed option, then enter a figure in kilobytes per second (taking into account your overall broadband speed).

You’ll be waiting a little longer for your games to download of course, but your network won’t be crippled for hours while a download is in progress.

5. Move your Steam games

Being able to move your Steam games can be really useful if you’re running out of room on your main hard drive—as we said above, some Steam games are substantial in size. It’s possible to move part or all of your games library over to another internal or external hard drive on your system.

Open Settings from the Steam menu in the desktop client, then head to the Storage tab. Via the drop-down menu at the top you can see existing library locations and create new ones—then with a library selected, you’ll see a list of installed games. Select one or move games, then click Move to move them to another drive.

When you’ve got a library selected, there’s also a button with three dots on it to the right of the library location—click on this to make the current library the default one, which is where new games always get installed if you don’t specify a different location.

6. Buy Steam games for less

Our final tip is to head to the very useful third-party SteamDB website, where you’ll find a wealth of information on the Steam platform and the games available through it: From information about which games are currently the most popular, to those that have most recently received updates.

Most importantly for our purposes here, it can tell you when the next big Steam sale is, and tell you when individual games drop in price (and how that compares to their previous price over time). As long as you’re patient and check SteamDB regularly, you need never have to pay full price for your games.

The post 6 helpful Steam tips for leveling up your PC gaming appeared first on Popular Science.

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You might have seen a recent flurry of social media posts questioning Apple’s privacy policies after a “Discoverable by Others” setting was noticed in the new Journal app—a setting that’s turned on by default, even if you don’t use the app itself.

This setting doesn’t actually do what you might think it does, based on its name alone. We’ll explain how the discovery feature works, and why you might want to switch it off—or leave it turned on.

It’s important to be aware of the various security and privacy settings on the iPhone: These are issues Apple takes seriously, but you still need to be aware of what you’re sharing, and with whom. As well as the Journal app option, we’ll cover a couple of other key iPhone privacy settings, both turned on by default, that you might want to review.

Discovery in the Journal app

First is the Journal app, added with iOS 17.2. It’s a place where you can jot down thoughts and memories, collect pictures, and record trips—and, importantly for our purposes here, you can opt in to have the app prompt you with suggestions. If you’ve been to the beach, for example, Journal might suggest you write about it.

These suggestions are kept on your device, so Apple doesn’t see them, and you can turn them on or off by heading to Privacy & Security and then Journaling Suggestions in iOS Settings. You’ll see these suggestions are split up into categories, including Contacts and Photos, so you can keep some of them on while turning others off.

The toggle switch that has attracted a few headlines is Discoverable by Others, which is on by default and separate from journal suggestions. This doesn’t mean other people can see your journal, but it does mean that other users of the Journal app might get prompts to write about time they spent with you, if they have journal suggestions turned on.

You won’t be specifically named—the other person will only see a prompt like “dinner with friends” if a lot of other iPhones turn up in the evening, for instance. And it doesn’t mean your location is being tracked or stored anywhere. From Apple’s point of view, it’s to help other people who want journal suggestions, even if you’re not even using the app yourself—but you can of course disable it if you like.

Significant Locations on your iPhone

When it comes to more iOS features that are enabled by default and that you might want to switch off if you’re privacy conscious, there’s another called Significant Locations. If location services are enabled on your iPhone (and they will be, if you use maps and other apps that need to pinpoint your position), then these significant locations will be logged too—unless you turn them off.

Apple says these significant locations “keep track of places you have recently been, as well as how often and when you visited them”. The data is synced between your Apple devices using iCloud, but it’s end-to-end encrypted: Apple can’t see what these locations are, and nor can anyone else (unless they physically get access to your unlocked iPhone).

They’re tracked “in order to provide useful location-related information in Maps, Calendar, Photos and more”. Two examples of their use given by Apple are these locations appearing higher up when you’re searching for directions in Apple Maps, and the Photos app tapping into this information when compiling slideshows for Memories (so your ‘favorite’ places would show up more often).

It’s up to you whether or not you think this collection of your location data is reasonable and secure. From iOS Settings, tap Privacy & Security, Location Services, System Services, and then Significant Locations to see recently logged locations. You can clear all logged locations to date, as well as turn off the feature completely.

Turn off personalized ads

Apple prides itself on offering a more private and secure user experience than its competitors, but it will still show you personalized ads by default—something Google does as well. However, Apple keeps its advertising networks more locked down than Google in terms of involving third-party marketers and tracking ads across multiple devices.

Some of the data Apple might use to build up your profile includes the apps you download and the services you subscribe to, the apps you frequently open, and the topics you look at on Apple News. This data is then used to put you in a ‘segment’ with thousands of other users, and then those segments can be targeted by advertisers.

In some ways, personalized ads are a win-win: Advertisers reach people who are actually interested in their products, and consumers get adverts that are actually relevant. You don’t necessarily want to see a row of links for baby food products if you don’t have a baby, for example. However, it’s perfectly understandable if you don’t want your iPhone activities tracked in this way.

You can read more about Apple’s advertising policies to help you make up your mind. If you want to turn off personalized advertising, head to iOS Settings, then choose Privacy & Security and tap Apple Advertising to find the Personalized Ads toggle switch. Note that changing this setting won’t change how many ads you see, only whether or not they’re personalized.

The post ‘Discoverable by Others’ and other iPhone privacy settings you should lock down right now appeared first on Popular Science.

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Artificial intelligence tools are developing at a rapid pace, especially when it comes to generative AI engines that can produce something—a poem, a picture, a song, a video clip—based on short text prompts.

If you’re keen to explore the type of AI art that can now be rendered in seconds, we’ve picked out five solid tools to try. Tell these AI art generators what you’re looking for, and you’ll get a computer-rendered picture out the other end.

One key tip: Be as specific as you can be in your text prompts, and include as much detail as you can. That extends to the style of picture you want to create (from photorealistic to cartoonish) as well as what’s actually in the frame.

We’ll leave it to you to weigh the ethical considerations around these AI tools when it comes to deciding how much to make use of them. Remember that the companies behind these tools aren’t always fully transparent when it comes to the images they’ve been trained on—and that there are plenty of flesh and blood human photographers and artists out there looking to make a living.

Dall-E and ChatGPT

Dall-E and ChatGPT are both developed by OpenAI, and there’s some overlap in terms of what you can do with these two interfaces. You can try Dall-E 2 on the web, and that includes the option to add some AI magic to existing pictures, as well as generating them from scratch—115 credits (each image costs one credit) will set you back $15.

Image generation by the more advanced Dall-E 3 is available through ChatGPT on the web, as long as you’re paying $20 per month for ChatGPT Plus, and that lets you generate as many pictures as you like. Again, you can tweak existing images and create new ones. Just type in your prompt, and the image generator gets to work, returning a single image.

Dall-E and Microsoft Copilot

If you’re after a free AI image generator, then Microsoft Copilot is one of the best: You can get at Copilot on the web (with a Microsoft account), and it’s also now available in Windows 11 (search for “copilot” from the taskbar). The AI tech here is actually powered by Dall-E 3, as with ChatGPT, because of the partnership between Microsoft and OpenAI.

You get four images back for each prompt, so you can pick the one you like most, and we like the suggested follow-up prompts Copilot offers too. For $20 a month, you can get Copilot Pro, which speeds up the picture generation process and adds a bunch of other AI upgrades (like tighter integration with the Microsoft 365 suite of programs).

Midjourney

To play around with Midjourney, you have to join the Midjourney Discord—so you’ll need an account for the Discord chat app. You’ll see onboarding instructions when you sign up, but essentially you have to register, join one of the “newbie” channels for beginners, and sign up for one of the subscription plans for Midjourney—these start at $10 a month.

With all that done, you can begin creating in Discord on the web or in the mobile apps. Start your prompt with “/imagine” and then just type out what you’d like to see —you get four variations back, and you can then click the buttons underneath to generate more variations or larger images. Your pictures are saved to your online account too.

Adobe Firefly

As you would expect from one of the biggest developers of digital art software, Adobe now has its own AI image generator, and it’s called Firefly. You’ll find it built into Adobe’s other tools, including Photoshop, but it’s also available as a standalone app on the web—you get 25 pictures per month for free, with paid plans (from $4.99 a month) upping this number.

The prompt box is in the center of the screen: Just type out your request and then click Generate. You can use your own images to help suggest a subject or style, and there are simple options for changing a picture’s look or aspect ratio. The community aspect of Firefly is impressive too—a vast gallery of AI artwork generated by other users.

Craiyon

Craiyon isn’t as artistically talented as some of the other AI art generators we’ve mentioned here, but it has a free tier, and is really simple to use on the web (you don’t even need an account). If you need images faster and want to get rid of the watermarks and the ads, you can become a paying member—prices start at $6 per month for this.

Type your prompt into the box, choose the style of picture (if necessary) from the options underneath, then click Draw. A few recently created images are shown on the page, if you’re looking for some artistic inspiration (and these change to respond to what you’re typing too). You get nine image variations back, plus suggestions for follow-up prompts.

The post 5 AI art generators that actually create cool images (including free options) appeared first on Popular Science.

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While logging in using a fingerprint or face scan is becoming more common, passwords are still essential for many of the apps and services we use every day. And from shopping to banking, social media to messaging, podcasts to cloud storage, there are a lot of accounts and passwords to keep track of.

Your passwords are all that’s standing between bad actors and your precious data, and of course you don’t want anyone and everyone wandering into your online spaces. With that in mind, it’s crucial that your passwords are hacker-proof, and we’ve rounded up some ways for putting that to the test.

What makes a strong password?

The old adage about passwords is that they should be impossible to guess and very difficult to forget—you’ve no doubt seen those scenes in movies where someone’s password is being guessed at, with significant dates, names, phrases, and pets all usually tried. Trying to get the balance between something unguessable and unforgettable isn’t always easy though, of course.

Longer passwords are better, as are passwords that include special characters (like question marks) and numbers—this all makes brute force attacks, where lots of different combinations are tried in quick succession, far less likely to succeed. Avoid well-known words and phrases, as well as names (of people, brands, or companies). 

Reusing passwords makes digital life more convenient, but it’s something you should never do: It makes the lives of hackers easier, and if one of these accounts gets compromised, then all the others with the same password can quickly follow. It may be more time consuming, but you should always create individual and strong passwords for all of your accounts.

So how do you keep track of all these complex, unique passwords? Using a password manager is recommended, or using the tools built into your web browser. Writing down passwords is okay as well—as long as these notes are hidden somewhere safe and secure, and not (for example) stuck on sticky notes right by your laptop. If you do need to write them down, maybe think about writing hints rather than the passwords themselves.

How to check your passwords

Plenty of apps and websites are available to check the strength of your passwords for you: You might even see an indicator that goes from red to orange to green when you’re typing out a password for a new account. When you do sign up for something new, you may get guidelines you have to follow—like including a special character, for instance.

We do like the checker that password manager NordPass has put online. Type in one of your passwords (the password won’t be saved), and you’ll be told how strong or weak it is, as well as the reasons why. You’ll also see an estimate of how long the password might take to crack, as well as an alert if your password has appeared in a data breach. Similar tools are available from Bitwarden and Security.org, if you want to compare results.

[Related: How to keep all of your accounts safe in a world where people want your data]

Google has an online password checker too, but it scans the passwords you’ve saved to your Google account through Chrome and Android—you can’t just test any password with it. It’ll also warn you about passwords you’ve reused when you shouldn’t have, and passwords included in data breach leaks as well.

If you’re using iCloud to store your passwords on Apple devices, you can check up on the security of your passwords through an iPhone, iPad, or Mac. On the iPhone, for example, head to Settings, then open up Passwords and tap Security Recommendations at the top. As with Google’s tool, you’ll be warned about weak, reused, and leaked passwords.

Those of you making use of a password manager should find something similar in your software too. The popular 1Password, for example, has a feature called Watchtower: It’ll warn you if your passwords aren’t strong enough, are linked to compromised websites, or have been used several times.

Every password manager—including those offered by Google, Apple, and 1Password—should be able to generate random, strong passwords on your behalf. These passwords will be very hard to crack, and because you’re using an app to remember them all for you, you don’t have to worry about forgetting what they are.

How to protect your passwords

Your passwords need to be kept safe, and as we’ve already mentioned, employing the services of a password manager is a great start. Using one of these tools doesn’t mean you can get complacent—you have to make sure no one else has access to your password manager, which would then give them access to all your login credentials.

That usually means locking access to the devices where your password managers are running, so your computer and your smartphone should both be well protected with their own PINs and passwords (or biometric authentication, which is even better). Make sure these devices are never left unattended, and always locked when not in use.

[Related: 15 ways to be more secure online]

As well as your passwords being guessed and brute forced, you also need to think about another popular scam: social engineering. This is where you’ll be tricked into typing your login credentials into a fake website, or giving them over to someone in a telephone call or a direct message conversation.

First of all, never tell anyone your passwords, in any situation—if someone is asking, they’re not legit. As for avoiding fraudulent websites, keep your browser software up to date (these browsers are trained to spot suspicious websites), and avoid following links in your inbox unless you’re sure they can be trusted—if you’ve just requested a password reset, for example. 

The post How to check your password strength—and what to do about it appeared first on Popular Science.

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The web doesn’t have to stay fixed and static. With the right tools, you can type and scribble over the websites you visit, adding all kinds of annotations for all kinds of purposes. Maybe you want to leave notes for yourself or maybe you’re working on a project with others and need to leave notes on a page.

How you go about this varies depending on your browser. It isn’t difficult to do with most of the popular browsers, though you’ll probably need a third-party add-on. The only browser that’s really left out is Apple Safari, which doesn’t offer native annotation tools or any decent extensions—at least on the desktop, which is our focus here.

Google Chrome

Annotation isn’t a built-in feature with Google Chrome, but you’ve got plenty of third-party extensions to choose from that’ll add the functionality. One of our favorites is simply called Annotate: Install the extension, sign up for a free account, and you’re ready to go. You get a floating Annotate icon on the right of the browser window as you navigate around the web, and you can click on this to bring up the annotation tools.

You can scribble on top of web pages, add in text, and temporarily highlight certain sections too. It’s perfect if you’re running a real-time presentation, as basic presentation tools are built right in, and you can also save pages for later. If you need more tools (like shapes), and longer presentation times (above 12 minutes), you can get a Pro account for $35 a year.

Also worth a mention is Awesome Screen Recorder & Screenshot. As its name suggests, this is first and foremost a screenshot tool, but when you’ve grabbed images of websites, you can easily annotate them in a host of ways. Once you’ve captured some or part of an image, you can jump to the annotation workspace in a couple of clicks, where there are tools like pens, text boxes, and shapes to play around with.

Like Annotate, Awesome Screen Recorder & Screenshot comes with some simple presentation tools built right in, and has a premium subscription plan (from $5 a month) available if you need more tools—such as stickers, callout boxes, and watermarking. You even get a small amount of cloud storage space for free, making it easy to sync your annotated website grabs between devices.

Microsoft Edge

Full marks to Microsoft Edge, which has native annotation tools integrated into it—you don’t have to rely on a third-party extension tool if you’re using Edge. However, the tools aren’t quite as advanced as they are with some separate add-ons, so you might find you need some extra help after all.

The website annotation tools are connected to the screenshot feature: Click the three dots (top right), then Screenshot, and you’ll be asked if you want to grab an area of a page or the page in its entirety (including the parts you can’t see on screen). Once you’ve made your choice, a new window pops up on screen with the capture inside it.

Click Draw to start scribbling—if you click the arrow just to the side of Draw, you can change the color and thickness of your digital pen. There’s also the Erase tool, if you want to remove any of the writing you’ve put on top of the page. The options in the top right corner let you save the image, copy it to the clipboard, or share it to other apps.

If that’s not quite enough for you, Nimbus is definitely worth a look. It supports capturing single screenshots and longer screen recordings, and they can be embellished with drawings, shapes, text, and arrows. There’s plenty of functionality included for free, but for $5 a month you can get some additional features, such as watermarking options.

Mozilla Firefox

As with Google Chrome, there’s no native website annotation function in Mozilla Firefox, but you can find several third-party extensions to do the job for you. Out of the ones we’ve seen, Zoho Annotator stands out: Click the extension icon in the toolbar, choose which part of the current website you want to grab, and you’re taken straight to the annotation screen.

All the key tools you might need are included here, letting you add shapes, lines, text, and arrows on top of the page you grabbed. When you’re done, the resulting file can be easily copied to the clipboard, saved to disk, or shared to other apps. The add-on is completely free to use, and you don’t even need to register an account.

Another similar tool worthy of your attention is Memex, which is designed primarily to help you with research projects (though you can actually use it for anything you like). The focus here is on selecting sections of websites, adding comments to them, and sharing them with other people—just as you might do with a document you were collaborating on with a group of people over the web.

The extension lets you save webpages into several custom spaces, pick out particular sections from pages, and add images and comments to them. It works with videos, PDFs and social media posts as well, so it’s a tool that’s comprehensive as well as slick. You’re able to save up to 25 pages per month free of charge, and after that you’ll need to pay from $6 a month for the premium package.

The post How to annotate any website appeared first on Popular Science.

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I’m going to let you in on a secret: I don’t really shut down my computer. When I’m done with my workday, I usually just unplug my laptop and close the lid. I think most people do this.

Shutting off your computer every night has downsides. If you just put your computer to sleep, everything is right where you left it in the morning. But if you shut down, you need to wait for your computer to boot up and then re-open all of your applications and documents. It’s annoying. 

A lot of annoying things can save you energy, though, and it’s worth thinking about that from an environmental and economic standpoint. Would shutting down your computer help you save energy and money? I wanted to find out. 

A sleeping computer doesn’t use much energy

It’s easy to put your computer to sleep: on a laptop, you just need to close the lid. Windows offers the feature in the start menu, macOS offers it in the menu bar, and both operating systems automatically put computers to sleep after a certain amount of time by default. If you’re not using your device as a server, there is no reason to change this. 

But what does it mean for a computer to be “asleep”? It basically means that the computer isn’t actively working on anything and power is only used to keep the RAM, or memory, from losing power. The RAM is where your computer stores your open applications, documents, and browsing tabs, and keeping that running doesn’t use a lot of power. 

I wanted to get an idea of just how little power so I ran a few simple tests. First, I charged my laptop around 6PM after an afternoon of using it outside. In that time, it was just about fully charged, after which I unplugged it and closed the lid. The charge in my laptop barely went down—only by one percent—and this is on a nearly six year old laptop with a battery that doesn’t hold a charge like it used to. 

I wanted a slightly more precise number, though, so I used a Kill A Watt to measure how much power my laptop uses when asleep. Leaving it plugged in and suspended from 4PM until 7AM the following morning—15 hours—used up 0.02 kWh of energy. That’s not a lot. Here in Portland, Oregon the price per kWh for residential use is 19.45¢, meaning leaving my laptop plugged in overnight cost me a little over one third of a penny. Over the course of an entire year this adds up to $1.42. 

That isn’t nothing, but it’s close to nothing. A single 60-watt incandescent bulb uses 0.06kWh every hour, meaning if you have even one in your home replacing them with LEDs will save you way more than you ever could by shutting down your computer. Running an electric clothes dryer uses around 3kWh every load, which means that skipping a single dry cycle will save you as much energy as shutting down your laptop every night for 150 days. Just imagine how much more you’d save if you skipped a cycle every week, or switched to air drying your clothes entirely. You could also invest in a heat pump, which is more efficient than electric or gas heat, to save even more energy. 

There are, simply put, many things anyone who is concerned about energy usage can do to save much more electricity and money than shutting down your computer at night. Which isn’t to say that shutting down your computer at night will save you no energy—it’s just that the amount of energy you might save is minuscule compared to other changes you might make. 

Shutting down sometimes is still a good idea

Now, this isn’t to say that you should never shut down. I shut down my laptop if I’m leaving town without it for more than a week. At that point the amount of energy the computer will use, compared to the annoyance of having to start it up again, tips back into being worthwhile for me. Plus, sometimes a sleeping laptop will run out of batteries when left alone that long, which is just plain annoying. 

And there are certain kinds of computers that might be worth shutting down. If you have a gaming computer that you only use on the weekend, for example, shutting it down during the week probably makes sense. 

And there’s another reason to shut down, or at least restart, your computer regularly: it can sometimes solve annoying computer problems. The main reason for this is software bugs—over time such issues can fill your device’s memory and generally just cause your computer to become unstable. But even in the absence of bugs there’s a chance that a computer you never shut down could become unstable, and the reason comes from outer space. I’m not kidding–the BBC reported that cosmic rays from outer space can cause computer issues:

When computers go wrong, we tend to assume it’s just some software hiccup, a bit of bad programming. But ionising radiation, including rays of protons blasted towards us by the sun, can also be the cause. These incidents, called single-event upsets, are rare and it can be impossible to be sure that cosmic rays were involved in a specific malfunction because they leave no trace behind them.

Between this rare event and more common software bugs even the best maintained computer is going to run into quirks from time to time. Shutting down your computer, or even just restarting it, can help in this situation. So there are times when you should shut down your computer. But if you have a computer that you use every day, and you prefer to just put it to sleep, I don’t think you should lose much sleep over it.

The post Wait, are you supposed to shut down your computer? appeared first on Popular Science.

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Even the most powerful computers don’t last forever—otherwise we’d all still be running the PCs we had decades ago. But trying to figure out when a laptop or desktop has passed its sell-by date isn’t an exact science.

You might feel like applications and websites aren’t as snappy as they used to be, but it’s difficult to know for sure when you’re using your computer every day. Here we’re going to introduce some helpful tools that can be more objective in their assessments.

These tools should help you decide when it’s time to upgrade to a new computer, and when it’s time to give your current one a spring clean. We’ve also previously written about ways to speed up Windows, speed up macOS, and speed up your web browsing.

Built-in analysis tools

Both Windows and macOS come with built-in tools for monitoring system performance. On Windows, it’s Task Manager: Right-click on a blank area of the taskbar, then choose Task Manager. Under the Processes and Performance tabs you get a host of details about how your system’s resources are holding up under the software weight—so you could regularly note these figures week by week (or month by month) to look out for any kind of degradation.

Task Manager itself doesn’t keep any historical data, but a more advanced tool called Performance Monitor does—you can search for it and launch it from the Start menu. 

• Right-click on User Defined under Data Collector Sets.
• Choose New and Data Collector Set.
• Name the set, pick Create from a template, then click Next.
• Choose System Performance and Finish.

Using the Action and Start commands you can run a diagnostics check manually, or you can right-click on your new report, then choose Properties and Schedule to have it run automatically every so often.

Performance Monitor isn’t the most user-friendly of tools, so you might find it easier to just keep your own records of Task Manager activity—but if you do want to dig into these performance stats in more detail, it’s an option. If you need more help with the ins and outs of the tool, check out Microsoft’s Performance Monitor guide.

On macOS, the tool you want is Activity Monitor, which you can find by opening Finder and choosing Utilities from the Go menu. As with Task Manager, you can see how busy your system processor, memory, and drives are. There’s no easy way to log this data automatically though, so you’ll have to run Activity Monitor regularly and manually note down the figures you see, to check for performance issues over time.

Benchmarking tools

Third-party benchmarking tools put key components of your computer system to the test and report back on performance. The idea is you run them regularly, note down the scores, and then chart the scores over time to watch out for drops in performance. The tools we’ve listed here are free, but come with paid upgrades for more advanced features (like more extensive tests, and more comprehensive reports).

For Windows and macOS, Geekbench has long been one of the most reliable benchmarking programs out there, and it’ll give your system’s main processor (CPU) and graphics processor (GPU) a good workout. Cinebench is also cross-platform and worth a look, and is often used by professionals to stress test the CPU and GPU.

Disk drives are often the parts of computers that start to fail first, and you can get benchmarking software to look specifically at your system storage. We like CrystalDiskMark for Windows computers and Blackmagic Disk Speed Test for macOS: They’re both straightforward to use and will give you plenty of information about how your drives are holding up.

You may well spend a lot of your computing time inside a browsing window, and there are benchmarks to test browser performance too. Speedometer is a good place to start, as it’s been developed in association with all the major browser companies, but JetStream is another solid option that tests browser start up and website rendering times.

Recording key indicators

There’s nothing wrong with going slightly more basic with your tech: Get your stopwatch out (or the stopwatch on your phone), and time how long it takes for your computer to start up and shut down. These processes are both good barometers of how healthy your Windows or macOS machine is, and how much strain it’s under.

Of course, you’re going to have to do this over several days or weeks to spot if there’s a reduction in performance. Once you’ve got a few data points built up though—in a spreadsheet, maybe—you should have a useful indicator of how your computer’s performing and in which direction that performance is headed.

You can do this with applications as well, though the launch times will be quicker in this case, and any slowdown will be more gradual. If you’ve got a particularly demanding program on your system, like a video editor, you could look at this in particular—and measuring the time it takes to do other tasks, like rendering 4K video, could help as well.

For laptops, battery life can be timed in the same way, and is another indicator of the health of your computer: Components running slower and under more stress tend to use up battery power faster. If you’re measuring time between battery recharges though, make sure you’re doing the same activities on your computer to get a fair comparison (gaming will suck up a lot more battery power than emailing, for example).

The post How to check if your computer is slowing down over time appeared first on Popular Science.

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Right out of the box, you’ll notice that Apple’s macOS is sleek and elegant in its appearance. But there are numerous ways to tweak the operating system’s look, if you want something more in line with your tastes.

After all, you’re likely to spend a lot of time staring at macOS if you have a Mac, so it makes sense to get it looking the way you like. (You can also apply a similar set of customizations to Windows, by the way.)

Even if you don’t want to give your Mac a pixel-by-pixel makeover, it’s handy to know what customization options are available. And if you’re wary of change, note that any edits you make can be easily undone.

Change themes and colors in macOS

If you open up the Apple menu and then choose System Settings and Appearance, you’ll see you can pick between three main visual themes for macOS: Light, Dark, and Auto (which switches between Light and Dark automatically, depending on the Night Shift settings under Displays in System Settings).

You can then tweak the look of the theme in smaller ways:

• Select an Accent color to set the color used for emphasis on menus and in dialogs (the default multicolor option uses different colors in different programs).
• Click the Highlight color to set the color you see when text is highlighted in macOS—again this can be set to multicolor, which means it will vary between applications.

There are also options here for controlling when scroll bars appear on screen and how they behave when they do. Enable Allow wallpaper tinting in windows, and some apps will use a subtle shading effect in places, based on the colors in the wallpaper image you’ve set, which brings us neatly to…

Choose different Mac wallpapers

If you open the Apple menu then pick System Settings and head to the Wallpaper section, you can customize the backdrop image used by macOS. This will often be visible around the sides of your open program windows, so you want to choose something you find easy on the eye. Use something inspiring, or soothing, or fun—it’s up to you.

• Click any of the thumbnails shown to use images or videos provided by Apple—the videos are marked with a small playback button, and some of the images change their colors as your system changes between light and dark modes.
• Select Add Photo if you want to pick out an individual image from your system, or Add Folder or Album if you’d like to import a bunch of pictures at once. These are then available as thumbnails you can select.
• Pick any of the static colors if you’d rather use a single color as your wallpaper. If the shade you want isn’t there, click the + (plus) button to open a more detailed color selector.

With a wallpaper selected, you can use the options at the top of the dialog box to change how the picture is resized to fill the screen, if needed. If you’ve picked a video, you can also have it appear as the macOS screensaver—a static image is used for the desktop backdrop, and then the animated version shows up when the screensaver is enabled.

Modify text size and pointer size

Text and pointer formatting might not be the most exciting customizations you can make use of on your Mac, but it makes a big difference to the visual experience, and can also be really useful if you’re struggling to see the text at its default size on screen—something that’s more likely if you’ve got a high-resolution monitor hooked up. Open the Apple menu, then System Settings, then pick Accessibility and Display.

• Click on Text size (which will say Default if you haven’t changed it) to configure the size of text on screen. As well as setting an overall text size, you can apply a different setting for individual apps including Mail and Notes.
• Use the Pointer size slider to change the size of the mouse or trackpad pointer on screen (note you can also shake the pointer to make it larger, if you use it). There are also options for changing the pointer outline and fill color.

Other options on the same screen control the menu bar size, and the contrast and transparency used for various elements in macOS. You’re also able to adjust the overall display contrast, and this can all make items on screen easier to see.

Tweak the dock and menu bar

Besides the desktop, the dock (at the bottom) and the menu bar (at the top) are the other key elements that make up the macOS interface. You can make changes to the dock by opening the Apple menu, then choosing System Settings and Desktop & Dock.

• Right at the top you can change the size of items in the dock, and the magnification used when you hover over them.
• Click Position on screen to move the dock—it can be on the left or the right of the screen, as well as at the bottom.
• Use the Automatically hide and show the Dock toggle switch to set whether the dock stays visible permanently, or only when you hover over the relevant screen edge.
• Enable Show suggested and recent apps in Dock if you want to have these apps included in the list, as well as open apps and those you pin (right click on an icon in the dock and choose Options to do this).

There are fewer options for the menu bar, but if you open up Control Center from System Settings, you can choose which app and shortcut icons get shown in the menu bar, as well as have it automatically hide itself when not in use, like the dock.

The post Give your computer a makeover by customizing macOS appeared first on Popular Science.

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It’s easy to end up with dozens of tabs open as you browse the internet. But what happens when you need to step away? You probably don’t want to lose the webpages you’re currently looking at when it’s time to stop endlessly browsing.

Thankfully, modern-day browsers include features that can put a pin in your browsing journey and help you come back to it later. You don’t have to leave all those tabs open on your computer until you return (which can quickly get confusing, as well as not being the best idea as far as security and privacy goes).

If you’re overwhelmed with browser tabs and need to take a break or start again, here’s how to put those tabs away in a safe place so you can come back to them later.

Google Chrome

If you’re closing down Chrome and want to get back to the same tabs again when it reopens, click the three dots (top right) then choose Settings. Under On start-up, select Continue where you left off. This will keep sessions going even if the browser is closed, but it doesn’t work so well if you want to use Chrome for something else in the meantime, and you want your current tabs to disappear for a while.

Another option is to right-click on a blank area of the tab bar, then choose Bookmark All Tabs. On the dialog that pops up, create a new folder with a name that will remind you what these tabs are for, then save the tabs to them. You can get back to them at any time by clicking the three dots (top right) then Bookmarks and lists.

There’s one more option for Chrome: Right-click on a tab header, choose Add Tab to New Group, and you can create a new group of tabs (right-click on other tab headers to add them to your group). Right-click on the group name in the tab bar, choose Save Group, and it gets added to the bookmarks bar just below—you can then right-click again on the group name and pick Hide group to make it disappear temporarily. Click its entry on the bookmarks bar to bring it back.

Microsoft Edge

Over in Microsoft Edge, click the three dots (top right), then Settings: If you open the Start, home, and new tabs panel, you can select Open tabs from the previous session. This means you won’t lose your tabs when you close and reopen Edge, and will work if you’re just taking a break from your browsing and then coming back to the same task.

For something a bit more comprehensive and flexible, you can save tabs as bookmarks—this means you can close all of the tabs down and come back to them whenever you like in the future. Right-click on a header of one of the open tabs, then choose Add All Tabs to Favorites, then create a folder to hold them in. You can get back to the tabs whenever you like via the three dots (top right) and Favorites.

Microsoft Edge also offers a feature called Collections, which works a bit like a more advanced version of bookmarks. Click the Collections button on the toolbar (two layered rectangles with a plus sign): On the sidebar that appears, you can create new collections and add currently open tabs to them, which can then be brought back whenever they’re needed from the same side panel.

Mozilla Firefox

If you’re a Firefox user, then you can make sure open tabs persist between browsing sessions by clicking the three lines (top right), choosing Settings, and opening up the General tab. Enable the Open previous windows and tabs option, and everything that you’ve currently got open will stay in place even if you close Firefox.

That’s fine if you’re carrying on with the same project between sessions, but if you want to hide the current group of tabs for a while longer, you can use bookmarks. Right-click on a blank area of the tab header bar, then click Select All Tabs. With that done, right-click on a tab header and choose Bookmark Tabs. Give the tab folder a name you’ll recognize later, and you can get back to your tabs via the three lines (top right) and Bookmarks.

Firefox doesn’t have tab grouping like Chrome, or the Collections feature that Edge offers, but it does have some excellent third-party browser extensions you can make use of. One such extension is Workana, which is a comprehensive way of managing open tabs and sessions—it’s free to use for managing up to five different tab groups.

Apple Safari

For those of you who browse in Safari on macOS, you can ensure open tabs stay in place: Open the Safari menu and select Settings, then head to the General tab and the Safari opens with menu. Choose All windows from last session to keep your tabs in place.

To keep a group of tabs accessible over a longer period of time, using bookmarks is a better option: If you open the Bookmarks menu, you’ll see you can add all the open tabs to a folder, or all the selected tabs to a folder (use Cmd+Click on a tab header if you need to select multiple tabs). You can save the tabs to a folder, which is then always accessible from the Bookmarks menu.

Safari supports tab groups too, which are very similar to bookmarks, with a few differences (you can open all the tabs in a group at once, for example, but not in a bookmarks folder). Select one or more tabs, right-click on the tab headers, and then choose Move to Tab Group. Even if you then close down these tabs, you can get them back from the Safari sidebar (View and Show Sidebar if you can’t see it).

The post How to save open tabs on any web browser appeared first on Popular Science.

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AirPlay-compatible speakers make it easy to pair with a variety of Apple devices, no wired connections necessary, so you can listen to music, podcasts, or other audio without being tethered. Plus, the setup is simple and quick, allowing you to start consuming content immediately. 

What devices are AirPlay compatible? 

Utilizing Apple AirPlay requires two devices: a sender and a receiver. AirPlay started in 2004 as AirTunes, a feature for Macs running iTunes to broadcast to an AirPort Express Wi-Fi router. It then expanded in 2010 to allow iOS devices such as iPhones, iPods, and iPads as senders, as long as they are running iOS 4.2 or greater. In 2018, AirPlay 2 launched with iOS 11.4, improving and expanding AirPlay’s buffering, multiroom capabilities, and control functionality across macOS and iOS devices. (Beyond Apple devices, the only Android device to act as an AirPlay sender was the HTC 10 from 2016.) 

Initially, only Apple devices could function as AirPlay receivers. Now, however, a wide range of companies make devices that feature AirPlay support, expanding the options significantly. That includes the likes of Naim, Bose, Ikea, Libratone, Harman Kardon, Yamaha, Philips, Marantz, Onkyo, Bowers & Wilkins, Cambridge Audio, Bluesound, KEF, JBL, Pioneer, Sony, Sonos, McIntosh, Denon, Bang & Olufsen, just to name a few. TV manufacturers are also jumping on board, with Samsung, LG, Vizio, Roku, and Sony incorporating AirPlay 2 receiving capabilities in their TVs. Long story short, you can likely stay brand loyal if you have a preferred company in your audio chain. 

The types of products that support AirPlay are just as expansive as the brands that make them. For your home setup, you can find AirPlay-friendly speaker docks, AV receivers, soundbars, stereo systems, and surround sound setups. And, as mentioned, there is also a growing selection of TVs with AirPlay support (allowing for not just music streaming, but video and photos sharing as well). Of course, the most seamless handoff is when you use your Apple HomePod as an AirPlay speaker. No matter how you like to listen, chances are you’ll be able to find an AirPlay-compatible device. 

How to connect to an AirPlay speaker

After you’ve confirmed that you have AirPlay-supported devices, it’s time to pair them to start listening. 

• First, be sure that both devices are connected to the same Wi-Fi network. If your home or office offers multiple network options, choose the one with the most stable connection. 
• Next, you’ll need to enable AirPlay by opening the Control Center. You can swipe up to enter the Control Center if you are on a mobile device. 
• Then, tap on the AirPlay icon, which is indicated by the concentric circles with a triangle at the bottom. This will pull up a list of devices you can stream to. In the list of connected devices, you’ll notice additional icons that let you know what type of content you can stream. For example, a rectangular icon will be displayed next to an Apple TV 4K, meaning you can stream videos to that device. Devices, such as speakers, that only display the circles only support audio streaming. 

Once you’ve enabled AirPlay and selected the device you want to use, navigate to what you’d like to hear and simply tap play. Your content should begin streaming to the selected device so you can get to jamming while you clean or prep dinner. Alternatively, if your AirPlay sender is already paired to speakers, you can simply open whichever app you want to stream from (as long as it is compatible) and you should already see the AirPlay indicator (either the word or icon, depending on app).

For those who use AirPlay frequently, you can set your iPhone or iPad to connect to the AirPlay-connected device you prefer to use automatically when it’s nearby. To do so, go to Settings on your phone or iPad. Tap General, then AirPlay & Handoff, and then Automatically AirPlay. You can choose “Never” to manually select a device each time, “Ask” to receive suggested AirPlay connection notifications every time, or “Automatic” to discover and automatically connect to frequently used AirPlay receivers.  

How to connect to multiple speakers to AirPlay

If you have speakers throughout your home and want the same music to play throughout, you’re in luck. The AirPlay 2 stack allows you to connect to multiple compatible devices simultaneously (speakers, Apple TVs, or even an Apple computer running macOS Monterey or newer), meaning you can force your entire family to listen to your favorite songs no matter where they try to seek refuge. 

To play to multiple speakers or devices at once, pull up the AirPlay settings in your Control Center. You should see checkboxes by each device. Check the boxes next to each device you want to play on. You can also adjust the volume for each individual speaker if you want one to be louder than the others. 

How to use Apple TV to control AirPlay speakers

You can also use your Apple TV to connect to and control speakers that are AirPlay 2 compatible. Press and hold the TV button on the Siri Remote to open the Control Center, select the General Settings tab, and then the Audio Controls button. A list of devices will appear, organized by room. Just like on your phone, you can adjust the volume of these devices right on your Apple TV. 

For home theater setups that use a home theater receiver or TV connection via HDMI cable, you may need to calibrate your audio so that the wired and wireless speakers are in sync. To do so, go to Settings on your Apple TV and choose Video and Audio. Then, select Wireless Audio Sync and follow the onscreen prompts.     

Airplay troubleshooting

Unfortunately, technology doesn’t always work as we want it to right off the bat. If you are having trouble finding any of the settings above or connecting to a device you are certain is AirPlay-compatible, start by ensuring that each device is updated to the latest firmware; software is likely to fix most issues. You may also need to restart your device, as this will reset its Wi-Fi connection, which is necessary to use AirPlay. Finally, double-check that all devices are on the same Wi-Fi connection. Then, you should hopefully be able to get back to streaming your favorite true-crime podcast or killer bops. 

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Setting smartphone screen time boundaries can be a struggle. But there are an increasing number of apps and tools to help—including the Focus mode feature that comes built right into iOS.

The idea is you set up different iPhone Focus modes for different scenarios: one for the office, one for driving, and one for home maybe. Each mode sets down certain rules about how notifications are handled, and how many distractions are allowed through.

Your iPhone can then switch between these various modes as needed, making sure you stay connected as much as needed, without missing anything important that’s happening on your smartphone.

These Focus modes are simple to set up, can be extensively customized, and have the potential to be more helpful than you might think when it comes to reducing the amount of attention you give to your phone.

Setting up iPhone Focus modes

Head to Focus from the main iOS Settings menu, and you’ll see some modes already listed, covering standard scenarios: Driving, Fitness, Sleep, and Work, for example. There’s also the traditional Do Not Disturb mode, which the Focus feature builds on top of—you can just stick to one of these modes, or make use of several of them.

[Related: How your daily screen time affects your wellbeing]

Tap on any mode to make changes to it. The two main settings you’ll find cover the contacts who are able to get in touch with you while the mode is active, and the apps that can still send notifications. Tap Options underneath to change how silenced notifications are handled—they can still prompt notification badges and lock screen alerts, if needed.

There are more settings for the Focus mode further down the page. You can choose specific lock screen and home screen layouts to apply when the mode is active, giving you the opportunity to hide certain apps and shortcuts away from view in specific scenarios (it can also give you an at-a-glance indication of when a mode is active).

You can also use the Add Schedule option, which enables you to have the Focus mode turn on based on a certain time of day, a certain location that your phone’s in (such as the gym), or a certain app you’ve loaded. There’s a Smart Activation feature too, where your iPhone will try to intelligently turn on the mode automatically when it’s needed, based on “signals like your location, app usage and more”.

Finally, use Add Filter to have other actions taken on your iPhone when a certain mode is enabled. You can have a particular tab group in Safari pop up, for example, or exclude Apple Music activity from your listening history (maybe you don’t want your sleep playlist affecting your recommendations). You’re also able to turn on Dark Mode, Low Power Mode, or Silent Mode alongside a particular Focus Mode, if needed.

Besides being scheduled, Focus modes can also be enabled from Control Center (swipe down from the top right corner of the screen): Tap the Focus modes button, tap on a mode, and it stays active until you turn it off again. If you tap the three dots next to a Focus mode, you can set it to turn off after a certain time, or when you leave your current location.

How to create custom Focus modes

You don’t have to make do with the Focus modes iOS gives you, if you need something different. Choose Focus from Settings, then tap the + (plus) button up in the top right corner: Pick one of the suggestions on screen, or select Custom to start from scratch, which leads to a page where you can choose a name, icon, and color for the mode.

With that done, you get to the same customization screen that we’ve seen with the other Focus modes. You’re able to choose the people and the apps that have their notifications silenced (or unsilenced), you can pick particular lock screens and home screens, and you can have the mode turn on automatically, if needed.

Whenever a particular Focus mode is activated, you’ll see its icon up in the status bar at the top of the iPhone interface, and its icon and its name on the lock screen. If you find that you’ve got too many Focus modes to manage, you can remove them at any time: Choose a mode from the Focus page in Settings, then tap Delete Focus.

A couple of other options on the Focus page in Settings that are worth mentioning: The Share Across Devices toggle switch, which syncs your Focus status across other Apple devices (like iPads and Macs), and the Focus Status option, which shares your current status with your contacts in certain apps (including Messages).

The post How to use iPhone Focus modes to avoid distractions appeared first on Popular Science.

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Have you noticed that the iPhone autocorrect got a lot more aggressive at some point? It’s not just you: Apple released iOS 17 in September 2023, promising “even more accurate autocorrect.” Since then a lot of people have complained that, if anything, autocorrect is more annoying than ever—there’s a long Reddit thread of complaints, for example. 

Now, it’s not all bad. The update makes it easier to swear—your iPhone shouldn’t duck that up anymore. But if you’re finding that autocorrect is too much now, there are a few things you can do to mitigate the issue. 

Learn to love the blue underlines

Sometimes you might misspell a word on purpose, in order to make an absolutely legendary pun that will make everyone laugh. Autocorrect often “fixes” these amazing jokes by removing them, which can really cramp your style. The good news is you can switch things back. 

Every time your iPhone autocorrects something the word is underlined in blue. You can tap the word to see what you originally wrote, then tap that to restore your amazing joke. Now everyone will see how clever you are and will likely send you a gift basket. 

If that’s too slow for you, don’t worry—there’s another method. Above your keyboard is the predictive text field. If you type a word that your iPhone doesn’t recognize you will see it in the left side of that field, generally in quotes. You can tap that quoted word to prevent autocorrect from replacing it. 

Add common autocorrect mistakes to the library

Are there certain words that autocorrect seems to always wreck for you? Maybe you have a friend whose name is spelled in an uncommon way or you live in a town that autocorrect seems to “fix” constantly. Whatever the case, you can add these words to your library, so that autocorrect stops messing with them.

• Open the Settings app on your phone and head to General 
• Tap Keyboard
• Then Text replacement
• Add any words you don’t want to be corrected as a Phrase (don’t worry about adding a shortcut). Autocorrect will then stop “fixing” that word from now on. 

Consider turning off autocorrect entirely

If autocorrect is still bothering you, don’t worry: You can turn it off entirely. Open the Settings app and head to General > Keyboard. From here you can tap Turn off autocorrect to disable the feature altogether. Don’t worry: It can’t bother you anymore. 

There are a few other things you can disable here. I, for example, like to start my text messages with a lowercase letter because of a deep belief that only absolutely wrong people start texts with capital letters. I turn off Auto-capitalization so that I can do this. You might also notice, while typing, that your iPhone predicts what you’re going to say in gray text in the text body itself. Turn off Show Predictions Inline, if you’d like to stop seeing that.

Some people, of course, like these features. Good for them. If you’re not one of them, though, it’s nice that it’s possible to turn them off. 

The post iPhone’s autocorrect is a nightmare. Here’s how to fix it. appeared first on Popular Science.

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Instagram isn’t just for sharing photos and videos. The Meta-owned app also boasts a very capable messaging platform. Instagram messaging offers a lot of the features you’ll find in other messenger apps, and a bunch of new features that are rolling out now.

They’re pretty major ones that we’ve seen on other chat apps, with upgrades such as the option to edit messages after you’ve sent them, and to turn off read receipts if you don’t want people knowing when you left them on read. We’ll show you how to use these features, and explain what else is new.

Make sure you’re running the latest version of the app for Android or iOS to use these new Instagram features. If they haven’t yet been rolled out to you, they should be soon.

Editing Instagram messages

Editing messages can come in very handy when you notice you’ve made a typo or written something that isn’t accurate. It also means you’re able to walk back on something you might have said in the heat of the moment that you want to retract—though the editing window is only 15 minutes, so you need to have a change of heart pretty quickly.

All you need to do to modify something you’ve sent is press and hold on the message, then choose Edit on the menu that pops up. Make your changes, then tap Done. The update will be applied, and a little “Edited” label shows up next to the message.

As with every other app that offers this feature, you should remember  that the original message will still have been sent and delivered. It’s possible that the message recipient(s) have already seen it and read it, and may even have taken a screenshot—so it might be easier or more appropriate to send a second clarifying message instead.

Turn Instagram read receipts on or off 

Read receipts can be a useful way of checking if someone hasn’t got your messages or is simply ignoring you (or perhaps just taking a long time to compose a suitable reply). However, you might not want everyone in all of your chats knowing when you’ve seen something—it certainly increases the pressure to respond quickly.

In the app, tap your profile picture (bottom right), then the menu button (top right), then Settings and privacy (Android) or just Settings (iOS). You can then pick Messages and story replies to find the read receipt option—this toggles read receipts on or off for all the conversations in your Instagram inbox.

If you prefer, you can handle read receipts on a chat-by-chat basis. Inside a chat, tap the bar at the top of the conversation, then pick Privacy and safety to find Read receipts. Note that if you hide your own read receipts, you won’t be able to see when other people have seen messages either.

Other new Instagram messaging features

Those aren’t the only features that the app has rolled out for its messaging. You’re also able to pin up to three chats to the top of your inbox. For the conversations that you want easy access to: Swipe left or press and hold on a chat in the main conversation list, then choose Pin.

You’re also able to reply to messages with stickers, GIFs, videos, photos, and voice messages—just press and hold on a message you’ve received to see the options. It’s also possible to save stickers to use again in direct messages now, and you do this by pressing and holding on a sticker you want to mark as a favorite.
Finally, Instagram has pushed out more themes for your chats, so you can really personalize those one-to-one conversations or group chats. To pick a new theme, tap the bar at the top of a conversation, then select Theme to see everything that’s available, and switch to something different.

The post How to edit messages and turn off read receipts on Instagram appeared first on Popular Science.

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The pre-installed default apps on your phone are meant to perform basic functions–like opening an internet link, placing a call, or sending a text. On Android, you can change the default apps around, if you prefer a third-party alternative to Google’s original choices.

It’s not difficult to do, and it gives you a mobile experience that’s more tailored to your needs and tastes. If you want to return to the original settings, that’s straightforward too, so don’t worry about breaking your phone by switching things up.

What’s a default app anyway?

Default apps are more commonly talked about when it comes to the Windows and macOS operating systems. Double-click on a PDF on your desktop, for example, and what’s the program that appears? Whatever it is, that’s the default app for PDFs. Other file types, from JPEGs to MP3s, will have their own default apps associated with them.

[Related: 12 hidden Android features you should be using]

This matters if you want to be as productive as possible at your desk: If you’re working with documents, you want them to be opening up in your word processor of choice. Double-clicking on a file and having it open in the right program is a speedier, more intuitive way of working than launching the program first, and then having to hunt through menus and folders to find the file you need.

It’s the same on Android. You’re probably not working with the same variety of files in the same way, but the principle still applies: Whether you’re following a web link from an email, or opening up an image from a group chat, you’re going to want to have your preferred app handle the request for you.

This is a feature that Android gives you more control over than iOS: On an iPhone, you can change the default web browser and email app, but that’s it (you always have to use FaceTime as the default way of making video calls, for example). On Android, you can switch up more default apps, and even the whole look of the home screens.

How to set defaults on Android

Some default apps (like Chrome for web links) are configured right out of the box on Android, while others are set the first time you need them. So if you open a document, you’ll be asked which app you want to use to handle it, and that choice is then remembered by Android for the future.

To change these default apps at any time: 

• Open up Settings and choose Apps
• Then look for the default apps option—it’s labeled Default apps on Pixel phones, and Choose default apps on Samsung Galaxy phones. This takes you to a list of all the default app associations currently in place on your phone.
• Tap on any of the entries to make changes. 

To change the app that handles text messages, for instance, select SMS app and then your preferred app. The options list will only include apps currently installed on your phone that are able to handle the file or action in question—so there’s no danger of you choosing an incompatible app.

Switching web browsers is something that you might want to do on your Android device, if you’ve got several of them installed: Tap Browser app and make your choice from the list. Any web links that you follow from instant message chats or emails will then open in the browser you’ve picked.

Some of these options come with different settings attached to them. Pick Digital assistant app, for example, and you can configure how the assistant app works, as well as choosing your favorite (maybe you want Amazon Alexa to pop up whenever you need help, rather than Google Assistant).

The Home app, by the way, is the app that manages your home screen and pops up whenever you ‘go home’ on your phone. This is useful if you want to switch to a third-party launcher to really change up the interface of Android—if you’re completely new to the idea of home screen launchers on Android, we’ve written about Android home screen customizations too.

The post How to change the default apps on your Android phone appeared first on Popular Science.

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Working from anywhere has a number of upsides: You can explore different places, meet new people, and escape the monotony of your usual desk. But you need to take security considerations into account when you branch out from the confines of your home or office. 

TechRadar reports on a new study from Beyond Identity that found 18 percent of remote workers had found their data stolen in a coworking space. While we’d like to believe that everyone around you in a coffee shop or library is honest, the reality is that you need to be vigilant when it comes to working in public.

You can have it all though—the freedom of working anywhere, and the peace of mind that you’ve minimized the risk that anyone else can keep tabs on what you’re doing.

Check your Wi-Fi

In an ideal world, if you need internet access on the go, you want to be running a Wi-Fi hotspot from your phone. It means you’re not sharing a network with anyone, which is inherently safer. However, you might not have the data plan or signal strength needed.

If you need to use public Wi-Fi, make sure you pick the right network—as in, the one advertised by the place you’re in, not the one that the guy three tables over has just set up. If you’re in doubt which is which, ask a staff member. There may also be a sign posted telling you the network name and associated password.

It might be unavoidable, but be wary of giving up too much information when joining a public Wi-Fi network. If you must supply a few details (like an email address) in order to register, only fill out the mandatory fields, and remember that you can create disposable email addresses.

Protect your data

Attaching yourself to a Wi-Fi network that other people can access is inherently riskier than using your home or office Wi-Fi—you don’t know who has set up the network, or who is connected to it. If you’ve got no other choice, avoid logging into anything particularly important or sensitive—like online banking.

Ideally, you want to be running a VPN (Virtual Private Network) on your laptop. These VPNs add an extra layer of protection to everything you do online, making it harder for anyone else attached to the same Wi-Fi network, or the people who have set up and who manage the Wi-Fi network, to see what you’re doing.

Even if you can’t use a VPN, keep your browser and desktop software up to date, and avoid connecting to sites without HTTPS validation (you should see a warning if it’s missing). Using a VPN is best, but Windows, macOS, and modern day web browsers have a lot of built-in protection too—as long as you’re running the latest versions.

Assume people are watching

The people around you might seem perfectly innocent, but you can never really tell, can you? Always assume that someone is watching when you’re working in a public space, which means taking extra care whenever you’re typing out a password, address, or credit card number. You should also be careful with the details you reveal about you or your company in emails and on video calls.

You also don’t want to leave your laptop unattended, but if you do step away, lock your user account so a password is required to get back in. It’s Win+L on Windows, and Cmd+Q on macOS, by the way. If the worst should happen and the device is lost or stolen, nobody else will be able to get into it.

All the usual security rules still apply as well: Enable two-factor authentication on all of the accounts where it’s available, be on the lookout for any suspicious account activity, and make sure you’re using unique and strong passwords for each of your logins (you might want to also consider adding a password manager to your software setup).

The post How to work safely and securely in public spaces appeared first on Popular Science.

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ChatGPT only debuted to the public in November 2022, but it’s already had a profound impact on the way content is created and information is shared—though its artificial intelligence capabilities still come with a lot of caveats attached.

Google has also been busy polishing up its own Google Gemini AI bot (albeit with some concerning bumps along the way). The tech giant also announced that it’s pushing Gemini text creation capabilities into many of its current tools, including Gmail, Google Docs, Google Slides, Google Sheets, and Google Meet.

You can access the AI features with a Google One AI Premium plan, which costs $19.99 a month after a two-month free trial (and comes with 2TB of cloud storage too). You might also see the AI tools if your employer has signed up for a business plan. Note though that Google says certain functionality is still rolling out, so you might not see everything we’ve mentioned.

We’ll take you through what’s new and what’s possible with Gemini AI inside your Google apps. These features can be a real productivity boost, but there are also reasons not to rely on them too heavily.

Gmail

Create a new message in Gmail on the web, or start a new reply, and you’ll see a little pen icon with a plus symbol next to it. Click on this to start using Gemini’s various writing assistance features.

Click Help me write, and Gemini can help to compose some or all of your message. Enter a prompt—such as “apologize to my boss” or “ask my friends about drinks at the weekend”—and you’ll get some matching text. You can specify particular details or a certain tone too, if you need to.

Click Insert to add the text to your email, or Recreate to generate new text from the same prompt. Via the Refine menu, you can tweak the text that Gemini has produced: You can Formalize, Elaborate, or Shorten it, and those options also pop up if you highlight text already in the email.

It’s handy for finding new words or different ways of saying something, but as Google says, Gemini can produce “inaccurate or inappropriate” information, and shouldn’t be relied on for “medical, legal, financial or other professional advice.” Plus, wouldn’t your friends, relatives, and colleagues prefer to hear from you rather than an AI?

Google Docs

Gemini AI is also baked into Google Docs on the web, if you’re on the Google One AI Premium plan. Look for the pen icon with the plus symbol on the left-hand margin. You can click this to create new text, or to tweak text that you’ve already written.

In the interests of transparency, the article you’re currently reading was written entirely by a human being, except for the following paragraph—which we created by telling Gemini to write some text about using AI in Google Docs:

“Google Gemini is an AI-powered tool that can help users write more effectively. It can be used to generate text, tweak existing text, or offer suggestions for how to improve your writing. Gemini can be a helpful tool for writers of all levels, but it is important to use it wisely and not rely on it too heavily.”

That gives you an idea of what you get—it basically summarizes and repeats what you’ve already written, which is how AI typically operates. The text it produces does tend to be generic and rather dull, but it can be useful.

If you select text before clicking the Gemini AI pen button, you can change its tone, summarize it, rephrase it, expand it, or shorten it. This is perhaps more useful than generating new text, because it gives the AI more to work with.

To get a summary of a document, for example:

• Highlight the text to summarize.
• Click the Gemini AI button (the circle to the left of the selection).
• Choose Summarize.
• Click Insert to add the generated text, or Refine to make further changes.

As with Gmail, avoid using Gemini to generate anything that needs to be factual and accurate, but it’s helpful as a way of tweaking existing text and saving time when you need to summarize sections. Always double check what Gemini has written though, as it does make mistakes.

Google Slides, Sheets, and Meet

Gemini AI is less prominent in Google Sheets, Google Slides, and Google Meet, but it can still be useful. When it comes to Google Slides on the web and Google Sheets on the web, you’ll see the AI assistant pop up on the right-hand side when you create a new spreadsheet or a new presentation.

With Google Slides, the first bit of help Gemini will offer is image creation. Type your image prompt into the panel on the right, choose a style for the resulting art, then click Create. Any of the pictures that are generated can be loaded into the current slide with a click, or choose View more to see some more options. (Note: Gemini has temporarily disabled the ability to generate images of people after the AI produced “inaccuracies” in race.)

Gemini in Slides is able to generate new slides for you as well:

• Click the Ask Gemini button
• Describe the slide you want, which can include text and images—”create a slide about how to optimally train for a marathon,” for example.
• Click Insert to add the slide or Retry to generate a new one from the same prompt.

In the same prompt box you can also ask for summaries of existing slides or the entire presentation. As in Google Docs, generating lines of text is possible too, in case you need specific text boxes filled out.

In Sheets, Gemini can quickly produce tables of data that you can then edit and organize. Two examples Google gives are “plan a hiking trip in Iceland” and “tracking tasks for a project to build a new website,” so you see what’s possible. Any prompt along similar lines will produce a spreadsheet ready for the task.

You can also get AI to create formulas in Sheets:

• Click the Ask Gemini button.
• Describe the formula—something like “create a formula to find cell C1 in range D:G and output value in column G” or whatever you need—and Gemini writes it for you.
• Click Insert to add the formula to your spreadsheet.
• If you want a different version of the same formula, click Retry.

These are all features that can be useful, but not all the time—the AI doesn’t know all the details of your hiking trips or website projects, for example, so it’s only really creating an approximation you can use as a template.

Last but not least, Google Meet on the web lets you use Gemini AI to come up with backgrounds. On a call, click the AI button in the center of the screen—the three stars—then choose Generate a background. Enter a prompt like “a coffee shop at dusk” or “a cozy ice cave” and pick a style to create a few options to choose from. The same tool appears when you are about to join an existing meeting.

The post How to use Google’s new Gemini AI with Gmail, Google Docs, and more appeared first on Popular Science.

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Vacations are relaxing and fun. Work is not. Why, then, do so many people end up getting pulled into work messages and tasks during what’s supposed to be time off? 

In an article for The Conversation, academics Dan Caprar and Ben Walker suggest that part of why this happens is that we can strongly identify with work—we’re unwilling to fully let go of roles that help define us. Beyond that, though, there are environmental cues that can instantly prompt our brains to switch from relaxation to work mode. The sight of an email notification or your laptop can remind you that work is still there, peeking over your relaxation.

There’s an obvious solution: Leave your phone and laptop at home. The problem: Technology is actually pretty useful during a vacation. Looking up good places to eat, booking fun activities, and arranging to meet friends who live in the city you’re visiting are all easier with phones and computers. What, then, is a vacationer to do? 

[Related: Why you hate going back to work after vacation]

If you have separate work and personal devices the answer is clear: Just take your personal one. If that’s not you, though, it’s time to switch your devices over to “vacation mode.” This basically means tweaking your devices so that work isn’t as present on them. How this looks is going to vary from person to person, but here are a few things you can try. 

Clean up your homescreen and taskbar

How often do you open your phone or computer, notice the icon for work apps, and then reflexively open it? Probably more often than you’d like. My advice: Delete those shortcuts. 

On Windows, this means right-clicking the offending icons on the taskbar and clicking Unpin from taskbar. Feel free to delete any desktop shortcuts to work apps while you’re at it—just drag them to the recycling bin. 

On macOS, you can get work apps out of your dock by right-clicking the icon, mousing over to Options then unchecking Keep in dock. On mobile devices this means tapping and holding on the icon and then tapping “Remove from home screen.” You can also temporarily tuck work apps away in lesser used folders so they’re not in your face every time you open your phone.

Log out of work accounts (or turn off notifications)

Are you logged into your work email on your personal phone and computer? What about team chat applications, like Slack or Microsoft Teams, or project management apps like Basecamp? Those applications are pretty aggressive about pushing notifications to you. You have two options: log out of your work accounts or tweak your notification settings. 

I, personally, recommend just logging out of your work accounts. It removes the temptation entirely and you can always log back in when your vacation ends. Plus you’ll be a lot less likely to reflexively open a work app and scroll when you should be focusing on the drink menu. 

If uninstalling everything is too overwhelming, you can try just changing the notification settings instead. On an iPhone open the Settings app, tap Notifications, then turn off all of the work-related apps. The process is similar on Android: open the Settings app, head to Notifications, then head to App settings. Turn off notifications for any work application with a tendency to interrupt good times. 

Don’t let work apps start when your computer does

Some applications start up when your computer does, which is another way you might get sucked into work during a vacation. The good news is you can stop apps from automatically launching when you start your computer, including any that tend to pull you into work.

On Windows, head to Settings, click Apps, then click Startup. Uncheck anything related to work. On macOS, open the System Settings, then General, then Login items and remove anything work-related. 

Use a different browser, or user account, on your computer

A lot of the work applications we all use on our computers run in a browser. You could remove all of the bookmarks for these applications, but it’s probably easier to just use a different browser. For example: If you use Microsoft Edge for work, consider switching to Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome while you’re on vacation. That way none of your work-related bookmarks or extensions will be active. 

Or, if you’re a Google Chrome user and don’t want to switch browsers, consider using a different Chrome user profile instead. Click your profile icon in the top-right corner and then click the Add button at the bottom of the pop-up. This will create a new, blank browser profile. Use this during your vacation and switch back when you’re done. 

You could even take this a step further. Both macOS and Windows allow you to create multiple accounts for a device. The idea is that a family, or any group of people, could share a computer but still have their own applications and settings. You could create a temporary account to use during your vacation, then log back into your regular account when you get back. 

On Windows, open the Settings app, click Accounts in the left-hand sidebar, scroll down and click on Other Users. From here you can make a second account. On a Mac, open System Settings and scroll down to Users & Groups in the left-hand sidebar. Click the Add User button to create a new account. In both operating systems you will see your new account as a login option after restarting your computer or logging out of the current account. Load this new account and you’ll virtually have a brand-new computer, at least in terms of the settings. It’s the next best thing to having a separate work and personal device. 

The post How to put your phone and laptop into vacation mode appeared first on Popular Science.

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Hey Google, stop listening. OK Siri, you too. And Alexa? Shhhh.

Our smartphones and smart speakers can listen for specific voice commands and take action accordingly, but maybe you don’t want your devices always having one digital ear open. Aside from privacy concerns, the smart assistants inside our gadgets can be triggered accidentally–by someone else in the house or even someone speaking on television. Turning off the constant eavesdropping can help too, so we’re going to tell you how to adjust your devices to stop listening all the time.

Note that this won’t disable voice control completely. It does mean you’ll need to manually activate the virtual assistant when you want to chat to your gadgets.

On your phone

If you don’t want your Google Pixel phone listening for a “hey Google” 24 hours a day, head to the main Settings screen.

• Tap Apps, then scroll down and tap Assistant.
• Select Hey Google & Voice Match.
• Under This device, turn the Hey Google toggle switch off.

You can still launch Google Assistant for a chat by pressing and holding the power button on your Pixel phone. If you use a Samsung Galaxy phone, it’s the same process for Google Assistant. But if you’re using Bixby, select Bixby Voice and Bixby Voice settings when you get to the Apps screen.

Over on the iPhone you’re making use of Siri, Apple’s digital assistant. To stop your iPhone from listening out for a “hey Siri” command:

• Open up Settings.
• Choose Siri & Search.
• Tap Listen for, then Off.

That’s all there is to it—you’ll no longer be able to activate Siri hands-free. You can still launch Siri for a chat by pressing and holding the Side button (on the right of the iPhone as you look at it), unless you also turn this off on the Siri & Search page.

On your smart speaker

Smart speakers from Google, Apple, and Amazon will by default listen out for voice commands, enabling you to get the weather forecast or turn off your smart lights with a voice command. No matter what model of speaker you have though, you can tweak this behavior.

If you own a Google Nest speaker, you need to find the physical mic-off switch. On the Nest Mini it’s underneath, on the Nest Audio it’s on the back, and on the Nest smart displays it’s around the back at the top. Your speaker will play a message announcing the change. If you want to start talking to Google Assistant again, you need to flick the switch the other way.

On the Apple HomePod and the Apple HomePod Mini, you can just say “hey Siri, stop listening,” then confirm the change. Alternatively, you can use the Home app installed on your iPhone.

• Select your HomePod speaker from the front screen.
• Tap the gear icon (lower right corner).
• Choose Listen for “Siri” or “Hey Siri,” then disable the feature.

You’ll need to use the Home app to turn listening back on because the speaker will no longer be responding to voice commands automatically. To manually put your HomePod in listening mode, tap and hold on the top of the speaker.

If you’ve got an Amazon Echo speaker, as with the Google speakers, there’s a physical mic-off switch. Whether you’ve got an Echo with or without a screen, you’ll see a button showing a circle with a line through it—tap this to stop the device listening for a “hey Alexa” command.

You’ll hear a brief tone, the button will turn red, and you’ll see a red light at the bottom of the speaker or the speaker screen. If you want to chat to Alexa in the future on this device, you need to turn the mic back on again.

With the mic disabled on your smart speaker, you’ll still have access to the other features, such as the ability to stream music through it—you just won’t be able to control these features with voice commands.

The HomePod and HomePod Mini differ from the Google and Amazon speakers in that you can still talk to your speaker when it’s not actively listening, with a press on the top. With Nest and Echo devices, it’s a case of turning the mic switch on and off to fully disable or enable voice interactions.

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Voice notes can be a handy way of recording ideas and reminders while on the go. But in audio form, they have limitations: You can’t easily search through them, and you can’t quickly check them when you need to be quiet (in the library, for example, or next to a sleeping partner).

This is where transcribing comes in, enabling you to have both the voice recording and the written text available. It’s useful not just for recording your own musings but also for interviews, meetings, and other scenarios when typing is burdensome.

You’ve got plenty of apps to choose from for the job, and you don’t necessarily have to pay for the privilege either. We’ve rounded up the best voice note transcription tools that we’ve come across, along with the features you need to know, and how you can get started.

Google Keep (Android, iOS, web)

Google’s note-taking app does a fine job of recording your voice memos and attaching the text at the same time, and the accuracy of the transcriptions is impressive. Google Keep voice notes can be accessed in the app on Android, iOS, and the web, but bear in mind that you can only create voice recordings from the mobile apps, not on desktop.

To create a new note using your voice, tap the little microphone icon at the bottom of the app interface, then start talking. When you’ve finished, your note pops up on screen, with the text on top and the embedded audio underneath (tap the play button to hear it). You can then access the usual note options for adding a title, changing its color, and so on.

Aiko (iOS, macOS)

When it comes to Apple’s own apps, you can’t automatically transcribe text from a voice note in either the Notes or Voice Memos apps that come installed on your iPhone. However, you can use Aiko for iOS or macOS to convert recordings you’ve already made. It’s free to use, and powered by an AI engine from ChatGPT developer OpenAI. Your recordings are kept private on your device too.

When using the app on the iPhone, the opening screen gives you the choice of either recording voice notes directly into the app, or loading in clips that you’ve already created. After the transcription is completed, you’re able to copy the text to the clipboard, send it to a different app, or search through it with just a few taps on screen.

AudioPen (web)

There are no native mobile or desktop apps available for AudioPen at the moment, but the web app is beautifully assembled in its intuitiveness and simplicity, and you can use it on Android and iOS too. Just click or tap on the record button, and start talking—your clip will then be quickly transcribed while you wait, and added to your bank of collected notes.

You can copy the text to the clipboard or turn it into a shareable image suitable for social media. If you pay for AudioPen Prime ($75 a year), you get extra export options, the ability to edit your notes, support for note tags and folders, and the option to upload audio recordings. On a free plan, your recorded notes are limited to three minutes in length.

Pixel Recorder (Android)

Google Pixel phones come with a free Recorder app for Android that works well for recording voice notes and adding transcriptions automatically. Among the useful features it offers are the ability to identify different speakers in the transcript, and tools for easily trimming recordings.

You won’t be able to use Recorder on non-Pixel Android phones, but if you’re using a Samsung Galaxy handset, Samsung makes its own Samsung Voice Recorder app for Android. As with the Google equivalent, it’s super easy to get your voice notes recorded, with text transcriptions popping up alongside them as you talk.

Otter

As you move up to the more professional audio transcription apps and services, you’ll typically need to pay more money, but you get more features in return. Otter for Android, iOS, and the web will make short work of longer recordings, and is suitable for meetings, lectures, and interviews, as well as personal voice notes you make yourself.

You can do all sorts of things with your recordings when you’ve made them, including leveraging AI to pick out certain details. As a free user, you’re limited to 300 minutes of audio per month and 30 minutes per clip. If you need more, paid plans start at $16.99 per month, with bonuses such as enhanced searches.

The post How to turn your voice memos into text appeared first on Popular Science.

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Running Gmail in the cloud has some real benefits: You can get at your emails from a browser tab on any internet-connected device, you don’t need to install any additional software to access it, and all of your messages are safely backed up on Google’s servers, should something happen to your laptop or phone.

However, there might be times when you want local copies of your Gmail emails as well. Perhaps you’re expecting to be without regular internet access, or maybe you want to protect yourself in case Gmail on the web goes down. Maybe you just prefer the feel of a local email client.

You’ve got a couple of options for downloading your Gmail inbox and archive, which are useful in different ways. Note that following these steps won’t affect your emails in the cloud—they’ll remain where they are, unless you actively start deleting messages or decide to close your Google account.

Downloading Gmail emails to a local email app

If you use an email application running on your computer, like Outlook or Apple Mail, you can use it to get at your Gmail inbox through a standard protocol called IMAP (or Internet Messaging Access Protocol).

It means a selection of messages—usually from the last few weeks or months—are kept in sync with your local computer. Any changes made on the web are reflected in your local email client, and vice versa. Technically, it’s more syncing than downloading, but it does mean copies of recent emails will be stored on your computer as well as the web.

To make this work, first you have to enable IMAP from Gmail on the web:

• Click the gear icon (top right), then See all settings.
• Open the Forwarding and POP/IMAP tab, then select Enable IMAP.
• Click Save Changes to confirm.

On the same page you’ll see options for how the syncing between your local email app and Gmail on the web is handled, which you can also tweak. Perhaps the most important one is how deleted emails are handled. When you delete a message in a local program such as Outlook, on the web version of Gmail you can choose to have the message archived, sent to the Trash folder, or instantly erased.

With IMAP enabled, you can then add your Gmail account to the email program on your computer. The process for this will vary depending on the program, and we can’t cover them all here—but the option to add a new email account should be fairly prominently displayed.

Gmail is such a well-known service that most email apps will just ask you for your Gmail address and username, and then be able to get connected that way. You don’t need to fill out a long series of configuration options, which was the case in the past.

For example, for the default Outlook email app that comes as part of Windows 11:

• Click the gear icon (top right), then Accounts and Email accounts.
• Select Add account, then enter your Gmail email address.
• Click Continue, then follow the instructions to sign into your Google account.

After a few seconds, you’ll see that your Gmail account is added as a new option in the navigation pane on the left, with all of your Gmail labels represented as folders.

Downloading Gmail emails as an archive

The other option for getting Gmail emails on your computer is to download them all as a complete archive. This is more suitable if you want to keep a backup somewhere safe, and don’t need regular access to your messages in an app.

Head to your Google account on the web, then click Data and privacy, and scroll down to find the Download your data option. Click that link, and you’ll see you can download information from all kinds of Google services, from your Chrome browsing history to the notes you’ve stored in Google Keep.

• Click Deselect all, then select the Mail option.
• Select All Mail data included if you want to pick and choose which messages are included in the download (messages assigned to a specific label, for example).
• Click Next step, and you’ll be met with a series of options about how you want to get the download—you can get a link over email, or have it added to your Google Drive or another cloud storage service.
• Select Create export, and you’ll receive an email when the download is ready.

On the options page, you can also choose to have the same export generated automatically, on a schedule—handy if you want to back up your Gmail account every so often, without having to remember to do it each time.

Bear in mind that if you’re using a Gmail account provided by an employer or other organization, rather than a personal one, you might not have the option to download an archive of your emails. If that’s the case, the Mail entry simply won’t appear when you head to the Download your data page.

The archive download puts your emails in a format called MBOX. Clients such as Apple Mail or Mozilla Thunderbird can open these files, as can Outlook with a plug-in. Note though that this is a static archive, suitable as a backup: If you open the file in a local program, the emails won’t be synced to and from the web.

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Most of us rely on our smartphones many times throughout the day—for everything from banking to photo taking to chatting with friends—and that means losing a phone or having it stolen can be hugely stressful and annoying. It’s also worrying, considering so much of our lives is managed through these handsets.

We spoke to Steve Wilson, a Senior Director at security experts Norton, for some advice about what to do if you lose your phone. Norton develops a range of software for protecting user security and privacy, including Norton 360 Deluxe.

“Our smartphones and computers are more than just devices—they are often lifelines to our personal and professional lives, holding everything from sensitive emails to personal pictures,” says Wilson. “The moment you realise your phone, tablet or computer is missing can be stressful, but it’s crucial to take immediate action to protect your digital identity.”

And that “immediate” is important: Don’t panic, but don’t waste time. Work your way through these steps as quickly as you possibly can, and you should be able to minimise the security risks of losing your phone or having it stolen.

Put in the prep work

Put in some precautions in advance, and it makes the process of dealing with a lost or stolen phone significantly easier. First of all, your phone’s lock screen should be well protected, whether that’s through face or fingerprint recognition, or a lengthy PIN code. Head to Security and privacy in Android Settings or Face/Touch ID & Passcode from the Settings screen on iOS to make changes.

If your phone can’t be unlocked, your apps and accounts are safe—though someone else could still reset your handset and use it for themselves. You should also make sure everything on your phone is regularly backed up, from photos to messages.

[ Related: How to back up your iPhone ]

Both Android and iOS come with built-in backup options. You’ll often find backup settings built into individual apps as well, so you should make sure these are always turned on and functioning as intended—WhatsApp, for example, lets you back up your messages to the cloud, which also comes in handy when you’re switching between devices.

Note that Apple has now introduced Stolen Device Protection on iPhones, which you can access by tapping Face/Touch ID & Passcode and then Turn On Protection. It means that making important changes on your iPhone, such as changing your Apple ID password, require Touch ID or Face ID authorization, even if the phone is already unlocked.

[ Related: Protect all of your accounts with two-factor authentication ]

It’s also important to turn on two-factor authentication for all the digital accounts that support it (which is most of them now): It means that just a username and password isn’t enough to log into your accounts. All of these steps can be taken when you still have your phone with you, and you’ll be thankful for them if something happens to your handset.

Two-factor authentication puts an extra barrier in place if hackers try to access your accounts on another device, and while it’s typically handled with an app on your phone, you’ll still be able to access your accounts using backup methods (such as a link sent to your registered email address).

Access your device remotely

You should also make sure that your handset is registered on your phone’s integrated device tracking service: It’s called Find My on iPhones, Find My Device on Google Pixel phones, and SmartThings Find on Samsung Galaxy phones. You should be asked if you want to enrol your phone when you first set it up, and we’d recommend saying yes.

From the Find My app on your iPhone, the SmartThings Find app on your Samsung phone, or the Security and privacy page in Settings on a Pixel phone, you can make sure that your handset is being tracked, and see where it is on a map. You can also ensure that the feature is turned on if it isn’t already.

Of course, if your phone gets lost or stolen, you won’t be able to use it—but these services can be accessed from other devices too. 

For iPhones:

• Head to iCloud on the web.
• Pick Find My: You’ll be able to see the last reported location for your iPhone.
• Turn on Lost Mode (which gives whoever finds the handset information for getting it back to you).
• Finally, remotely wipe the device (which you should do if you don’t think you’ll get it back).

For Google Pixel phones: 

• Head to Find My Device on the web and you’ll find a similar set of options to the ones offered by Apple. 
• Click Secure device, and the device is locked and signed out of Google, but still visible on the map. 
• Click Erase device, and everything on the phone gets wiped—including its link to the Find My Device service.

For Samsung smartphones: 

• Open up SmartThings Find on the web. There,  you can get access to a map with the same options for your lost or stolen smartphone.
•  You can choose to lock it remotely if you think someone might find it and return it to you, or you can choose to wipe it remotely if you think it’s gone for good.

Protect your accounts

The lock screen protections on your phone should be enough to stop anyone else from accessing your digital accounts, and you also have the remote wipe options that we’ve mentioned above, if they’re enabled. The chances of someone accessing your phone’s email app or payments app are pretty small—but it’s always best to err on the side of caution when it comes to account security.

With that in mind, you might want to think about changing the passwords for your various digital accounts, from social media networks to cloud storage. That then prevents whoever has got your phone from changing them, because they won’t know the new passwords you’ve set up—and you won’t find yourself locked out of your own accounts.

Some services and apps let you disconnect the connection to your phone remotely. 

• For example, head to your Google account page on the web, then click Security and Manage all devices, and you’re able to see the devices that you’re signed in on. 
• To disconnect a lost or stolen phone and protect your account, select it and then click Sign out.

It’s also a good idea to notify other people about what’s happened. You can start with your mobile carrier, which will be able to put a block on calls and text messages for you, to make sure your phone isn’t used without your permission. It’s also a good idea to contact your bank as well, if you’ve been using your phone to access banking apps and other payment services.

We’d also say it’s worth getting in touch with friends and family too, just in case they get a message or call claiming to be from you, when it’s actually from the compromised phone. If you’ve put the right security measures in place, this would be very difficult for someone else to do, but again it’s better to be safe than sorry when you find yourself separated from your smartphone.

The post What to do before and after your phone gets lost or stolen appeared first on Popular Science.

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Graphic design is my passion so naturally I love the vintage, 1990s WordArt. This was a feature in Microsoft Word that allowed you to create timeless “3D” renderings of any text you wanted. It was perfection, but for some reason Microsoft overhauled the feature in the late 2000s, basically ruining it. 

Go head: open Word right now and try to click the WordArt icon, which is to the right of the text box icon on the “Insert” tab of the ribbon. You’ll get a few options, none of the chonky masterpieces you remember.

These are a soulless simulacrum of the WordArt of yore. The true WordArt remains, however, embedded deep in the code of Microsoft Word itself. But some things that should not have been forgotten were lost. History became legend. Legend became myth. And for twenty years WordArt passed out of all knowledge. 

But it can be found again. Create a new document in Microsoft Word, then click File > Save As. Make sure you save the document as a “Word97-2003 document”, or “.doc”, file. 

You’re now in what’s called “Compatibility Mode.” Basically, Microsoft wants to ensure that you can use the current version of Microsoft to open documents from twenty or even thirty years ago, complete with all features—including WordArt. Click the WordArt icon we clicked before, in the Insert ribbon. 

You will see some old, familiar friends. Rejoice. 

Note that the Mac version of Word does not support this feature. This is okay: Mac users do not deserve WordArt. If you’re among the chosen, however, you will find that all is right with the world—especially when you click an option, enter some text, and decide on a font. 

The customization goes even further: click your WordArt and look at the WordArt toolbar at the top of the window. You can now do things like change the 3D perspective or customize the drop shadow. 

This allows you to make the truly unhinged word art effects we all remember so fondly from the 1990s. This is what we all did instead of doing our homework, or our jobs, before we had things like social media and online sports betting to distract us from our tasks. Now, thanks to reverse compatibility, this lost art can be restored. 

I, because I’m extremely cool and attractive, recently hosted a WordArt-themed party. Multiple cool, attractive friends of mine participated, making WordArt documents for everything from what beer is on tap to the ingredients in the dip. I cannot emphasize to you how much better this made the party, and how much better such documents can make literally every aspect of modern life. Use this new ability everywhere: you won’t regret it (unless, as mentioned, you’re a Mac user, in which case you don’t have access to this particular kind of happiness.)

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The beauty of smartphone photography is that you can just point and shoot and end up with a great-looking image most of the time, but this ease of use and convenience might mean that you haven’t fully explored all of the photo-taking options on your phone.

Flagship handsets in particular have a range of different modes and settings that you can take advantage of, from time lapse videos to portrait pictures. It’s worth spending some time exploring what’s on offer, so you can choose the right mode for each scenario.

These are the options you’ll see on iPhones, Pixels, and Galaxy phones when you open up the default camera app. Not every option appears on every model, but we’ll try and flag up the variations where we can.

Apple iPhone

Photo: Your standard photo-taking mode. You’ll see the zoom and macro options just above the shutter button, and you can tap anywhere in the frame to fit the focus and exposure on one spot. Holding your finger on the screen will cause the focus and exposure to lock on a specific area. So, if you’re trying to take a picture of a person against a bright background, you’ll want to lock the focus and exposure on their face so the camera isn’t tricked by a bright background into making your subject too dark.

Live photos: If you’re holding your iPhone in the portrait orientation, up in the top right corner is a button for toggling live photos on or off (it looks like a series of circles). Live photos capture a second or two of snaps, and pick the best one.

Portrait: This one’s for portraits, as the name suggests. It creates a depth-of-field effect, keeping the subject sharp and blurring the background. Use the dial just above the shutter button to switch between lighting modes, and when the cube on the dial turns yellow, you’re the right distance away from the subject. (You may see messages telling you to move further to or closer away from the subject.) Newer iPhones capture depth data with the regular photo function, so you can go back and create portrait-style images later.

Pano: This is the mode to go for if you want to take a panorama photo. The app will guide you in terms of taking each snap and then moving your phone, and everything will be seamlessly stitched together at the end–as long as you hold the phone relatively straight as you pan along.

Video: For recording videos, as you might expect. As with the default photo mode, zoom and macro options are displayed above the shutter button, and you can tap inside the capture window to fix the focus and exposure settings on a certain point.

Action: Assuming you’re holding your iPhone in its portrait orientation, when Video is selected on the iPhone 14 or later, you’ll see an action button in the top right corner (it looks like a person moving fast). Tap this to turn action mode on or off, which applies some video stabilization wizardry to your footage. It works impressively well.

Cinematic: When you’re in cinematic mode, video is shot with a shallow depth of field, and slower focus transitions. The mode is available on the iPhone 13 and later.

Slo-Mo: No prizes for guessing that this is the slow motion mode, which captures video at a high frame rate. That means that when you play the clip back at a normal frame rate, the action appears to move more slowly. You can even edit the effect after shooting.

Time-Lapse: Another impressive video feature on the iPhone is the time time-lapse mode, which takes photos at set intervals, and stitches them all together at the end. It’s perfect for capturing fixed scenes over a longer period of time.

Whatever mode you find yourself using the Camera app, tap the up arrow at the top of the screen to access various configuration options—such as the aspect ratio of the photos that you’re taking, for example.

Google Pixel

Photo: This is where you’re going to do most of your photo taking, and the zoom options are displayed just above the shutter button. If you want to fix the focus and exposure on one particular point, tap somewhere inside the frame.

Night Sight: Pixel phones are usually excellent at taking low light shots, and this is the mode to go for in that situation. Capturing a photo takes longer, but the results are worth it, as several different snaps of varying exposure are combined together.

Panorama: The mode to turn to for when you want to take a panorama shot. Instructions will pop up on screen to help you take several photos in a row, and keep them aligned. Your Pixel phone then stitches them all together as one finished whole.

Portrait: The portrait mode will focus on a subject that’s in the foreground (like a person), and blur the background slightly. If you then open one of these snaps in Google Photos, you can adjust the blur level.

Long Exposure: A long exposure shot keeps the phone ‘shutter’ open for longer, meaning you end up with a blurred subject (if it’s moving) and a static background, and it’s available on the Pixel 6 and later flagship Pixels. Think a blurred car driving across a static city landscape.

Action Pan: Action pan works in the opposite way to long exposure, blurring the background while keeping the (moving) subject in focus—so a clear and visible train inside a blurred tunnel. It’s available on all of the flagship Pixels since the Pixel 6.

Video: Tap on the video camera icon at the bottom of the screen to switch from photos to videos. The default video mode is the most straightforward, with zoom controls appearing just above the record button.

Slow Motion: Go for the slow motion mode, and when you start recording, your Pixel captures video at a high frame rate. Play the clip back at a normal frame rate, and that’s how the slow motion is achieved.

Time Lapse: Time lapse is the opposite of slow motion, capturing video at a very slow frame rate—so the finished video can show a sunset or something being constructed in a short space of time.

Blur: If you want your videos to look a bit more like they were filmed by the professionals, make use of the blur mode. It’s a bit like the photo portrait mode but for moving subjects, keeping the main focus of the clip sharp while softening the background, and you’ll find it on the Pixel 7 and later Pixel flagships.

Pan: The pan mode for videos will apply some extra stabilization tricks to your clips while also slowing them down slightly. If you want to create slow-moving pans that look like they were filmed on expensive equipment, use this mode.

On every photo and video mode, you’ll notice a gear icon down in the lower left corner (if your phone is being held in its portrait orientation). Tap this to access more settings, including top shot for photos, which captures several frames at once so you can pick the best one (or create a short animation).

Samsung Galaxy

Photo: This is the mode you’ll be put into first of all, with zoom controls just above the shutter button, and it’s great for most of your snaps. If a low light scene is detected, the night shot mode (where several exposures are combined) is automatically enabled—tap the crescent moon icon if you’d rather not use it.

Portrait: Opt for the portrait mode, and the camera app aims to detect the main focus of your shot, like a person or a pet. This subject is kept sharp, while the background is blurred—follow the instructions on screen to get the right distance away from your subject, at which point the circle on the right will turn yellow.

Video: The standard video mode on your Galaxy phone’s camera app will be fine for most use cases, and you get the zoom controls directly above the shutter button. Note the icon in the corner of the frame that looks like a box inside another box—this enables auto-framing, which automatically adjusts the video zoom to keep people in the shot.

More: As there are so many modes hidden behind the More option in the Samsung camera app, we won’t give them all their own section, but we will list them here for you. To start, Pro and Pro Video give you more granular controls over photo and video settings, while Expert Raw lets you shoot images in RAW mode.

Some familiar modes you’ll see are Night (for low light shots), Panorama (for wide panorama photos), Slow Motion (for slow motion videos), and Super Slow-Mo (for even slower videos). Food is an interesting one, and has been designed to make the colors of food pop in your images.

Hyperlapse is another name for time lapse, so you can cram a lengthy amount of time into a short video, while Portrait Video keeps the subject of your video sharp, while blurring the background.

Finally, on the Galaxy S21 and more recent flagships, Director’s View lets you capture video from multiple camera lenses at the same time, while Single Take lets you capture several seconds of video and then pick out the best static image—for the best results, keep the phone moving slightly around your subject.

Within all of these modes you’ll find settings that let you adjust options such as aspect ratio and photo and video quality—these pop up automatically as you switch between modes (at the top of the screen, if you’re holding it in its portrait orientation).

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Everyone will have their own preferences when it comes to watching videos on YouTube, whether that’s the playback speed (up to 2x) or the video size (from full screen to mini player). One of the available viewing options that you might not know about, because it’s rather well hidden, is ambient mode.

You can get to it through the YouTube interface on the web, as well as the mobile apps, and YouTube itself describes it as an “immersive” way of watching videos. It’s actually an extension of dark mode and it uses the colors in the video you’re currently watching to create a subtle wash around the edges of the video viewer.

At the very least, it’s worth trying—you might find you prefer it to the regular YouTube viewing experience. Here’s how to enable or disable the feature on the web or mobile—you won’t currently find it on devices like smart TVs or streaming dongles.

On the web

If you’re using YouTube on the web, you need to be using dark mode for ambient mode to work—that’s when the area around videos and thumbnails is black and the text is in white. To enable dark mode, click your Google account profile picture (top right), then choose Appearance and Dark theme.

Ambient mode is actually automatically enabled when you’re in dark mode, so you should start to see a wash of color around the sides of your videos as they play, based on the colors of the current video. Bear in mind that the effect can take a few seconds to appear, and it is quite subtle.

It’s also only visible in the default video view on YouTube on the web: You’re not going to see it if your videos are running in full screen mode (as there will be no borders around the video window), or in cinema mode (where the video takes up the full width of the browser tab). You can switch between default and cinema views by clicking on the icons that appear in the lower right corner when you hover the cursor over a video that’s playing or by tapping T on your keyboard.

To turn off ambient mode, you can switch back to light mode via the Appearance menu. Alternatively, you can stay in dark mode, but turn off the ambient effects: Click on the gear icon that appears as you hover the cursor over a video, then turn off the Ambient mode toggle switch (quickly toggling it on and off is a good way of seeing exactly what difference it makes on screen).

On mobile

If you’re using YouTube on Android or iOS, ambient mode can be enabled from the same page you’re watching any video on. Unlike the desktop version of the feature, it isn’t linked to dark mode—you can use it in either light or dark mode, though you might find the latter option looks more immersive on screen.

With a video playing on screen, tap on it to bring up the playback controls, then tap the gear icon (top right). Choose Additional settings, and the next screen will show a toggle switch for Ambient mode, which you can use to enable or disable the feature (which applies across every video you watch from that point on).

As with YouTube on the web, the effect can be quite subtle—with some videos, especially those that are dark and mainly monochrome, you need to look pretty closely to see it. In the standard portrait view (with the video at the top of the screen), you’ll see the color effects above it; in the landscape view (with the video almost full screen), the colors appear at either side.

The effects are the same whether you’re in light mode or dark mode, but you can change this too: Tap the You icon (bottom right), then the gear icon (top right), then choose General and Appearance: You can tell YouTube to use a light theme or a dark theme, or have it follow the lead set by your phone’s settings.

The post YouTube has a hidden ambient mode: Here’s how to turn it on (and off) appeared first on Popular Science.

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Ever had a song stuck in your head, but haven’t been able to identify it? Of course you have. It could be a hook or a lyric snippet you’re thinking about, but you just can’t name the song or the artist. This common predicament can lead to hours or even days of frustration, with the answer always just out of reach as the cogs in your brain whirr and grind. 

Well, tech is here to help: The song recognition tools that have been developed over recent years are able to match up patterns of music and lyrics. You might be surprised at the quality of the results that turn up with very little information.

A lot of the tools we’re covering here do dual duty—they can recognize songs that you hum or sing part of, and they can also name tracks if the official recordings are being played within range. We’re focusing on the first job here, but you might find the other music recognition features useful too.

Google Assistant and Siri

You can load up your favorite digital assistant on your phone or tablet and have it try and identify a song for you. Just load up Google Assistant or Siri, ask “What’s this song?” and try singing or humming a part of it, or saying some of the lyrics.

Google Assistant or Siri will then do their best to find a match. In our testing, Google Assistant is more adept at identifying songs from fragments, whereas Siri tends to need a lyric line or two. Of course part of the success rate is going to be down to the quality of your singing or humming.

Both these digital assistants do well at music identification when you’ve actually got the song itself playing—though most of the time that you’re playing a track, you’ll know what it is, unless it’s in the background of a film or show, or it’s being played in public.

Shazam and SoundHound

These are the two leading apps when it comes to identifying music: You can pick up Shazam for Android and iOS, and SoundHound for Android and iOS. As you probably know, these apps are adept at identifying songs playing around you, but they’re also able to pull up artist and track name info from audio fragments.

Both apps put music discovery front and center, and all you need to do is tap the big Shazam or SoundHound button on the app’s main screen to get it to start listening. You can try humming, whistling, singing, or reciting lyrics to get a match.

In our tests, SoundHound did a little better than Shazam on recognizing the songs we were trying to do a passable impersonation of—though there are a lot of factors at play here, from the uniqueness of the track, to how accurately you’re humming or whistling it.

Google and YouTube

If you can remember a few of the lyrics of the song you’re trying to identify, then typing them into Google (or your favorite search engine of choice) can often be enough to turn up the name of the track, assuming the lyrics aren’t too generic.

Approximations are okay too—we were recently able to use a Google search to identify a song with the lyrics “hustle to be free” even though what we’d typed in was “hustle to the sea.” Just enter as much as you can remember and see what comes up.

Another Google-owned app, YouTube, has the humming recognition powers that Shazam and SoundHound do. However, it’s only in limited testing at the moment, so it might not be available for you: In YouTube for Android, tap the search icon (the magnifying glass, top right), then the mic icon (top right), then Song.

ChatGPT and Copilot

Generative AI is pretty much everywhere nowadays, and it can be handy for identifying songs you’ve got stuck in your head. Tools like ChatGPT from OpenAI and Copilot from Microsoft can’t understand humming or whistling, but they can understand and combine lots of other bits of information.

For example, if you remember half a lyric, the style of the song, and the nationality of the singer, then there’s a good chance an AI tool will be able to give you an answer. Any kind of clue will help, from the era it was first released in, to where you might have heard it (on the radio or on the soundtrack to a film, for example).

We’ve managed to get both ChatGPT and Copilot to identify some pretty obscure songs based on details like what’s in the accompanying music video, and how many band members there are. However, you won’t always get the right answer—remember that these AI bots are far from infallible.

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Lithium-ion batteries—like the one in your laptop—degrade over time. You can maximize its lifespan by keeping it between 40 and 80 percent charged. That’s according to Battery University, a website with all kinds of information about batteries provided by Cadex, a consultancy that helps large companies like Amazon and Motorola get more out of their batteries. If you want your battery to last as long as possible it shouldn’t be completely full, or completely empty, very often. 

That’s easy enough to do if you mostly use your laptop on the go. But if you, like me, mostly use your laptop at your desk it can charge fully, and then stay fully charged for hours at a time. That’s a quick way to diminish the life of the battery, but both Windows and macOS devices offer ways to keep your battery below 80 percent. Here’s how they work. 

Using the built-in battery health tools on the Mac

I’m writing this on my Macbook Pro, which is plugged into a power supply. Mac computers have a built-in  battery health management feature that keeps track of your charging habits and prevents the battery from fully charging unless you’re likely to unplug it soon. For example, here’s how my usage today looks:

You can see my battery slowly lost power overnight, when I stopped using it for the day. I plugged it in to my desk a little after 6 a.m., as I do every morning, but the battery didn’t charge until a little bit before noon. That’s because I rarely unplug my laptop in the morning after I plug it in but I do sometimes take it on the road later in the day. 

All of this happened without me having to configure anything, which is nice. We don’t always stick to our routines, however, so the computer allows users to take control when needed. If the battery isn’t fully charged, click the battery icon in the menu bar and click Charge to full now. You can also turn the battery management feature off entirely. In System Settings head to Battery, click the information button next to Battery Health, then disable the Optimized Battery Charging setting. The downside is that you can’t customize how this works beyond toggling it on and off. 

How to configure smart charging on Windows

Microsoft offers a very similar feature called smart charging, but there’s a serious caveat: every device manufacturer implements its own version. This means there’s no one way to enable, or turn off, the feature—it’s a little different depending on who made your laptop. Here’s a quick rundown: 

• Microsoft’s own Surface devices manage this in the Surface app. 
• Lenovo users should check the Lenovo Vantage app. 
• Dell users can use the Dell Power Manager. 
• ASUS offers this feature in the MyAsus app. 
• Acer puts this feature in the Acercare app.
• MSI devices offer the feature in the Dragon Center.
• HP laptops don’t offer a way to configure smart charging within Windows—you’ll need to access it in the EUFI, which is a little complicated. Turn off your computer, turn it back on, and press F10 repeatedly before Windows starts up. The setting is called “Adaptive Battery Optimizer”. 

Microsoft recommends you check the website of the company that made your laptop for details. Broadly, though, all of these features work similarly to what Apple offers: they monitor how you use your computer and try to only fully charge the battery when you’re likely to actually need it. 

Use third party software to take direct control

If you’d rather take a more direct approach to smart charging there are third party applications for the job. The open source Mac application named simply battery lets you control whether the battery is charging by typing command. It also allows you to cap charging at 80 percent at all times. This application does not work for Intel Macs, unfortunately, only those running Apple’s own M-series silicon. If you have an older Mac you’ll need to check out the paid app AlDente, which offers a free version. 

I couldn’t find an automated application like these for Windows but I did find Battery Limiter. This application will let you know when your battery charges to 80 percent, allowing you to unplug it yourself. It’s less ideal, sure, but it prevents overcharging. 

A few other general tips

Apple has a helpful list of battery life tips that apply to any laptop. A few highlights include the fact that batteries last longer if you can avoid extreme temperatures. Apple recommends nothing below 50F and above 95F for a Mac. The company also recommends never storing a device fully charged, or fully depleted, for the long term. If you’re putting a laptop into storage, leave it around 50 percent charged. It’s a good idea to re-charge it every six months or so, to ensure the battery stays healthy in the long run. 

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If you’ve bought a flagship-level smartphone in the last few years, chances are that it comes with an always on display: a display where various elements of the interface (like the time and date) are still visible even when the handset is locked.

While this feature uses up a tiny bit of battery life, it undoubtedly has its uses—letting you know what notifications you’ve missed or what weather you can expect in the near future, for example, without you having to pick up your phone.

You can also customize different parts of the always on display to get it working exactly the way you want it to and show the information that’s relevant to you—so you don’t have to settle for the default configuration.

Customizing the always on display on an iPhone

If you’ve got an iPhone 14 Pro, an iPhone 14 Pro Max, an iPhone 15 Pro, or an iPhone 15 Pro Max, then you have the option of an always on display: It’ll be set on by default, but you can toggle this by opening Settings and choosing Display & Brightness then Always On Display.

The same screen has toggle switches for Show Wallpaper and Show Notifications, so you can either show or hide these elements as needed. To change the length of time your iPhone waits before locking itself (and showing the always on display), pick Auto-Lock from the Display & Brightness screen.

Every other aspect of the always on display—like the widgets you see—will match your lock screen settings. To make changes, press and hold on the lock screen, then choose Customize to edit the current lock screen or + (the plus button) to create a new lock screen. You can have several different lock screen configurations if you want to, and then swipe between them as needed.

Tap on the time and date to change their appearance, and on the widgets bar (just below the clock) to choose your widgets—for weather, battery status, and so on. The icon down in the lower left lets you turn the lock screen depth effect or on off, while the icon in the lower right lets you choose between light mode or dark mode. For more details, check out our guide to editing the iPhone lock screen.

Customizing the always on display on a Galaxy phone

Almost all Samsung Galaxy phones released in recent years have an always on display feature—it’s something that’s been around on Android handsets much longer than it has on iPhones. To set how long it is before the lock screen and then the always on display kicks in, tap Display and Screen timeout from Settings.

To enable the always on functionality on a Galaxy handset (it’s off by default), open up Settings, then choose Lock screen and Always On Display. As well as Show always (so it’s always on), you can pick Show as scheduled—this lets you, for example, turn off the always on display at night to avoid distractions when it’s time to sleep.

Further down the same screen, you can set the brightness and orientation of the always on display, and choose whether or not to have music information (from the media player app you’ve most recently had open) on screen. Tap on Clock style, and you’re able to choose the appearance and the color of the time and date widget that appears when your phone is in always on display mode.

To edit other aspects of the always on display, including the style of notifications that show up underneath the time and date, press and hold on the lock screen to make changes. You’re able to show full notification previews or just icons, you can pick a new wallpaper backdrop, and you can change the shortcuts down in the corners of the display.

Customizing the always on display on a Pixel phone

All of the recent Pixel phones released by Google have an always on display, though there aren’t quite as many customization options here as there are with handsets made by Apple and by Samsung. The feature is on by default: You can control this via the Always show time and info toggle switch under Display and Lock screen in Settings.

There are no options to set the brightness level or to set a schedule for the always on feature. What you see on screen when the always on display is enabled is the same as what you’ll see on the standard lock screen that appears when your phone first locks itself—only the elements on the display will dim, and the wallpaper will disappear. To set how long it is before the lock screen appears, tap Display and Screen timeout in Settings.

The Lock screen page in Settings offers a few options that are useful: From here you can add text to the lock screen (and always on display), perhaps including your contact details in case your phone should ever get lost. You’re also able to change what the shortcuts on screen do, while the Dynamic clock toggle switch determines whether or not the clock size changes based on what else is on screen (like notifications).

For all the other options, like the style of the clock and how notifications are handled, choose Wallpaper and style then Lock screen from Settings. Swipe left and right to move between the different clock styles that are available, and tap Clock color and size to set how big the clock is on the lock screen (and therefore the always on display too).

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When you’re on the road, there are two main updates you’ll want to get: What’s happening with the traffic around you and what’s happening with the weather around you. Here, we’re going to focus on weather, and in particular, two apps that are now available for the Apple CarPlay system.

These apps offer real time radar views of current weather conditions, right on your car dashboard, so you can stay up to date with conditions on your route. Apple hasn’t made its own weather app available for CarPlay (though you can ask Siri for the forecast), so third-party developers really are plugging a gap here.

Obviously you’re going to need a CarPlay-compatible head unit in your vehicle for these apps to work: You can see a list here. You can connect your iPhone wirelessly or via a cable, and Apple has a dedicated set of instructions you can follow for getting connected.

Assuming that you’ve already got your iPhone successfully hooked up to your car’s dashboard, these two apps will appear in the app list in the CarPlay interface, once you’ve installed them from the App Store on your phone.

Weather on the Way

First up is Weather on the Way. This app has been built specifically with travel in mind. You can use it when you’re not getting navigation instructions, but it comes into its own when you are being directed to a destination, showing you how the weather conditions are likely to change as your journey progresses.

As well as showing you the temperature and weather conditions at key points along a route and handling the job of getting you from A to B, Weather on the Way also comes with radar maps showing precipitation levels and wind speed. It’s a handy way of getting an overview of conditions across a wider region.

When you’re in the navigation mode, you’ll be warned about weather alerts when needed—so if you’re going to hit a storm in 30 minutes, for example, the app will tell you. It’s a really useful option to have on your car dashboard for those journeys where you think the weather might be inclement and cause you one or two problems. And you can even choose routes based on the best weather conditions.

There are no real options to speak of here, just the map view with the option to have a route on screen or not. Using the buttons on the left of the display you can zoom in and out of the map and pan around, and while you’re navigating you can choose to see the route in its entirety or use a more traditional navigation view where the app focuses in on your current position.

You can use Weather on the Way for free, and get weather and temperature updates as you drive without paying anything. If you want to use some of the more advanced features, including the radar view and data such as road visibility, you’ll need to upgrade to a Pro account (from $4.99 a month)—though you can try out the Pro features for free first.

MyRadar

The other CarPlay app we’d like to draw your attention to is MyRadar, which keeps the radar view to the fore. When the app is loaded up on your CarPlay screen, you’ll be able to see current precipitation levels and wind speeds anywhere in the world, including your current location (or your next destination).

Some of the other useful added bonuses in MyRadar are the hyperlocal weather predictions and the rain warnings you can set up: It’s far better to know that there’s a storm rolling in while you’re on the road than be caught by it unexpectedly, and you might even be able to alter your route accordingly.

When you’re driving, you can opt to have the app follow your current position, or stay fixed in one place, and both modes are useful in different ways—for seeing the weather immediately ahead and for getting more of an overview of a broader area. There are a couple of different views to choose between, and a few tweaks you can make to the weather layers shown on screen.

With the app up on your CarPlay screen, the buttons on the left let you move around the map, or return to your current position. When you’re on the move, you can opt to have the map shown from directly overhead, or have it shown at more of an angle, in a view more reminiscent of Apple Maps or Google Maps.

A lot of the features in MyRadar are available to use for free, but you can pay to remove the ads inside the app, and access several advanced features including a hurricane tracker—which works exactly how you might expect. The cost per year varies depending on the features you want, but there is a free trial available.

The post How to get live weather maps on your car dashboard with Apple CarPlay appeared first on Popular Science.

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Gmail is a polished and feature-packed email client, but on its own–without its plethora of not-so-obvious capabilities–it doesn’t guarantee that you’re going to find it easy to manage all of the messages flooding into your inbox. Staying on top of emails remains a challenge for a lot of us—but if you dig a little bit deeper into Gmail, you’ll find more and more tools to help.

In the article, we wanted to focus on some relatively quick and simple email management tips you can use to avoid drowning in the email flood. There’s nothing too complex or time-consuming here–just little tricks that you might not have previously come across that can make a significant difference to managing emails in Gmail.

1. Add more labels

Remember that when Gmail first launched in 2004, its emphasis on labels rather than folders was quite revolutionary—so make sure you make the most of them. Emails can have multiple labels assigned to them at the same time, and you’re also able to create sublabels too, by clicking on the three dots next to a label then choosing Add sublabel.

On the web, labels can be applied from the menus at the top of the screen, or by dragging messages on to the label list on the web. They can come in handy for searches—use the “label:” prefix in the search bar at the top—and are useful in combination with filters too, because you can assign all messages that match certain criteria to one of your labels.

2. Use multiple email addresses

Another filtering trick is to make use of the multiple Gmail addresses you have. If your Gmail address is popsci@gmail.com, then emails sent to pop.sci@gmail, p.opsci@gmail, or anything similar will still get to you (the periods are ignored). You can also add a plus sign and a word before the @—like popsci+main@gmail.com to get even more addresses.

How is this helpful? Well, you can use these extra addresses when you’re filling out forms online or messaging certain people. On the web, click the filter icon (to the right of the search box), and you can set up a rule based on an address like popsci+main@gmail.com: You can automatically archive it, or star it, or label it, for example, through a filter.

3. Drag and drop between tabs

The Gmail web interface will show tabs for your emails by default—Primary, Promotions, Social, Updates, and Forums—and you can customize which ones show up by clicking the gear icon (top right), then Customize under Default. Note that messages in any tabs that you choose to hide from view will be moved into the Primary tab, which can’t be hidden.

While you might be familiar with these tabs, you might not realize that you can drag emails between them if Gmail’s algorithms get the sorting wrong. Just click on an email, then drag it up to a tab heading to move it to that tab—Gmail will also ask you if you want to categorize all emails from this sender like this in the future, and set up a filter for it.

4. Swipe to sort

Dragging and dropping emails between tabs is something you can do on the desktop web interface, but there are clever tricks for the mobile apps for Android and iOS to make use of as well. Did you know, for example, that when you’re viewing your Gmail inbox (or any folder in the app), you can swipe on emails to organize them without opening them?

Tap the menu button (top left), then Settings: You then need to go to General settings and Swipe actions (Android), or Inbox customizations and Email swipe actions (iOS), to choose what your swipes do. Left and right swipes can be configured separately, and you can pick from archive, trash, mark as read or unread, snooze, move, and mute options.

5. Learn the keyboard shortcuts

Keyboard shortcuts can speed up everything you do in Gmail, once you’ve learned them: You’ll be able to power through your email jobs without reaching for the mouse (or trackpad), or delving into menus. You can enable keyboard shortcuts on the web via the gear icon (top right), then See all settings, General, and Keyboard shortcuts on.

Some of the more helpful ones that we often make use of are E to archive an email you’re currently reading, R to reply to an email, and A to reply all. You can use C to compose a new email, / (forward slash) to run a search, and G followed by I to get back to your inbox from wherever you are in the web interface. Google has a full list you can refer to.

The post 5 email management tips to keep Gmail chaos out of your life appeared first on Popular Science.

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It’s probably going to come as no surprise to you that YouTube is tracking what you watch, assuming you’re signed into your Google account: It means you can get back to favorite videos you want to see again, and it helps improve the quality of the recommendations that you get from the YouTube algorithm.

You don’t have to accept this default state of operations though. It’s possible to see your viewing history, to remove items from it (if you don’t want your kids’ YouTube obsessions to affect your recommendations for example), and to clear it altogether.

We’ll take you through all the options available to you, so you can tailor the way your YouTube history works,—and so you know exactly what’s being logged about your viewing habits over time.

Finding your viewing history

To find your viewing history on the YouTube website, open up the left hand navigation panel (if it isn’t already open) by clicking on the three horizontal lines (top left), then choose History. In the Android app, tap your profile picture (bottom right), then View all next to History; on iOS, tap the Library icon (bottom right), then View all next to History.

Assuming viewing history is enabled, you’ll then be shown everything you’ve watched recently on YouTube, with the most recent views at the top. There may well be a few videos you’ve forgotten about here; this is the place to go to if you want to rewatch something good or useful that you’ve seen lately.

If the video that you’re after isn’t listed, you’ll see a search box for your watch history that you can make use of. As far as we can tell, this searches through video descriptions as well as their actual titles, though it’s not as comprehensive as the main search function for YouTube as a whole (you don’t get any filters to narrow the results down, for instance).

If you’re viewing your history on the web, there’s a Pause watch history button: Click this to temporarily stop logging videos that you watch on YouTube, on any device or platform. When this feature is enabled, the option will change to Turn on watch history, which you can select to start recording views again.

There are all kinds of reasons why you might want to pause your watch history, especially if you share your computer with other people: Maybe your kids want to watch something, for example, or you need to research a sensitive medical condition, or a friend wants to briefly borrow your account. While your watch history is paused, video watches won’t be recorded and your YouTube recommendations won’t be affected.

Editing your viewing history

If you’re on the web interface, you can remove a single video from your watch history by hovering over it, and then clicking the X that appears to the right. If you want to get rid of everything you’ve ever watched on YouTube and start again from scratch, click on the Clear all watch history link on the right, then confirm your choice.

More options can be found by clicking on the three dots next to any video in the list: From here you can add a video to the current queue, save it to a playlist, or share it with other people. On mobile, the option to remove a video from your viewing history is included on this menu as well—just tap the three dots to see it.

On the YouTube website you’ll see some extra options for viewing your history of comments, community chat, and live chat responses—click on any of the links to see the details. You can also select Manage all history to see a detailed breakdown of everything you’ve done on YouTube, including videos you’ve watched and searches you’ve run.

Again, you can click the X buttons to remove something from your YouTube history—use the calendar or search buttons at the top of the list to narrow down the results. With the Delete button, you’re able to delete everything that you’ve done on YouTube today, everything that you’ve ever done on YouTube, or everything that you did on YouTube within a particular range of dates.

As with some other types of data stored by Google (including web searches and location history), you can have your YouTube activity automatically deleted after a certain time, without any manual effort needed: Click Auto-delete, then pick from 3 months, 18 months, or 36 months, if you want this feature enabled.

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After Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 6E, next in line is Wi-Fi 7: The new wireless internet standard, also known as IEEE 802.11be, has now been officially certified and launched, which means it’s about to start showing up in consumer gadgets.

Wi-Fi standards are the responsibility of the Wi-Fi Alliance, an industry body that works in partnership with hundreds of technology companies—including Apple, Samsung, Intel, and Sony—to drive forward and regulate Wi-Fi development. 

Now that certification has been approved, you can start thinking about taking advantage of Wi-Fi 7 and upgrading to hardware that supports it. It brings with it a number of key improvements, which should mean faster, more reliable Wi-Fi at home.

The Wi-Fi 7 difference

Like earlier Wi-Fi upgrades, Wi-Fi 7 brings with it more bandwidth.  The analogy usually deployed here is cars traveling along a highway: More bandwidth means more lanes in which the cars can travel. Even if the data packets (the cars) aren’t actually traveling faster, there’s more room for them to move at once, which should mean less interference and congestion, and faster speeds around your Wi-Fi network as a result.

With the latest Wi-Fi routers, you have three frequency bands: 2.4GHz, 5GHz, and 6GHz, which are a little bit like different types of road (to keep the transport analogy). Data moves more slowly on the 2.4GHz band, but can travel further distances; whereas on the 5GHz and 6GHz bands, data moves faster over a reduced range.

Wi-Fi 7 doesn’t affect these bands, but it does affect the channels they’re made up of. Wi-Fi 7 doubles the bandwidth of the channels, up to 320MHz, but only on the 6GHz band (there isn’t the ‘room’ for more lanes to be built on the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands).

From a practical standpoint, this benefits environments with many devices vying for bandwidth. So if you have tons of smart devices, streaming boxes, and other data-hungry gadgets vying for bandwidth, they will appreciate the extra room (once they’re compatible, of course).

Wi-Fi 7 comes with some other tricks too. Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (or QAM) is upgraded from 1K to 4K: In simple terms, that just refers to the efficiency with which data can be packed into the cars traveling along the Wi-Fi roads. The Wi-Fi 7 standard also brings with it some improvements in how data can be routed across two bands at the same time.

Another improvement comes with what’s known as Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access (or OFDMA), if you can cope with yet another bit of jargon. All you need to know from a consumer level is that OFDMA in Wi-Fi 7 is better able to chat to multiple devices at once, which should improve performance in places with a lot of gadgets wanting to get online at the same time.

Don’t worry if that all sounds very technical: Routers are built to handle everything automatically behind the scenes for you. The end result should be better Wi-Fi signals for your devices—signals that are faster and more reliable—and the capacity for more devices to be connected at once, thanks to those extra highway lanes. All these tricks mean cars can get from A to B more easily, and with more data on board.

How to use Wi-Fi 7

The arrival of a new Wi-Fi standard doesn’t mean that your existing gadgets or home internet is about to become obsolete—everything will carry on working as normal. However, you will start to see Wi-Fi 7 mentioned on phones, laptops, and other devices, showing that they’re capable of supporting the new standard.

In order to take advantage of Wi-Fi 7, you need to have a Wi-Fi 7 router installed, and be using gadgets that support Wi-Fi 7 too. Anything that is compatible with Wi-Fi 7 will also work with older Wi-Fi protocols too (just not at the same level of performance), so you don’t have to worry about changing everything in your home at the same time.

As with any Wi-Fi upgrade like this, bear in mind that Wi-Fi 7 won’t actually improve the speed of the broadband coming into your property—that’s something you’ll need to talk to your internet service provider about.

What Wi-Fi 7 will do is make sure that the internet speeds that you’ve signed up for are available to more gadgets at a greater distance, so you may well see certain pieces of hardware and certain rooms in your home getting faster internet speeds than they were before.

According to Netgear, you might get 4.8x faster speeds across all of your devices, once they’re all upgraded, though to some extent, performance depends on the Wi-Fi 7 router that you have installed. Even kit with a Wi-Fi 7 badge on the box won’t necessarily take full advantage of all the improvements that Wi-Fi 7 brings with it, so be sure to double-check spec listings if you’re planning on making the switch to the new standard.

It’s going to take a while for Wi-Fi 7 routers and other compatible gadgets to appear on the scene, but if you’re buying a new device from this point on you can start looking for Wi-Fi 7 support. Some routers, such as the Netgear Nighthawk RS700S, have already started appearing on the scene—though as we’ve mentioned, they will vary in terms of the Wi-Fi range they offer and the maximum number of devices they can connect to.

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There are some decent cheap webcams on the market, but you can go the DIY route and use your phone instead. It takes a little bit of setup, but modern smartphones offer impressive image quality without any extra expenditure.

We all know that built-in webcams look terrible, and that phones take pretty great pictures, so it makes sense to use your phone’s fantastic camera for video calls on your computer. Apple already built this feature into the iPhone, if you have a Mac. Windows users, meanwhile, can use a third party application to turn either an iPhone or an Android phone into a wireless webcam. 

Use Your iPhone as a webcam for you Mac

If you’ve got both an iPhone and a Mac you can use the Continuity Camera feature offered by Apple. All you need is an iPhone running at least iOS 16 and a Mac running macOS Ventura (also known as macOS 13) or later. Both devices need to have both Bluetooth and WiFi turned on and both devices need to be signed into the same Apple ID. 

In any application that uses the video camera, simply select your iPhone as the source. For example, on Zoom, click the arrow beside the video button and then select your iPhone as the camera. It works right away, and you will notice the quality difference. 

Use an iPhone or Android phone as a webcam for you Windows or Linux computer

Windows users don’t have an official alternative to Continuity Camera but Droidcam is the next best thing. This application works with both iPhone and Android phones, and allows you to use those phones as a webcam on a Windows or Linux computer. You will need to install the app on your phone and on your Windows machine. Make sure both devices are on the same WiFi network, then open the app on your phone. You will see an IP address; open the app on your computer and type the IP address there. The camera should start working.

Minimize this window then use your video call app of choice. You will see DroidCam listed as an option for both the camera and microphone. 

I tested this with Zoom, Google Meet, and Jitsi; it worked well for all of them. The free version only offers standard definition quality. You can upgrade to the pro version to get high definition and a few nice-to-have features including brightness adjustments and auto-focus. The paid upgrade costs $4.99 per year as a subscription or $14.99 as a one-time payment. Alternatively you can watch an ad to get one free hour of HD quality. 

A few things to keep in mind

You can position the phone however you want during the meeting, and even pick it up and move around a little bit. A dedicated phone tripod doesn’t take up much room and provides a solid, adjustable base. There are dedicated stands that sit the camera on top of a monitor, but you don’t necessarily need them. I use a business card stand to hold the phone in place, which works great. A car dash-mount for your phone could also do the trick, in a pinch. 

One more thing to note: using your phone as a camera uses up the battery on your phone. It’s probably a good idea to plug it in, either to your computer or a dedicated charger, while you’re using it.

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Apple has designed its phones and computers to work together as seamlessly as possible.   Users who have both a Mac and an iPhone (and maybe an iPad and Apple Watch thrown in as well) enjoy some truly convenient synergies. That’s especially true for iOS and MacOS devices–iPhone apps will run on the Mac if you know how to set it up.

There are a few caveats to bear in mind: The developer of the iPhone app must have added Mac compatibility, and you must be running a Mac with an Apple chipset inside (so not one of the older Intel-powered ones). WIth those footnotes out of the way, you can get started with running apps on both platforms.

This comes in useful in a few different ways, not least because it enables you to use a phone app on a bigger screen, without having to keep pulling your phone out or unlocking it. Some iPhone apps have proper desktop apps or web apps to use of course, but sometimes the mobile app option works best.

Finding apps

If you open up the App Store on macOS, then click your name down in the lower left corner and switch to the iPhone & iPad Apps tab, you’ll see a list of all the apps you’ve ever installed on an Apple-made phone or tablet that can also be installed on macOS. Click on any of the items listed to take a closer look at its description and other information.

Those apps that are labeled with just “Designed for iPhone” or “Designed for iPad” and nothing else have also been optimized to work on macOS. Those that haven’t been optimized will also have a “Not verified for macOS” note next to them. You can still install these apps on your Mac, but the quality of the user experience may vary. 

With apps that don’t appear at all, that’ll be because the developer has opted out of making them available on macOS. This includes some of the big ones, such as Instagram and Google Maps—presumably because their developers want you to use the web versions of their apps instead.

To install an iPhone or iPad app on your Mac, just click the blue download button, which looks like a cloud with a downward arrow coming out of it. After the download has finished, you can then click Open to launch it. The app appears in its own window (which you may be able to resize), with its own menu options at the top.

You can also look for apps that you’ve never installed on an iPhone or an iPad: Click inside the search box in the top left corner, then type out the name of the app you’re looking for. On the results screen, you’ll need to switch to the iPhone & iPad Apps tab to find the apps developed first and foremost for iOS and iPadOS.

Running apps

Some iPhone apps are easier than others to run on a Mac—obviously you’ve not got the touchscreen functionality, so you might have to take some time working out the trackpad (or mouse) gestures and keyboard combinations that will enable you to control the app properly in its new desktop environment.

Apps that require a lot of typing are actually more straightforward on a Mac, because you’ve got a full-sized, physical keyboard. Take iOS apps such as Letterboxd or Airbnb for example: They both work on macOS if you don’t want to use the respective websites, and running searches or entering details is much quicker than it is on a phone touchscreen.

The macOS platform does give you a bit of help with touchscreen inputs: If you hold down the Option key on your keyboard, for example, you’re able to use a trackpad as a virtual touchscreen, which can make the control of certain apps and games more manageable. In most apps, clicks equate to taps, and swipes on a trackpad match swipes on a screen.

With an app running, you can click on its name on the menu bar and then choose Settings to configure it further: You can set how opening web links is handled under the General tab, while under Touch Alternatives you can set up different ways that touchscreen inputs are replicated on a keyboard (including the Option trick mentioned above).

Games designed for iPhones and iPads work in the same way as apps, so this is also a good way of enjoying some leisure time on your Mac. Well-known titles such as Crossy Road, Monument Valley, and Two Dots are available on macOS, for example, and are fairly easy to operate with a keyboard and trackpad (or mouse).

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Both Google Maps and Apple Maps are intended to help you get from A to B as efficiently and as safely as possible, and to that end they make use of crowdsourced data on anything that might get in the way of that: Road works, accidents, lane closures, hazards, and speed checks, for example.

We know these apps are smart enough to work out some problems such as traffic congestion on their own, because users will all be slowing down at the same spot. However, it also relies on drivers to report what’s on the road as well, to get a complete picture of what conditions are like.

You can take part in these community reports too, doing your bit to let other users know about problems on the road—these apps don’t just go off one person’s say-so, but if enough reports about something match up, then it’ll be reflected in what you see on the map as you navigate around.

Reporting incidents in Google Maps

You have to be in the navigation mode for Google Maps in order to report something. Tap the icon on the right, that looks like a plus symbol inside a speech bubble: This will bring up the report options. You can get to the same screen by swiping up on the estimated journey time (under the map), to show the Add a report option.

These may vary slightly depending on where in the world you are, but you’ll typically see options such as Crash, Mobile speed camera, Congestion, Roadworks, Lane closure, Stalled vehicle, and Object on road. There are no further options to set, but an Undo button is briefly displayed before the report is logged, if you change your mind.

You can also use your voice to make a report, which is the safer option if you’re driving. Just say “hey Google” and then the report you want to make—”there’s a crash here” for example. As long as your choice of phrasing makes it clear what you want to report, Google Assistant will understand what you mean.

If you’re using Android Auto, at the time of writing, there’s no way to report incidents—either by tapping on the screen or using Google Assistant—so you have to use your phone. It seems a strange omission by Google, but you will still see the incidents and hazards that have been reported by other users on your car’s dashboard.

Reporting incidents in Apple Maps

In Apple Maps on the iPhone, you can report incidents without being in navigation mode (if you’re just walking by, for example): Tap your account picture (next to the search box), then Reports, Report a New Issue, and Report an Incident. If you are in navigation mode, tap the route details underneath the map, then Report an Incident.

The three options are Crash, Hazard, or Speed Check, though they can vary by country. In navigation mode, your report is instantly registered at your current location, but if you’re not using navigation mode then you have the option to specify a location on the map. You can also add some brief written details and even photos to go alongside the report. Tap your account picture on the main maps screen, then Reports to see reports that you’ve previously logged.

All of this can be managed via Siri too, which is also a safer option if your eyes are on the road. Your phrasing doesn’t matter too much, as long as you clearly communicate the gist—”hey Siri, report an accident” or “hey Siri, there’s something in the road” would both be acceptable, for example. If you use Siri, the report is instantly registered.

If you’re using Apple Maps with CarPlay, then you can make use of Siri as described above. If you’re able to use the screen safely, when you’re not navigating, you can also tap on the little blue icon on the left (showing an exclamation mark inside a rectangular speech bubble) to find the report options. If navigation mode is enabled, tap on the route eta box to find the same report options.

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Whether it’s a piece of paper covered with notes or a whiteboard crammed with scribbled ideas, don’t you wish you could just copy those words and paste them somewhere else? It turns out you can. 

There are all kinds of apps and tools capable of copying handwritten text so you can paste it somewhere else. Such apps are seldom perfect—you can expect a few quirks, like formatting weirdness or the occasional typo. They’re pretty great, though, even if your handwriting isn’t the best. 

I, for example, have truly atrocious handwriting (as you’re about to see). This makes me uniquely qualified to test such apps—if they can deal with my chicken scratches, they can probably deal with yours. Let’s dive in. 

Copy handwritten text using any Apple device

If you own an Apple device you don’t need any app to copy handwriting–you can just take a picture of a document. Then, tap-and-hold to copy the text in the image, the same way you would with text on a website. 

You can then paste the text into the app of your choice. 

The results are pretty good, though you may need to fine tune them. And this isn’t limited to the iPhone: It also works on your Mac. Just open any image with handwritten text using the Preview app; you’ll be able to copy the handwriting as though it were any other text. 

Copy handwritten text using Microsoft Lens

If you’re an Android user, or just want a solution that doesn’t require you to manually copy the text you want, check out Microsoft Lens for Android and iOS. This application is mostly a way to scan documents using your phone but it offers a tool for copying text.

Tap Actions at the bottom of the screen, then use the Capture printed text to extract the feature (it’s the default after you tap Actions.) Now take this picture—Lens will ask you to crop out anything that’s not in the document, then extract the text for you. Tap Copy and the text will be on your clipboard, ready to paste in any app you want. 

Copy handwritten text using Google Docs

Google Docs can convert handwritten text to images, albeit in a less streamlined way. You’ll need to take a picture of the image and then upload it to Google Drive. Right-click the image in Google Drive, then click Open with followed by Google Docs.

There will be a short loading screen after which you’ll see a new document with the image. Below the image, you’ll see the extracted text. 

There’s a bit of formatting weirdness, granted, but it’s perfectly workable. This is useful for extracting longer bits of text and then quickly sharing them with other people. You can just share the document (possibly after cleaning it up a little). 

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Most of us will find ourselves rather overwhelmed by digital photos these days: The ease with which pictures can be snapped by and stored on a smartphone means we can collect dozens or even hundreds of them per day, most of which we’ll never see again (unless they pop up in some social media recap of the year).

The sheer volume of images we accumulate now, coupled with the frequency with which we switch between multiple devices and share pictures around with friends and family, means that duplicates can quickly appear. Before you know it, you’ve got seven copies of the same meme or the same school photo of your niece on your phone.

Duplicate photos don’t really serve any purpose, other than to take up space on your smartphone (and your cloud storage accounts). Fortunately, weeding them out isn’t too difficult, and there are ways to attempt the task on both Android and iOS that don’t take a huge amount of time or effort.

Finding duplicates on Android

Android phones differ in certain ways depending on their manufacturer, but most Android users are likely to be using Google Photos. You may not realize it, but Google Photos actually has duplicate detection built in: If you try and upload an image that’s exactly the same as an image already in your library, then it won’t be saved. (You can test this feature by copying an image on a computer, and then trying to upload both copies to Google Photos on the web.)

If you do spot photos that look identical in Google Photos, they’re probably just very similar, or set to different sizes. It’s also worth bearing in mind that while Google Photos won’t upload the same photo twice to the cloud, this doesn’t affect the images stored locally on your phone, so duplicates might creep in here. For example, you might have taken a photo and then sent it on through a messaging app, which would create its own backup of the file.

To check for duplicate files (including photos) on an Android handset, you can use Files by Google. Open up the app, then tap the Clean icon on the toolbar at the bottom. If there are indeed duplicate files on your phone, you should see a prompt to delete them with a Select files button: Tap this and you can pick which duplicates you want to delete. To erase them all, pick All duplicates. Note that only the file copies will be wiped—the originals will be left intact.

Samsung offers a similar feature on its Galaxy phones through the Samsung My Files app. Scroll down on the front screen of the app, then choose Manage storage and Duplicate files. If there are any duplicates on your handset, you’ll be able to see them alongside the originals in a list: Select the copies that you want to get rid of, then tap the Delete icon at the bottom.

If neither of those options work for you for whatever reason, there are plenty of third-party tools for the job available on the Google Play Store. One of the best we’ve come across is Duplicates Cleaner. It is fast and free to use—though upgrading to the premium version will give you more advanced search tools and take away the ads.

Finding duplicates on iOS

Over on iPhones, we’re assuming that most people are going to be using the default Photos app that comes with iOS. If you’re using Google Photos, then what we’ve said before still applies: Duplicates can’t be uploaded to the web, even if you have somehow amassed duplicate images on your iPhone’s local storage.

If you open up Apple Photos on your iPhone, you can tap on Albums on the bottom toolbar, and then scroll down to Duplicates to check if there are any on your device. If there are, you’ll be able to see the original images next to the copies in chronological order, with the oldest at the top. Tap the three dots (top right) then Filter to show only photos, only videos, or both together.

Tap the Merge button next to any pair of duplicates to get rid of the extra one. Apple says it keeps the “highest quality version” of the picture and moves the rest to the Recently Deleted album, where they can be recovered if necessary. If you want to select more than one pair of duplicates at a time, tap Select at the top and then Select next to every pair that you’d like to merge.

Opting to select duplicates, rather than simply tapping the Merge buttons, gives you access to some extra features as well: Tap on the three dots in the bottom right corner (with one or more pairs selected) and you have the option to delete both copies of the image, copy them somewhere else, add them to an album, and adjust the metadata associated with them (like the date and time they were taken).

As on Android, there are numerous third-party apps that will do the job of hunting down and removing duplicate photos on your iPhone for you. Remo Duplicate Photos Remover is the best free option that we’ve come across on iOS, which makes short work of finding identical images on your handset and helping you remove them.

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The start of a new year is a time to take stock, a time to make plans, and a time to get your life in better order—and you can, if you like, extend that to the home screens that appear whenever you unlock your smartphone. You’re most likely going to be spending a lot of time staring at these home screens as you navigate between apps and widgets. The better organized they are, the quicker you can get stuff done. 

The more apps you have installed, the more unruly and sprawling your home screens are likely to become, but that doesn’t have to be the case. Both Android and iOS come with features you can use to help bring some order to the chaos. Put aside a few minutes for the job and you’ll soon have your home screens in better shape.

Android

Different Android phone manufacturers take different approaches to home screen management, but some tricks work the same on almost all phones. For example, try dragging one app shortcut on top of another on the home screen: A new folder is created that you can drag more apps into. Tap on a folder to open it and rename it, and drag all the shortcuts out of a folder to delete it.

You can make more room for your app icons by creating more home screens—just press and hold an app icon, drag it to the far right of the screen, and a new home screen will appear–like a new, swipeable page. There’s a balance to be struck between having home screens that are too cluttered and having too many home screens, but you’ve got that flexibility.

On Pixel phones, tap and hold on a blank area of a home screen, then choose Home settings to make further changes. The next page lets you turn off the default behavior of adding home screen shortcuts for every app you install (for a more streamlined home screen). You can also tap Suggestions to have your phone create a bottom row of shortcuts on the first home screen, based on the apps you use the most.

If you’re using a Galaxy phone, press and hold on a blank area of a home screen, then choose Settings to find some configuration options: As on Pixel phones, you can prevent home screen shortcuts from appearing automatically for new apps you install. You can also change the grid size for your home screens and the folders on it.

Widgets are another way of keeping home screens organized: If you have at-a-glance information from an app (like the weather forecast), you may not need a home screen shortcut for it. Tap and hold on a blank area of a home screen, then choose Widgets to see what’s available (the list will depend on the apps you’ve got installed).

[ Related: The best sports widgets for iPhone and iPad ]

To remove an app shortcut from a home screen, press and hold on it, then drag it up to the Remove panel (on Pixel phones) or tap the Remove icon (on Galaxy phones). New shortcuts can be added from the app drawer, where all of your apps are: Swipe up from the bottom of the home screen to find it, then tap and hold on an app to drag a new shortcut to one of the home screens.

iOS

Over on the iPhone, you have your home screens, and also (if you keep swiping to the left) your app library. The app library is where all of your apps are, so you don’t need them all on your home screens too: To change where new apps are added by default, open Home Screen & App Library from the iOS Settings screen, then choose Add to Home Screen or App Library Only.

If there’s an app shortcut on a home screen that you only want in the app library, press and hold on the shortcut, then choose Remove App and Remove from Home Screen—the shortcut disappears, but the app is still available in the app library. You can’t customize the categories that the app library sorts your apps into, but you can use the search box at the top if you’re struggling to find something.

As on Android, just drag one home screen app shortcut on top of another one to create a new folder, which can help reduce home screen clutter further. If you open up the folder, you can rename it by tapping and holding on the current name, and remove apps by dragging them back out again. When only one app is left, the folder disappears.

To find more organization options for your home screens, press and hold on a blank area of any home screen until the apps start shaking. You can then tap on any – (minus) symbol to remove an app shortcut or widget, or tap the + (plus) icon in the top left to add new widgets. You can also drag app shortcuts around to rearrange them.

Tap the dots at the bottom of the screen while you’re in this edit mode, and you’re able to see all of your home screens: Uncheck any of the circles underneath to hide a particular home screen from view, which is handy if there are groups of apps you only use occasionally. Tap and drag on any of the home screens to change the order they’re in.

To add new home screen shortcuts, find the app you want to add a shortcut for in the app library, then tap and hold on it and pick Add to Home Screen from the menu that pops up. If the option isn’t there, then it means there’s already a shortcut for the app somewhere on one of your home screens.

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If you’ve followed the tech headlines in recent months, you’ve likely noticed the influx of artificial intelligence features and tools appearing inside many of our apps and gadgets. This phenomenon includes the excellent  Google Photos app. AI has long played an important role in Google Photos, doing everything from grouping images by the people in them, to brightening up dark spots.

With the launch of the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro phones though, the AI capabilities leveled up. These two handsets are the first Pixel phones to support Magic Editor, a new photo trickery feature that lets you apply a variety of effects with a single tap—effects that would’ve previously needed a computer, Photoshop, and a lot of time and skill.

Magic Editor can move people from one spot to another inside an image, or remove people and other objects altogether. You can use it to change the look of the sky, and even introduce elements that weren’t in the original snap.

Google says that “select Pixel phones” (including the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro) now have “early access” to Magic Editor. Over time, it should come to more handsets—to see if you’ve got it now, open an image in Google Photos on Android, tap Edit, then look for the Magic Editor icon—a glowing button in the lower left corner.

Making changes with Magic Editor

If you do find the Magic Editor button inside Google Photos, your first step is to select something on the image to manipulate. Options include a person, an object, or even the sky. If you want the app to suggest something to alter, tap the suggestions icon—the magic wand symbol at the bottom.

To make a manual selection, you can scribble over something with your finger, or circle it, or just tap it—the AI in Google Photos will try and intelligently select what it thinks you want to select (this is obviously easier if it stands out from the background). If you need to, pinch your fingers out or in on the image to change the zoom level.

Once you’ve made a selection, you can refine it by adding or subtracting from the selection using the buttons in the lower right corner of the interface. You can also make multiple selections if needed, using the same techniques—handy if there are several objects you need to take out of a picture.

If all you want to do is rub out the people or items you’ve selected, just tap Erase. Alternatively, tap and hold the selection to do something else with it: You can move it to a different position, or you can make it larger or smaller by dragging two fingers further apart on the selection or bring two fingers closer together. When you’re ready to start processing, tap the arrow button in the bottom right corner.

Whatever operation you’ve chosen to do, the app will take a few moments to think and to work with what you’ve given it. If you’ve erased something, for example, generative AI will fill in the space that’s left. The app will display four different versions of the resulting image, which you can swipe between to see the differences.

If you’re happy with what Google Photos has done, you can press the checkmark button (lower right) to save a copy of the image. If you’re not happy, you can go back, or swipe all the way to the right and get the app to generate another four images based on the selections you’ve made.

After you’ve performed one magic edit, you can carry on and do others as well, until you like what you see. You’re able to wipe away passersby who have ruined your family photo, for example, or add in a more dramatic sky to a landscape shot, or bring your pet pooch more into the foreground, using the Magic Editor tools.

It’s all designed to be as streamlined and as accessible as possible, but do remember that this is an early version—it’s going to get a lot better and roll out to a lot more devices over time. In essence, it’s advanced photo editing in an instant, in your pocket, and another example of how quickly AI capabilities are progressing.

The post This hidden Google Photos feature on Pixel phones transforms images using AI appeared first on Popular Science.

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The name Fitbit has become something of a catch-all of just about any wearable fitness tracking device. The now-Google-owned company has earned that esteem by producing versatile, reliable, feature-packed fitness trackers and smartwatches that are simple to operate. There’s lots that these wearables can do.

Part of the appeal of a Fitbit device is that it’ll keep tabs on your activity and your fitness automatically while you wear it, quietly logging stats and syncing them to the app on your phone. But, you can also get more proactive with the Fitbit app by setting goals for yourself too.

That means you go from simply recording what you’re up to, to trying to meet targets. That may sound a little daunting, but you’re able to build up slowly and go at your own pace—and it can do wonders for your overall well being. Note: You should talk to your doctor before starting any fitness-related activities or programs to make sure you’re going to be helping yourself and not doing harm.

Setting your goals

Open up the Fitbit app for Android or iOS on your phone, then tap the You tab, and select See all next to the Goals heading. You’ll then get a list of all the goals you can set, and all the goals you’ve configured already—for those categories where you haven’t already put a target in place, you can tap Set goal to do just that. In some cases, the Fitbit app will have already put a goal in place for you.

There are more options for goal setting than you might have realized: Some relate to data automatically gathered by your Fitbit device (like energy burn), while others draw on data that you’ll have to log manually (like nutrition). Your options cover sleep, movement, weight, mindfulness, and more besides.

The exact procedure for setting a goal will vary depending on the goal type. For example, if you tap on Sleep duration, you can adjust the amount of sleep you want to log each night by tapping on the + (plus) and – (minus) buttons to set hours and minutes. Tap on Hourly activity, and you’re able to choose the hours of the day that count towards your goals.

You can jump back in on any of these goals and make changes as you go, if you find that you’ve been a bit too ambitious (or not ambitious enough). If you prefer, you can also make changes to your goals via the Fitbit web dashboard: Hover over the tile showing the goal you want to adjust, then click the cog icon.

Your Fitbit device also has a main goal attached—this is the one featured most prominently in the app and on the web. To set it in the app, tap the devices icon on the Today tab (top left), then pick your device and Main Goal—your options will vary depending on the device, but you can typically choose from Steps, Distance, and Calories.

Staying on track

Once your goals are set, you can rely on your Fitbit to track your progress. If you need to log something manually (such as water intake), tap on the + (plus) button on the Today tab inside the app, then choose whatever it is you want to log. You can also log activities manually if your Fitbit hasn’t picked them up.

The Today tab keeps you right up to date with how close you’re getting to your targets, with the pale green circles filling up with a darker green shade as you go. Tap on any of the stats (such as steps taken or distance covered) to get a more detailed breakdown, and to look back on previous days.

You can change the look of the Today tab if it’s not highlighting the goals you’re most interested in. Tap the pen icon (top right), then swipe left or right to work through the various layouts—there’s also a custom layout where you can pick exactly which goals are shown at the top of the screen. Further down the settings page you can show or hide particular metrics as well. Tap Save to confirm your choices.

The Fitbit app can send you notifications about your progress if you’d find that useful. To set them up, Tap your account picture (top right), then Fitbit settings and Notifications to make your choices. You can opt into a weekly summary of everything you’ve been doing, for example.

You might also find some encouragement from the achievement badges that appear inside the Fitbit app, which you’ll find on the You tab. Tap on the See all links next to any badge category to see the badges you’ve got, and those that you can still aim for—which might give you some additional motivation in hitting those goals.

The post How to set goals and track your progress on your Fitbit wearable device appeared first on Popular Science.

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When it comes to using your laptop on a train, or anywhere without WiFi, using your phone as a hotspot is a great solution. The only real downside: Computers soak up lots of data. Phones are designed to wait until you connect to WiFi to do things like download software updates, but computers don’t know any better. 

You probably never think about how much data your computer uses when you’re at home where the unlimited Wi-Fi flows freely. It’s different when you’re outside, though—unlimited mobile plans are rare, and going over your monthly allotment can get expensive quickly. Plus, even some “unlimited” plans will seriously throttle your speeds once you get past a certain threshold. I personally hot-spotted my phone during a trip to New Zealand only to discover I almost immediately used up 1GB of the 4GB SIM card I’d purchased at the airport. Here’s how to limit your usage on Windows and macOS devices. 

Enabled metered connection on Windows

Windows downloads a lot of updates and other information from Microsoft every time you connect to the internet, which can eat through mobile broadband quickly. This is why Windows allows you to mark any internet connection—including specific WiFi hotspots—as metered. 

To designate the current network as metered, open the Settings app, which you can find in the Start menu. Then, head to Network & Internet and then click the name of your current WiFi network. Turn on the Metered connection feature. Enabling this feature, according to Microsoft, changes a few things. For one, only priority updates will be installed. OneDrive also pauses automatic uploading of all offline files. App store downloads and screen tile syncing may also slow down. In addition, some apps—not all, but some—are programmed to use less of your data quota when this option is enabled. You can go further, if you want, and set a monthly data limit for the network you’ve marked as limited. Just click Set a data limit to help control data usage on this network and then click Set limit.

From here you can set a daily, weekly, or monthly limit for the metered network. All internet access will be shut down after you reach your limit. This might be a little extreme in most circumstances, granted, but it’s useful if you have a solid data cap and you don’t want to go over it. 

How to limit hot-spotted traffic on Mac

Apple’s computer operating system doesn’t really come with any built-in ways to limit usage. A third party application called TripMode does the job quite nicely, though. The application, which offers a seven day trial, starts at $17 if you buy it directly from the company. 

The application sits in the menu bar, tallying how much data you’ve used since you connected to the current WiFi network. 

Just knowing how much of your plan you’re using is helpful but TripMode goes a step further. Toggle the switch in the top-left corner and every application will be prevented from accessing the internet. You can give back permission to certain apps by checking them. This means only the apps you specifically give permission to access the internet can access the internet. 

TripMode remembers which networks you chose to limit usage on and which ones you don’t. It also remembers which applications you allowed internet access on those devices. The result: once you use TripMode for a while you won’t even have to think about it. 

The post How to use your phone as a hotspot without blowing through all your data appeared first on Popular Science.

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Sometimes you just need a quick update on the latest sports scores on your iPhone and Widgets provide the best way to do that. Widgets simply sit on your iPhone or iPad home screen and display regularly updated information you can quickly consume without opening the applications. There are plenty of great sports widgets for iPhone if you know where to look beyond the first-party offerings from teams, leagues, and even broadcast networks. Here are the applications I found that I think are best. These applications support as many sports, and leagues, as possible while providing useful, easy-to-read Widgets. 

Sports Alerts

Sports Alerts is possibly the most complete sports Widget out there right now. You can add Widgets for dozens of different sports leagues all around the world. The selection includes America’s biggest professional and college sports as well as soccer leagues from around the world (including the NWSL, which I’ve had trouble finding in other applications.) 

The app offers two main home screen Widgets—one showing you today’s scores for any given league and another focusing on a specific team. You can add as many of these widgets to your home screen as you want, meaning you could in theory add multiple leagues for an overview. Add too many apps and things start to look cluttered rather quickly, but that’s more than made up for by how information dense and up-to-the-minute accurate these Widgets are. If you want to monitor an entire league without having to open an actual app this is the widget for you. There are also a couple of PGA-specific widgets for golf fans. 

This is the only application I found that offers support for Live Activities, which show up on the iPhone lock screen before you even unlock it. This adds extra details beyond the score, like who is up to bat in an MLB game or who scored the most recent goal in an NHL contest. It’s the best way I’ve found to keep up with a game short of actually watching it, and it gets better: live activities also show up in standby mode and even the dynamic island at the top of the display on certain phones. 

Sofascore

Sofascore offers two main Widgets: a small one that shows you the score for the current game or a medium one that shows both the most recent game and the current and/or upcoming one. It’s not a lot of Widget variety, granted—it lacks the option to see scores from an entire league. But where Sofascore falls short in the Widget category it makes up for in the sheer number of leagues that are supported. I easily found the big four American organizations, of course, alongside every NCAA league you can think of. You can go so much further, though. I found darts—darts!—in this app. From what I can tell if a sport exists this app can give you a widget to track your favorite team and/or athlete in it. 

Superfan

Superfan offers a variety of extremely customizable Widgets that win when it comes to design. The problem: the free version only offers one simple Widget, which shows the current score for games on now or the time and broadcast information for the current game. I like seeing what channel a game will be on—none of the other apps I tested offered this in a widget—and for that reason I think some people will prefer even the free version of Superfan to other apps. 

Superfan offers more to people who are willing to pay. There’s customizable Widgets offering the scores for multiple games and even league standings. There’s also Live Event support, allowing you to see the score on the lock screen or in the dynamic island. The problem, and it’s a big one, is that the price is $2.99 per month—just short of $36 a year. That’s tougher to swallow than a one-time purchase price. 

Apple TV has (some) built-in support for Live Events

I’ve talked a bit about Live Events, which allow you to see live sports scores on the iPhone’s lock screen and on the dynamic island. You don’t necessarily need an app to use this feature. The Apple TV app, which comes pre-installed on your iPhone and iPad, offers it. Just open the application, scroll down until you see Live Sports, and open that. Find the game you want to keep track of, tap it, then tap the Follow live button. 

This feature doesn’t work for many leagues at the moment—it’s limited to the NBA, MLB, MLS, and some European soccer matches. And it’s a little annoying to turn on. You’ll have to repeat these steps every time a game you want to follow live. Still, it’s nice not to have to install anything. Hopefully they add more leagues soon. 

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As movies have become available for digital download or subscription-based streaming, the popularity of physical media has understandably dwindled. Best Buy’s recent announcement that it will no longer stock DVDs or Blu-rays provides an undeniable sign of the times. Digital is quicker, easier, and doesn’t require a trip out into the real world.

The digital model isn’t perfect, however, which makes owning Blu-rays (or even old DVDs) appealing here in the download era. Digital content doesn’t stick around forever—and you may well have noticed content turning up and then disappearing on your streaming service of choice. You’re only really renting access to a library that’s constantly shifting. You may find yourself debating whether you want to pay another four dollars to rent a movie that was on Netflix just two weeks ago.

Complex licensing arrangements can change suddenly and across regions. Even digital content that users “own” can get pulled from a platform completely, as has happened with the PlayStation Store. Imagine spending money to own a digital copy of a movie forever—and then finding it’s been taken away from you.

With all of this in mind—and with home internet connections under more strain than ever—perhaps we’ve abandoned physical media a little too prematurely. There’s still something to be said for building up your own collection of high-definition Blu-ray movies, which will always belong to you in perpetuity (and which will still work even when the Wi-Fi has gone down).

Watching Blu-rays on your TV is simple if you have a proper player (which includes the current Xbox and PlayStation consoles). PC playback requires a bit more work.  You need to make sure you’ve got the right hardware and the right software in place—and you’ll probably need to spend some money—but we’ll guide you through all the considerations.

How to play Blu-rays on a Windows PC

First of all, you’re going to need a Blu-ray player for your Windows PC—they’re not as ubiquitous as they once were, but you can still find them. If you’re buying a custom-made desktop computer, building your own from scratch, or already own one with a free 3.5-inch drive slot in it, then you can go for an internal option like the LG WH16NS40 or the Pioneer BDR-212DBK (both in the $80-90 range at the time of writing).

You will of course need to make sure that your motherboard has the necessary connections to hook up to the drive—SATA (Serial AT Attachment) in the case of the models we just mentioned—so if you’re not sure, get some advice from your local PC builder, or run a web search on your motherboard make and model.

If you don’t want to open up your existing desktop computer, aren’t building a new one, or have a laptop, then an external Blu-ray player is the way to go. Your options here include the Asus BW-16D1X-U ($140) or the Pioneer BDR-XD08B ($145): These drives simply connect up to your Windows PC via a USB cable, and then you’re good to go.

With a Blu-ray drive installed, and a Blu-ray disc of a movie you want to watch, all that’s left is the software. Unfortunately, Windows 11 can’t play Blu-rays natively, so you’re going to need some third-party software to do the job—and due to the video format licensing involved, you’re mostly restricted to paid-for options.

Both CyberLink PowerDVD ($70) and JRiver Media Center ($70) will do the job for you, and you can test them for free first. If you’re ordering a new custom-built PC with a Blu-ray drive included, you might be able to get the software bundled with it for a lower price—but that’s down to the discretion of whomever is building your PC. The good news is that those are one-off costs, and will give you years of Blu-ray watching.

You can watch Blu-ray discs through free software such as VLC Media Player, but it requires a lot of additional, manual work—see here for a comprehensive guide—and isn’t always guaranteed to function properly. If you enjoy tinkering around with software and video codecs, it might be something you want to try first before spending money on software.

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We spend a lot of time staring at the screens on our phones, and those screens are only getting brighter: The iPhone 15 can reach a peak brightness of 2,000 nits, compared with the 1,200 nits of the iPhone 14 that came the year before. Of course, it won’t always operate at those eye-scorching levels, but illumination levels are constantly creeping upward.

While there’s no clear evidence between electronic screens and permanent eye damage, studies are beginning to link excessive phone use with eye strain, at least—and you don’t want to take any chances when it comes to your vision. The effect varies depending on your eyes as well. 

Aside from just using your phone less, these devices come with built-in tools to minimize the negative effects of prolonged screen time. For example, both iPhones and Android phones let you reduce the amount of blue light emitted in the evening—something that’s thought to disrupt sleep if consumed at the wrong times. You can find the blue light controls under Display & Brightness then Night Shift in Settings on iOS, and under Display and Night Light in Settings on Android, but here we’re focusing on a different tool: Screen Distance.

Screen Distance is new in iOS 17, so make sure your iPhone is up to date to make use of it. It’s included in iPadOS 17 as well, so it’s available on your iPad if you need it.

How Screen Distance works

The aim of Screen Distance is to make sure you’re not holding your phone’s screen too close to your eyes. There’s some research associating smart device use with myopia, or near-sightedness, and Apple has introduced Screen Distance to reduce this risk and the risk of eye strain in general.

To measure how far your eyes are away from your phone, the feature uses the TrueDepth selfie camera typically used for FaceID. Every premium iPhone since the iPhone XR, the iPhone XS, and the iPhone XS Max (all launched in 2018) has a TrueDepth camera on the front, with the exception of the iPhone SE, which doesn’t have access to Screen Distance. 

The distance that your iPhone will be measuring for is 12 inches or a little over 30 centimeters, and you have to be holding your iPhone closer to your face than that for “an extended period” of time before an alert will pop up on screen, asking you to move your handset further away from your face.

How to use Screen Distance

Screen Distance isn’t enabled by default when you install iOS 17, but you can turn it on by loading up Settings on your iPhone, then heading to the Screen Time menu. This is where you can manage options like daily time limits on apps and content and privacy restrictions, and it’s also where the Screen Distance feature can be found.

Tap on Screen Distance, and the iPhone will walk you through several pages describing what the feature is and how it works—these will only appear the first time that you enable Screen Distance. After that, you’ll be taken to the toggle switch where you can turn Screen Distance on or off. Note that for kids aged under 13 who are part of a Family Sharing group, Screen Distance is turned on by default.

You won’t notice anything different about the way your iPhone operates with Screen Distance enabled, until your handset gets too close to your face for more than a few minutes. An “iPhone is Too Close” message then covers the screen, and you’ll need to move your phone to arm’s length again to be able to tap Continue and to carry on using the device as normal.

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Your computer likely offers more storage space than your iPhone or iPad, especially if you’re working on a desktop machine. What if you could access files on your computer from your phone without eating up your built-in storage space? It turns out you can do exactly that, all without the need for any cloud storage.

Both macOS and Windows have built-in file sharing for your local network, and Apple’s mobile operating system can access both of them. Users can browse any documents, photos, videos, or any other files on a computer from the comfort of a mobile device. The process simply requires digging around a little in the Files application. Remember that local file sharing, by its nature, only works if you’re on the same network as the other device. 

Don’t set up file sharing away from home

A word of caution before getting started: local file sharing does involve some risk, especially for novices. If not configured properly you could accidentally give access to all of your files to anyone on your network. For this reason it’s a feature best used at home, on your own network. You definitely shouldn’t enable this feature on if you’re using a public WiFi network; you should use your own discretion while thinking about other networks, including work or a friend’s house. I, personally, only enable file sharing on desktop computers that don’t leave my house.

Share folders in macOS

Open System Settings on your Mac, which you can find on your Dock or by clicking the Apple logo in the top-left corner of your screen and then clicking System Settings. Click General in the left panel and then click Sharing. Make sure that File Sharing is toggled on. 

Click the “i” icon to the right of the switch you just turned on to configure your shares. By default only your public folder is shared. You can add any other folder by clicking the “+” icon below the left panel. Choose any folder on your computer and then choose who can access it. I recommend only allowing your current account to access the file. 

Repeat this process for all of the folders you want to share and click Done when you’re ready. 

Share folders in Windows

Sharing from Windows is a little more complicated because of an almost ten year old bug. Basically: if you log into Windows using a Microsoft account, sharing more-or-less breaks. There are workarounds, like disabling Windows Hello, but they’re hard to recommend for security reasons. You could also fix this by not using a Microsoft account to log in to Windows, but I can understand why most users aren’t going to want to do that. 

The best workaround I found is to create a local account on your device and use that only for sharing. To get started open the Settings app and head to Accounts in the sidebar. Click Other users and then the Add account button. The interface will try to push you into adding a Microsoft account; avoid that by clicking I don’t have this person’s sign-in information and then Add a user without a Microsoft account. Choose a username and password for this account, then provide answers to a few security questions. 

Now it’s time to share some folders. On Windows you can start sharing any folder by right-clicking it in Windows Explorer and then clicking Properties. Click the Sharing tab and then click the Share button. Add the account you just created, then give it the permissions you want. 

Click the Share button when everything is configured the way you like it. The folder will be accessible immediately; repeat this process for all of the folders you want to share. 

Access shared folders on your iPhone or iPad

If you already have shared folders on your network you can connect to them in the Files app, which is pre-installed on your iPhone and iPad. Tap the three-dot menu in the top-right corner on your iPhone; the same button is in the top-right corner of the left sidebar on your iPad. Tap Connect to Server.

You will be asked for a server name; type the name of the local computer you’re trying to connect with. After that you will be asked for a username and password. 

If you’re connecting to a Mac use the username and password you use to log into that device. If you’re connecting to a Windows computer use the credentials you created earlier. 

You now have access to the folders you shared earlier, right from your mobile device. You can browse and open files as you would on your computer.

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There’s nothing new about the practice of keeping a daily journal, and there’s nothing new about using a phone to do it—but what is new is Apple’s dedicated app for the job, called (appropriately enough) Journal.

Journal is rolling out now with iOS 17.2, so if you’ve not yet updated your iPhone to the latest software version, you’ll need to do that first. Journal will appear as a new app on your home screen and in your library.

The idea is for users to “capture and write about everyday moments and special events in their lives, and include photos, videos, audio recordings, locations, and more to create rich memories,” says Apple.

Here we’ll guide you through the features available in Journal right now, and why you might want to make use of it. Bear in mind that there are plenty of other great iOS journaling apps out there, including Day One, Moodnotes, and Daylio.

Getting started and options

Launch Journal from the home screen or the app library, and you’ll be introduced to some of its key features: Tap Continue when you’re ready to get started. Clearly your journal is going to look a little sparse until you’ve built up a few days’ worth of entries, but you can create new ones by tapping the large + (plus) button at the bottom of the screen.

At this point you’ll be asked if you want to turn on journaling suggestions: These are prompts based on how you use your iPhone, so they might be based on a FaceTime call you made with someone or a group of photos you took. You can turn them on, carry on without them, or customize the types of suggestions you get.

If you turn on journaling suggestions, you’ll be given some ideas for how to start an entry (with a photo memory for example)—or you can tap New Entry to start with a blank page. If you’re working without journaling suggestions, you’ll just be taken to a blank page, where you can start recording your thoughts.

To manage journal suggestions in the future, you can head to Settings: Pick Privacy & Security and then Journaling Suggestions to turn them on or off (or to turn some of them on). You can also clear the journaling suggestions history, if you’d rather this kind of information wasn’t stored on your iPhone (it’s never sent anywhere else).

Choose Journal from Settings and you’re able to control some aspects of how the app works. You can disable journaling suggestions for new entries (without actually turning the feature off altogether), you can choose to lock your journal behind a separate passcode, and you can choose whether or not to get regular prompts to write something on specific days at a specific time.

Creating and managing entries

When you create a new entry in the Journal app, you get a blank note: There’s nothing too much in the way of form or structure to guide you, so just start writing. Down at the bottom of the new entry screen you’ve got icons for adding photos, voice recordings, and locations to the note you’re creating.

You can also get some smart suggestions for what to include, if the journaling suggestions feature is enabled, by tapping on the icon that looks like a magic wand with stars around it. These suggestions will include writing prompts—you might get asked to think about someone special in your life, for example, or a favorite poem.

Tap the three dots up at the top of the journal entry screen and you can edit the date of the entry, if you need to—very useful for those days when you forget to make a note on the actual day itself, and need to catch up. You can also delete the note from here. You’re also able to bookmark notes using the icon in the top left corner.

Select Done when you’re happy with your entry, and you’ll be taken back to the overview screen, where your posts are listed in chronological order, with a small preview of their contents. You can, if you want, add multiple entries per day—if you need to edit or delete an entry you’ve already made, tap the three dots next to it.

Tap the filters icon (three horizontal lines) in the top right corner to show specific types of post: Those with photos or voice notes, for example, or those you’ve bookmarked. As you start to use the app in earnest, this filers feature will become more useful in terms of browsing back through previous entries.

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You might already be familiar with widgets from your iPhone or Android phone—interactive panels that are something in between shortcut icons and full apps. Using these widgets, you can complete tasks like ticking off a to do list or starting up a playlist right from the home screen, without having to open up the relevant app first.

The same functionality is available on your computer desktop too. Both Windows and macOS let you drop in widgets for checking your schedule, keeping up with the news, showcasing your favorite photos, and much more. They don’t take long to set up, and can be useful in all kinds of ways.

Desktop widgets on Windows

You can bring up the widgets panel in Windows by pressing Win+W or by clicking the icon to the far left of the taskbar: The icon may look like a blue box and a white box, or it may show some dynamic information (like the weather or traffic updates). If the icon isn’t there, head to Personalization then Taskbar in Settings, and make sure the Widgets shortcut is enabled.

Even if you’ve never used the widgets panel before, you’ll see some widgets included. If you click the three dots in the top right corner of one of these widgets, you can hide it from view or pin it to the top. Some widgets will also have a Customize widget link, which lets you change what you see in the widget—the area used for the weather forecast, for instance, or the sports teams you want to see scores for.

To add a new widget to the panel, click the + (plus) button up at the top. You’ll be given a selection of widgets created by Microsoft to choose from, including ones for starting a focused session of work and linking your phone to Windows: Click Pin to add any of these widgets, or Find more widgets to see a broader collection in the Microsoft Store.

While these widgets are close to your desktop, they’re not actually on your desktop: For that, you need a third-party tool called Widget Launcher. If you open the Microsoft Store from the Start menu or from inside the widget panel, you can search for and install the Widget Launcher tool.

From the Home tab of the Widget Launcher, you can see the widgets that are available, covering everything from notes to clocks to calendars. When you find one that you like, click Launch Widget to add it to the desktop—then click and drag on it to reposition it. You’ll notice that many widgets come with a variety of customization settings attached, which you can edit in the Widget Launcher window or by clicking the cog icon next to an individual widget.

Desktop widgets on macOS

Widgets can live in a pop-up sidebar on macOS, which you can see if you click on the time and date up in the top right corner of the screen. They can also be added to the desktop as well, if needed: Ctrl+click on a blank area of the desktop, then choose Edit Widgets to browse through the available selection.

You’ll see there are plenty to choose from, but the exact list will vary depending on the applications you’ve got installed. Click on any entry on the left—like Reminders or Clock—to see the different shapes and sizes of widget you can pick from in that category. In Calendar, for instance, you can just have a badge showing the day and date, or see a more detailed list of your upcoming events.

Click and drag on a widget to position it on your desktop manually, or click the green + (plus) icon on a widget to have it neatly positioned on the desktop alongside other widgets. You can also drag widgets across from the pop-up sidebar (the desktop and sidebar selection don’t have to match, if you don’t want them to).

Ctrl+click on any widget on the desktop to change its size (if multiple sizes are available), and to edit its settings (if any settings are available). In the case of the weather widget, for example, you can choose between a small, medium, or large widget, and set the location for the weather forecast.
If you already use app widgets on your iPhone, you can quickly transfer these over to your macOS desktop as well: Open the Apple menu on your Mac, then pick System Settings and Desktop & Dock: Make sure the Use iPhone widgets option is enabled to see them on macOS. You can also adjust the Widget style setting to choose between monochrome and full color widgets.

The post How to add widgets to your desktop on Windows and macOS appeared first on Popular Science.

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Reminder apps play a larger and larger role in our increasingly busy lives. They work diligently away in the background to make sure we don’t forget groceries, anniversaries, chores, and whatever else might otherwise slip our minds.

There are a whole host of apps in this category to pick from, and of course that includes options from Google and Apple. Google offers  Google Keep, and Apple built its Reminders app directly into the software for  iPhones, iPads, Apple Watches, Macs, and the web.

While Reminders may look rather basic on the surface, it has plenty to offer, and it’s always close at hand on your Apple devices. Here we’ve collected a few of our favorite and tricks tips for getting the most out of the app.

For the sake of simplicity and brevity we’ve focused on the Reminders app on iOS, but the same features aren’t difficult to find on the same app in iPadOS, macOS, watchOS, and through the online iCloud portal.

1. Sort your grocery lists

In iOS 17 (and the equivalent updates on other platforms), the Reminders app offers a Groceries list format.  You can choose this from the List Type selection when you create a new list inside the app, and the main benefit is you get your shopping items categorized for you.

Try adding new items to your list, and you’ll see that the app automatically moves them into subheadings like Bakery and Dairy. It should mean you shop more efficiently—whether you’re wandering around an actual store or ordering online.

2. Get reminders when you’re messaging

You might often find that your reminders are associated with a particular person. Maybe you need to ask them something or follow up on a previous conversation. Apple’s app has you covered in those situations

When you create a reminder (or if you tap the small “i” info button next to it after it’s created), you can turn on the When Messaging toggle switch and pick a contact. You’ll then get a notification about the reminder when you’re chatting with the relevant person in the Messages app.

3. Create list templates

If you’ve set up a list that works particularly well for you and that you think you’d like to use again, make it into a template. You’ll be able to add new lists in the same format and even share them with others.

To create a template, open up a list, tap the three dots in the top right corner, then choose Save as Template. A copy of the list in its current state is then made, and you can access it by going to the app’s front page, then tapping Add List and Templates.

Tap the info button (the small “i”) next to a template name to find the options for editing, sharing it, or deleting it. Tap on the template name itself to create a new version of this list, which you can then edit and work on independently as normal.

4. Make use of subtasks

Sometimes you’ll need lists within lists. For instance,  the reminder to pack your bags for a trip can include an actual list of things you need to bring. This type of scenario calls for subtasks

To create a subtask, tap the small “i” info button next to a reminder, then choose the Subtasks option. Alternatively, you can drag a reminder on top of another to add it as a subtask, or swipe right on a reminder and choose Indent—this makes the reminder a subtask of the reminder above it.

5. Build a smart list

Smart lists are great for pulling together a variety of reminders based on certain criteria such as the time they’re due, or a location they’re associated with. If you’re trying to manage a lot of different reminders and lists, it can be a big help.

When you create a new list, pick Smart List from the List Type drop-down menu, and you get a new Edit Filters option. Tap on this, and you can specify your filters, based on a reminder tag, date, time, location, flag, or priority. You can also limit the reminders that get included to those on specific lists that are already created.

6. Load up on widgets

If you’re using Reminders on your iPhone (or iPad), you can get even easier access to your lists and reminders by setting up widgets on the home screen. Press and hold on a blank area of a home screen, then tap the + (plus) button in the top right, then choose from the options under Reminders.

When iOS widgets first launched, they weren’t interactive—they just sent you to the Reminders app. Now though you can tick off items right from the widget without launching the app, which is much more convenient.

7. Get earlier reminders

When you create a reminder with a time and date attached, by default you’ll get a notification at that time or on that date (at 9am if it’s an all-day reminder). However, you can also get a reminder about your reminder in advance, if you need to.

When you’re creating a reminder, tap Date or Time on the Details page, then look for the Early Reminder option. You can also find it later by tapping the info button (the small “i”) next to a reminder.

Early reminders can be set for days, weeks, or months before the reminder is actually due. Tap on Custom from the drop-down list to make your own choice.

The post 7 tips for Apple Reminders to help you get your life together appeared first on Popular Science.

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Many of us spend hours each day interacting with a web browser like Google Chrome or Apple Safari. Those long sessions mean even small impacts on performance can end up making a big difference in terms of day-to-day productivity. Waiting just an extra half-second for each webpage to load can really add up over weeks, months, and even years.

Just like your computer in general, web browsers can slow down over time, as you start to do more and more with them. Whether that’s having more extensions installed or having more data cached to your computer’s local storage, it takes a toll.

You don’t have to just settle for this increasing sluggishness though, because there are ways to bring back the zippy performance that your browser had when it first started up. Some of these tricks are specific to one browser, but most work across the spectrum.

Installing updates

First and foremost you need to make sure you’re always running the latest version of your web browser of choice. This is so important that it’s now quite difficult to let your browser get out of date, in fact, without being nagged to install the upgrade.

Running the latest code means you have the newest features and the most up-to-date optimizations installed, and that you’re well protected against security exploits and nasty software bugs. It also means that your browser won’t get tripped up by any newer web technologies or complex web apps that it needs to work with.

Updates will be largely handled automatically, but you can check manually too. In Chrome, click the three dots (top right), then Help and About Google Chrome; in Edge, click the three dots (top right), then Help and Feedback and About Microsoft Edge. For Firefox on Windows, click the three horizontal lines (top right), then Help and About Firefox and in Firefox on macOS, open the Firefox menu and choose About Firefox.

When it comes to Safari, the updates for the browser are bundled in with updates for macOS. To make sure macOS is up to date, open the Apple menu, click System Settings, then choose General and Software Update.

Auditing extensions

There’s no doubt browser extensions can be very useful for getting around the web and doing more without having to launch another full program. But install too many of them and they will slowl things down. That’s especially true for add-ons that constantly analyze what you’re pulling up on the web.

With that in mind, it’s a good idea to run a regular audit of the extensions you’ve got in-place. Remove the ones you don’t make a lot of use of (you can always install them again in future), and you should get a snappier browser as a result.

In Chrome, you can find your extensions by clicking the three dots (top right), then Extensions and Manage Extensions—use the toggle switches to disable add-ons, and the Remove buttons to uninstall them. With Firefox, you need to click the three horizontal lines (top right), then Add-ons and themes: Again, you’ve got toggle switches for enabling and disabling extensions, but you can click the three dots and Remove to uninstall them.

If you’re using Microsoft Edge for your browsing, click the three dots (top right), then Extensions and Manage Extensions to find the toggle switches (for enabling and disabling) and Remove buttons (for uninstalling). Finally, in Safari, open the Safari menu and pick Settings then Extensions—the checkboxes let you enable and disable the add-ons, and the Uninstall buttons let you remove them.

Enabling optimizations

This one is a bit more specific to your web browser, but most modern day browsers come with a feature or two that’s designed to optimize your browsing experience. Make sure you know what’s available in the browser you use, and how you can enable these features in the browser settings.

In Google Chrome, click the three dots (top right), then Settings and Performance: You can turn on Memory saver to ‘snooze’ inactive tabs and free up memory, and Preload pages, which loads pages you’re likely to visit next in the background. Switch to the System tab to enable hardware acceleration, which delegates more intensive visual and audio tasks to your computer’s dedicated graphics and audio components for more efficient handling. 

You can find hardware acceleration, tab snoozing, and a few other performance-enhancing features in Microsoft Edge by clicking the three dots (top right), then Settings and System and Performance. You can also choose a balance between power (using all your system’s resources) and efficiency (saving the energy demands of the browser).

Firefox has just one setting you should turn on: Click the three horizontal lines (top right), then Settings and General to find Use recommended performance settings, which enables hardware acceleration. In Safari, meanwhile, you can pick Safari, Settings, and Tabs to have inactive tabs automatically shut down after a certain amount of time, freeing up system resources.

Starting again

There is one more option here, which is to uninstall your browser and start again from scratch (although you can’t do this with Safari or Edge, which are tied to their operating systems). It means all of your extensions and personalized settings get cleared out, as well as any temporary data files that haven’t been properly cleared. This is like a fresh start for your browser, and it should mean it gets back to its original speed.

You can uninstall applications in Windows by opening Settings from the Start menu, then choosing Apps and Installed apps—each app has three dots next to it, that you can click to find the option to uninstall. Over on macOS, open the Applications folder in Finder to locate your browsers, then drag the relevant icons down to the trash can icon on the dock to remove them from the system.

If you get asked if you want to clear the data associated with your browser at the same time, you should say yes to this if you want a properly clean start, without any of the baggage that has built up. You can then take to the web to redownload your browser of choice and start the setup process again.

Firefox comes with a feature that lets you do a reset of the software (returning it to its original state) without actually having to go through the uninstall and reinstall processes. Click the three horizontal lines (top right), then Help and More troubleshooting information, and then Refresh Firefox.

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If you’ve got an Apple HomePod or HomePod Mini installed in the place where you live, it will support Apple Music out of the box—but there are also a limited number of other streaming services you can switch to instead.

Changing the default music service means that Siri voice commands to hear artists, songs, albums, or playlists will be sourced through a different streaming app. There won’t be much difference in terms of your user experience—what you say and hear—but it will be a different platform serving up the tunes you want to listen to.

You can say “hey Siri, play…” followed by the name of a band, for example, or a particular genre of music that you want to listen to. In certain situations (or all the time, for some people), this feels more natural and convenient than tapping away on a phone.

Perhaps the main reason to do this is to access playlists you’ve created on your music streaming service of choice, but it also means you don’t have to subscribe to Apple Music to play music through your HomePod.

Music playing options

The HomePod speakers come with AirPlay built in, which means you can beam audio from a Mac, iPad or iPad with a few clicks or taps. You can play anything from any app you like, or from any browser tab you like—you just need to make sure your HomePod and the device you’re playing from are on the same Wi-Fi network.

On a Mac, start some audio, then click the Control Center icon on the menu bar (top right—it looks like two toggle switches). Click the AirPlay icon (the upward arrow and two circles) next to the volume level slider, then pick your HomePod from the list that appears to transfer playback duties.

On an iPad or an iPhone, open the app you want to play audio from, then start playing it. Open the Control Center by swiping down from the top right of the screen, then tap the AirPlay icon (the upward arrow and two circles) next to the playback controls—when your HomePod shows up in the list, tap on it to connect.

Supported music services

When it comes to talking to your HomePod and telling it what you want to hear with voice commands—rather than taking the AirPlay route—you can only pick from a certain number of supported services. More supported services have been added over time, but the selection may vary depending on where in the world you are.

At the time of writing, in the US, these are the supported music services other than Apple Music: Deezer, iHeartRadio, Pandora, TuneIn, and YouTube Music. Oddly enough, Apple doesn’t publish a definitive list itself, but a quick web search will turn up the right results for you (and you can always check compatibility with a specific service in the same way).

The biggest name not on that list is Spotify, which, it would seem, is in no rush to enable a closer integration between the music platform and Apple’s smart speakers. If you want to listen to your Spotify playlists on your HomePod or HomePod Mini, then you need to make use of the AirPlay method as described above.

Changing the default music service

The music service that’s the default is the one that activates when you say “Siri, play…” in front of your HomePod. You can in fact use any connected service, but if you want to use something other than the default, you need to specify that: So something like “hey Siri, play Billie Eilish on Spotify” for example.

Connecting a service is usually done inside the specific music app you want to connect: Though the process differs slightly depending on the app, the option shouldn’t be too hard to find. In the case of YouTube Music for iOS, tap your profile picture (top right), then Settings, Connected apps, and Connect with HomePod. Other supported apps will have similar options on their settings pages.

With that done, you can use the music service on your HomePod with Siri voice commands. To set which streaming service is used by default, if you don’t specify one by name, open the Home app on your iPhone: Tap the three dots (top right), then Home Settings, then your name. You’ll see a list of all the music services you’ve connected and you can tap Default Service to specify the default one.

The post How to change the default music service on an Apple HomePod appeared first on Popular Science.

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Apple pushed out iOS 17.1 to augment the host of new features we got in iOS 17. The new additions include some important changes to AirDrop, Apple’s short-range wireless tech which allows people to quickly share files between Apple devices and the new features are enabled by default.

These updates have implications for the way that you (and the people in your family) share information, so it’s important to know what’s different and how you can disable the new functionality if you want to keep everything on your iPhone locked down.

AirDrop continues to be a hugely convenient and reliable way of sharing files and data between Apple devices, but there are security and privacy issues that come along with it, and that you need to be on top of.

NameDrop

The first new feature in AirDrop is NameDrop, which takes the hassle out of sharing contact information: If you meet someone new who also has an iPhone, all you need to do is unlock your respective handsets and tap them together to bring up a prompt to share contact information.

When the prompt appears, you can tap Receive Only to receive the new contact details, or Share to receive the contact details and send yours back in return. Note that this only works for sharing information about a new contact—you can’t use it to update the details you already have about someone.

It’s of course important to stay up to date with these features, but don’t panic about news reports (some of which have been shared by local police departments) about strangers grabbing the contact details of kids. Nothing is shared automatically: The on-screen prompt must be manually accepted, and the iPhone must be unlocked with Face ID, Touch ID or a PIN, for anything to happen.

It is true that NameDrop is enabled by default once you’ve got the iOS 17.1 update installed on your phone. If you’d rather this enhanced contact sharing feature wasn’t switched on, open Settings, tap General and AirDrop, and turn off the Bringing Devices Together toggle switch.

Proximity Sharing

Next up is Proximity Sharing in AirDrop, which works like NameDrop but for photos and other types of files, not contact details. Essentially, it removes a couple of steps from the normal AirDrop process—just bring two iPhones close together if you want to share something between them.

Head into the Photos or Files app first of all, and get whatever it is you want to share up on screen. Then, if you hold the top of your iPhone next to the top of someone else’s iPhone, and they’re both unlocked, you should see an on-screen prompt to Share whatever it is—tap on this to initiate the transfer.

On the receiving end, the person you’re sharing something with needs to tap the Accept prompt on screen, just as they would with a regular AirDrop transfer. The feature can’t be used to start pushing photos, videos, or any other content to someone else’s iPhone without their permission.

Disabling this feature is the same as it is for NameDrop—go into the Settings panel on your iPhone, choose General then AirDrop, and turn off Bringing Devices Together. AirDrop itself can be turned on or off from the same screen, but Proximity Sharing works independently—you can have it switched on even if AirDrop is disabled.

SharePlay

The final feature that Apple has enabled for two iPhones that are pushed close together is SharePlay: This is a feature that means you can do stuff together with another person on your iPhones. Maybe you want to watch an episode of a TV show in sync, for example, or listen to a particular song together.

To begin with you need to be in an app that supports SharePlay—right now, these are mostly Apple apps, such as Apple Music and Apple TV. As time goes on, third-party developers have the opportunity to build the same tech into their own apps, so you’ll be able to use the SharePlay feature more widely.

All you need to do is open the content you want to share—like a song, a video, or a multiplayer game that works with Apple’s Game Center—and then bring your iPhone close to someone else’s. Tap SharePlay on your screen, and then there’s a confirmation prompt on the other iPhone that has to be accepted too.

The SharePlay feature can be accessed without bringing your phones together—if you’re on a FaceTime call with someone, for example—but the proximity option was added in iOS 17.1. AirDrop needs to be on for it to work via phone proximity, and you can make this via AirDrop under General in Settings. SharePlay can’t be disabled system-wide, but you can disable it in FaceTime by opening Settings and choosing FaceTime then SharePlay.

The post AirDrop changed big time in iOS 17, so check your iPhone settings appeared first on Popular Science.

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You probably already know how to scan a QR code with your phone. It’s simple enough: just open the camera app, point your phone at the code, and tap the link. What if you’re on your computer, though? You could point your phone at the computer screen, but that inter-device dance isn’t necessary. You can open that code right from your laptop or desktop. 

Scan a QR code in Google Chrome

Google Chrome users have it the easiest, as the browser has a built-in feature specifically to handle this situation. Right-click the image containing the QR code and click Search Image with Google. 

This will open a Google Lens panel to the right of your browser window. At the top you’ll see your image. Below that you will see the words QR code: Text, along with the text contained in the QR code. If the text is a link you will also see a button for opening the link. 

Non-Chrome users can still access this feature, it just requires an extra step. Simply head to Google.com in your browser of choice and click the Search by image icon, which is in the right side of the search bar.

You can upload an image with a QR code, if you want, or provide a URL for the image. Either way Google Lens will open and let you know what’s in the QR code. 

Scan a QR code with your webcam

Sometimes you have a QR code on a sheet of paper but your phone isn’t handy. Your laptop has a camera, though, and you can use it instead. 

In Windows 10 and 11 you can use the Camera app, which is included with your operating system. You can find this application by opening the Start menu and searching for “Camera”. Scanning is simple: hold your QR code in front of your webcam and click the QR code button. 

Apple’s macOS does not have a built-in camera application capable of scanning QR codes. The good news: the free application QR Journal, which you can download in the Mac App Store, can use the webcam to scan QR codes. 

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Billions of people currently use WhatsApp to chat on mobile, and with good reasons. The app is packed with features, offers end-to-end encryption for users, and provides a rich experience on multiple platforms.

If you’ve invested a lot of your messaging time into WhatsApp, then you’re not going to want to leave behind those chats when you upgrade to a new handset. Thankfully, WhatsApp has you well covered here, and the migration process isn’t difficult.

There’s even provision for making the typically difficult jump from Android to iOS or vice versa. The process of moving chats is different in each case, but no matter which devices are involved, it won’t take more than a few minutes.

Android to Android

You shouldn’t have much trouble restoring your WhatsApp messages on a new Android phone if your old phone is an Android device too. On your old phone, first make sure everything is backed up to Google Drive: Tap the three dots (top right), then Settings and Chats, then Chat backup. Hopefully you won’t need this backup, but you’ll be glad to have it if something goes terribly wrong.

Then, install WhatsApp on your new phone. Once you’ve signed in with your existing phone number, the app should recognize you have chats on another device that you might want to move over. Tap Transfer from the old device when you see the prompt to do this, follow the instructions, and you’ll get a QR code on screen.

You then need to go back to WhatsApp on your old phone, which will be ready to scan the QR code on your new phone. Once you’ve scanned it, accept the invitation to link the devices together, and you’ll see a progress bar on screen.  When you see the confirmation that the transfer is complete, tap Done and you’re ready to go on your new phone.

You don’t have to use this direct transfer method, but it does mean your chats don’t need to go to Google Drive and back. You can also restore a WhatsApp backup from Google Drive: This option automatically appears if you install (or reinstall) WhatsApp on an Android device, and log in with a phone number associated with an existing backup. Just tap Restore to bring your chats back.

iOS to iOS

As with Android-to-Android transfers, you don’t necessarily need a chat backup if you’re jumping from one iPhone to another, but we’d recommend that you set one up anyway.  On your old iPhone, open WhatsApp and choose Settings, Chats, and Chat Backup. Backups on iOS make use of Apple’s iCloud storage service.

Go back to the Chats screen, then choose Transfer Chats to iPhone and Start, and a QR code is shown on screen. Now you can turn your attention to your new iPhone, where you should install the WhatsApp app and set it up using your existing phone number. When that number is recognized, you’ll be prompted to carry on with the chat transfer process you’ve already initiated, so tap Continue to accept.

Scan the QR code that pops up on your old iPhone using your new iPhone. That gives WhatsApp all the information it needs to beam your conversations between devices, and you’ll see a progress bar shown on screen while this happens. When the transfer is complete, tap Next to carry on using WhatsApp on your new iPhone.

Should that not work as intended, you can restore a WhatsApp backup on iOS instead. The restore option only appears when you first install WhatsApp though (so you might need to uninstall and reinstall it): When you’ve registered your existing phone number, select the Restore Chat History message that appears on screen.

Android to iOS

If you’re going from Android to iOS, then the only way to move your WhatsApp chats over is to use the Move to iOS app for Android. It takes care of transferring data across a whole range of apps, including WhatsApp—it can also move across all of your Google contacts and calendars as well, for example.

Load up the Move to iOS app and just follow the instructions on screen—you’ll need to enter the code displayed on your new iPhone to confirm that you want to link the devices. The important screen is the transfer data screen, where you want to make sure that the WhatsApp option is selected, alongside any other types of data you need to move across.

The Move to iOS app will take care of signing you out on Android, and when you get the confirmation that the data has been sent over, you can go ahead and install and open up WhatsApp for iOS. As long as you log in using the same phone number you’ve been using, you should see a prompt to finish the transfer of conversations.

There’s no way to restore WhatsApp messages from a Google Drive backup (on Android) to WhatsApp on an iPhone—the Move to iOS app is the only option. You can, if you want, export individual chats from Android to an email archive (via Chats, Chat history, and Export chat in Settings), and start fresh on the iPhone.

iOS to Android

If you’re heading the other way, from an iPhone to an Android device, compatibility issues still create hurdles. WhatsApp on Android can’t read WhatsApp backups in iCloud, so you can’t simply sign in on a new phone and restore a backup. You can export chats to email (Chats then Export Chat in Settings), but again these can’t be restored on an iPhone.

What you can do is use the more general iOS-to-Android transfer solution that Google has built into Android, which covers a host of apps, including WhatsApp. However, you must do this when you start up your new Android phone for the first time, during the initial setup—there’s no option to do it later.

As you go through the initial setup process, connecting to Wi-Fi and so on, you’ll see a prompt to copy data from another phone: Make sure you choose Next here and not Don’t copy. Follow the instructions on screen, making sure WhatsApp is selected as one of the entries in the Apps section (it should be by default).

You’ll then need to connect your two phones with a cable: USB-C to USB-C or USB-C to Lightning. The transfer utility will then take care of the process of moving all your apps and conversations over, though you’ll still need to log in using your existing phone number when you open WhatsApp on Android for the first time.

The post How to transfer your WhatsApp chats to a new phone appeared first on Popular Science.

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ChatGPT is rarely out of the news at the moment, and the engineers behind it are regularly pushing out new features and improvements to the generative AI chatbot—including, recently, new voice and image capabilities.

[ Related: ChatGPT can now see, hear, and talk to some users ]

In simple terms, as per the OpenAI blog post, these new capabilities mean ChatGPT can now see, hear, and speak. You’re no longer restricted to text prompts when interacting with the bot, although it’s worth noting that these features remain exclusive to paying ChatGPT Plus users for the time being. At first, only a limited number of users got the features as they were rolled out, but now every ChatGPT Plus user should have access. (On November 21, ChatGPT’s voice chat feature has been rolled out to all free users.)

As well as changing how you interact with ChatGPT, these new features also widen the scope of what it can do—read you a bedtime story, for instance. Here’s what’s new, and how to make the best use of it.

Chatting with ChatGPT

If you’re a ChatGPT Plus user and you want to talk to ChatGPT, you need to use the mobile app for Android and iOS (this functionality hasn’t yet been added to ChatGPT on the web). Once you’ve signed into your account and reached the main prompt screen, tap the headphones icon (lower right) to start a voice conversation with the bot.

You’ll get a splash screen explaining what the feature does, then you can tap Choose a voice to do just that. There are five to pick from, and if you select any of them you’ll hear a short preview. Tap Confirm when you’ve decided which one you want to converse with, and you’re then ready to start talking.

Speaking with ChatGPT is as simple as just talking to your phone. When you stop talking, the app will process what you’ve said and generate a response. You’ll often find that when it’s speaking, ChatGPT will end its response with a related question, to keep the conversation going—but you can always ask to talk about something else, or tap the pause button in the lower left corner to start a new chat.

If ChatGPT isn’t quite catching what you’re saying or recognizing your pauses as you talk, you can manually give it voice inputs, walkie talkie style, by tapping and holding the screen. Say what you need to say, then release your finger and the chat will be processed—it’s a more deliberate way of talking that you might find easier.

Think about ways in which spoken responses are better: You can get ChatGPT to tell you a bedtime story, for example, or a poem on a topic of your choice. As with text prompts, you can be as specific as you like about subjects or the tone. When you’re ready to go back to the main ChatGPT interface, tap the red and white cross icon, and you’ll see the responses you’ve been given in text format. 

Image inputs and outputs

You can now prompt ChatGPT using images, whether it’s on the web or via the apps for Android or iOS. On the web, click the paperclip icon to the left of the input box, then pick the image from your computer; in the apps, tap the picture icon to choose an image from your gallery or the camera icon to take a new photo (if you can’t see these icons, tap the + button to the left of the input box).

You’ll be invited to add a prompt alongside your image, and your options here are virtually unlimited. You can ask ChatGPT about what’s inside the image, for example. You can also take a photo of a problem—like a leaky faucet—and ask about the best way to fix it, or show ChatGPT the contents of your fridge and ask for suggestions on what meal to cook.

If you’re in the mobile apps, you can tap on the image before you add the accompanying prompt, and scribble around a particular part of it—this focuses ChatGPT’s attention on a particular part of the image, which can be useful for troubleshooting problems or getting clarity about something specific.

The image generator DALL-E (also developed by OpenAI) is now integrated inside ChatGPT as well. That means you can ask for new images to be generated, as well as using your own as prompts: Ask it to produce a landscape of rolling hills, or a grimy street scene at night, or a cartoon-style rendering of an interior location. You can also ask it to modify or build on an image you provide.

As with text prompts, the more specific you can be, the better—you can be really precise about what’s in your picture, and what style is used, and how color and shade is applied. So, you might say you want to see a cartoon-style picture of fields with a well in the foreground. Or, you might want a photorealistic portrait of a CEO-type figure, rendered in black and white. If you’re not happy with the first attempt at something, you can ask ChatGPT to make changes with further prompts. To save your creations, click or tap on the generated images to find the download option.

The post How to use ChatGPT’s new image and voice options appeared first on Popular Science.

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Watching one quick video during a workday isn’t too bad—the problem is that YouTube, like chip companies, go out of their way to make sure you can’t have just one. There’s autoplay, a sidebar full of video recommendations, and so many more features designed to get you to keep watching all day. 

We’ve talked about how to avoid falling down a YouTube rabbithole in the past, but if those tips don’t go far enough, you can customize or even entirely replace the YouTube interface. These actions not only make it possible to hide all of those tantalizing features, they can also keep that adblocking warning from showing up to pester you. 

[Related: 3 ways to avoid falling down a YouTube rabbit hole]

Untrapp: Remove clutter from YouTube

Untrapp is a free browser extension that lets you customize the YouTube user interface, allowing you to remove recommendations, comments, and more. To get started just install the extension—it’s free for Chrome and Firefox, while the Safari version costs $2. Install this extension and you can customize over 150 different things. For example: you can remove the recommended videos from showing up in the sidebar when you’re watching a video, or remove the comments from every video page. You can also set the YouTube homepage to be your subscriptions, instead of the algorithmic recommendations, allowing you to follow channels you want to watch instead of letting YouTube guess for you. You can blur thumbnails, you can disable UPPER CASE HEADLINES, and stop thumbnails from auto-playing when you hover your mouse over them. 

Untrapp even lets the truly hooked set up a schedule to block YouTube at a particular time every day or block particular channels altogether. If you’re not comfortable with your YouTube habit, Untrapp is well worth checking out. 

Invidious: Replace YouTube’s interface entirely

Invidious is an alternative user interface for YouTube. Basically, it’s a website you can visit to watch YouTube videos without having to spend any actual time on YouTube itself. The technology is open source and built to respect your privacy, meaning Google won’t be able to track which videos you’re watching. It also doesn’t have any ads.

There are a few downsides. Invidious is sometimes a little slower than YouTube, for example, and occasionally a video won’t work. You also can’t use Invidious with your YouTube account—it’s a completely different website. This means features like subscriptions, comments, and tracking watched videos won’t work. If you don’t care about that, though, Invidious could be a way to watch YouTube videos without letting YouTube get its hooks into you. 

Invidious is a free service hosted on multiple servers. It’s recommended that you try a few severs out and then bookmark one that works well for you—simply use that bookmark instead of heading to YouTube. You can use a browser extension like Privacy Redirect to open all YouTube links in Invidious instead of the YouTube URL with all its distracting, attention-grabbing functions. Either way, you’ll have a much less habit-forming way to use YouTube. 

Desktop players take things even further

VLC is one of the most popular video players on the planet, but did you know it can open YouTube videos? All you need to do is click File, then Open Network Stream, then paste the YouTube URL you want to play into the URL field and click Open. The YouTube video will play like any other video in VLC. You won’t see the sidebar, the comments, or any other feature of YouTube—just the video and the usual VLC playback controls. 

That method works, but takes quite a few extra steps. If you’d like a much simpler desktop application for watching YouTube videos check out MiniTube, which costs 10 euros (roughly $11 USD) for Windows or macOS and is free for Linux users. This application, which offers a demo you can try for free, lets you browse YouTube in a beautiful desktop client without any ads, tracking, comments, or recommendations.

This is probably the nicest YouTube interface you can get on a desktop computer, which is great, but I also find it much easier to use to watch one video without being pushed to immediately gobble up another. 

The post How to avoid binge-watching YouTube videos appeared first on Popular Science.

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If your hands are full with groceries or books, or hanging on to a subway car handrail or dog leash, then it’s not easy to operate your Apple Watch in the normal way—by reaching over to tap the screen or pressing the Digital Crown.

That’s the thinking behind Double Tap, a new gesture available with watchOS 10.1. As its name suggests, it lets you tap your forefinger and thumb together twice, with the same hand that your watch is on, to operate the wearable without touching it. It means you can answer calls and browse through screens with one hand rather than two, and it promises to be very helpful.

For Double Tap to work, you do need the latest Apple Watch 9 or Apple Watch Ultra 2, because the AI smarts of the S9 chipset inside these models is required to recognize the gesture you’re making. You also need watchOS 10.1 (tap My Watch > General > Software Update in the Watch app on your iPhone to look for updates).

Older Apple Watch devices can still make use of a similar feature called AssistiveTouch, which is a more comprehensive way of controlling everything that happens on an Apple Watch with one hand. AssistiveTouch is available on every Apple Watch since the Apple Watch 4, including the Apple Watch 9 and Apple Watch Ultra 2.

Using Double Tap

As soon as you’ve upgraded to watchOS 10.1, Double Tap should be enabled automatically and ready to go. You can turn it off, if you ever need to, by opening up the Settings app on your watch, then choosing Gestures and Double Tap, and turning off the Double Tap toggle switch.

To double tap, lift up your Apple Watch first, as you would do if you were checking the time. On the hand attached to the wrist where your Apple Watch is, bring your index finger and thumb together twice in quick succession. The only times Double Tap won’t work is when a Sleep Focus mode is active, or when the watch is in Low Power Mode.

What the gesture triggers will depend on what’s on screen. If there’s a call coming in, it’ll answer the call. If there’s a timer running, a double tap will pause it (and restart it). If a notification has come in, it will open the notification so you can read it. In general, a double tap will perform what Apple calls the “primary action” for the screen you’re on.

For a couple of functions, you can customise what a double tap does: When music is playing you can choose whether a double tap pauses playback or skips to the next track, and when Smart Stack widgets are on screen you can choose whether a double tap advances through the widgets or opens the first available one.

To change this functionality, open the Settings app on your watch, then tap Gestures and Double Tap. Select Playback and you can pick between Play/Pause and Skip, or select Smart Stack and you can choose between Advance or Select.

Using AssistiveTouch

Another way of using your Apple Watch with just one hand is to use AssistiveTouch, which is supported on every model back to the Apple Watch 4 from 2018 (including the Apple Watch 9 and the Apple Watch Ultra 9). It’s designed for people who are physically unable to use their other hand to operate their watch, but anyone can activate it.

AssistiveTouch covers a wider range of gestures, including a double tap, and is more comprehensive in terms of helping you operate the smartwatch. Activating it is more deliberate though: It doesn’t have the fluidness and ease-of-use of Double Tap, which uses machine learning algorithms to recognize wrist and finger movements. You can’t use Double Tap when AssistiveTouch is active.

To enable AssistiveTouch, open the Settings screen on your Apple Watch, then choose Accessibility and AssistiveTouch, then tap AssistiveTouch. On the same screen you can select Hand Gestures to change which gestures do what on the watch. AssistiveTouch can also be enabled from the Watch app on your iPhone, via Accessibility, then AssistiveTouch on the My Watch tab.

With AssistiveTouch enabled, raising your wrist will show a blue ring around the screen. You then need to clench your fist twice quickly to actually activate the gestures and switch to AssistiveTouch mode, where a focus ring appears on the first item on the screen (the ring indicates that something can be selected by AssistiveTouch).

The default actions include a thumb-and-index-finger pinch to move to the next item, a double pinch to move to the previous item, a fist clench to tap an item, and a double clench to bring up the action menu (where you can pick from actions like scrolling and pressing the Digital Crown). See here for a full guide to getting around all of the watch’s features and functions using AssistiveTouch gestures.

The post How to use Double Tap to control your Apple Watch without touching it appeared first on Popular Science.

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You only realize WiFi is not as ubiquitous as you thought it was when your boss wants to hop on a last-minute video call and the coffee shop you’re at has no guest network. That’s when you’d better know how to use your phone as a hotspot.

That type of urgent scenario is not the best moment to figure out how to connect your laptop or tablet to your mobile network, so you might as well learn now. That way, the next time you find yourself in a tricky situation, you’ll be ready to hop online. 

A quick note: some mobile plans do not support hotspotting, so even though your phone has the ability to share data, nothing will happen unless your mobile service provider allows it. So before you start trying to tether your device, confirm that your plan has a dedicated hotspot quota or that you are allowed to use your phone’s data on another device. 

How to use an iPhone as a hotspot

On iOS, you’ll find the hotspot menu by opening the Settings app, and tapping Personal Hotspot. If you’re using an older version of iOS, you may need to go to Settings > Cellular > Personal Hotspot. Enabling it is as easy as toggling on the switch next to Allow others to join, but don’t do that yet unless you know you’re alone.

[Related: The best mobile hotspots of 2023]

You don’t want just anybody to piggyback on your data plan, so make sure you set up a secure password before you create a hotspot. From the Personal Hotspot menu, tap Wi-Fi password and type in a safe one—think a semi-long combination of letters (upper- and lowercase), numbers, and special characters. 

Now that your hotspot is ready to go, choose how you want to connect. Apple’s mobile devices provide some options.

2. On your laptop or tablet (or whatever other device you want to use your mobile data), open the WiFi settings and search for a signal. 

You can do this on a Mac by clicking the WiFi icon in the top right corner of your screen. Your system will automatically detect nearby networks and list them for you. If you don’t see the name of your iPhone (that’s the name of your hotspot), click Other networks. 

On a PC, open the System Tray by clicking the three icons to the left of the clock in the bottom right corner of your screen. Make sure the WiFi icon is blue (that means it’s on), then click the arrow next to it to open your computer’s WiFi settings—you’ll see a list of the available networks containing your iPhone’s name. 

3. Regardless of the make of your device, once you find your iPhone on the list of WiFi networks, select it, type in the hotspot password, and you’ll be all set.

How to use your Android as a hotspot

Before you hook any device up to your Android phone’s mobile data, you’ll need to set up your personal hotspot. Swipe down with two fingers from the top of your screen to open the Quick Settings menu, then tap the cog icon in the bottom right corner of the screen to open Settings. Go to Network & internet, then Hotspot & tethering. 

Here you’ll find a toggle switch for every way to connect a device to your hotspot: Wi-Fi hotspot, Bluetooth tethering, USB tethering, and Ethernet tethering. The last two options will be blurred out unless your phone is already connected to a device via a USB or Ethernet cable. WiFi will likely be the easiest, but if you’re interested in trying something else, you can skip to the sections on USB tethering and Bluetooth tethering below.

Connect to your Android hotspot using WiFi

1. Tap Wi-Fi hotspot to set it up. Start by giving your hotspot a name—by default, it’ll be the name of your device, but you can change it to anything you want. 

Next, set up a Hotspot password to secure your connection and prevent strangers from draining your data plan. Make sure to choose a good one—a semi-long series of letters (upper- and lowercase), numbers, and special characters. 

You have two other options you can set up. Toggle on the switch next to Turn off hotspot automatically, and your Android phone will disable the feature whenever there are no devices connected to it. You can also tap the switch next to Extend compatibility, so your phone makes more of an effort to be discoverable to other devices. This will use up more battery power, so make sure to turn it off if you’re running out of juice. 

Once you’re done setting up your personal hotspot, hit the toggle switch next to Use Wi-Fi hotspot to turn it on. 

2. On your laptop or tablet (or whatever device you want to connect to your hotspot), open 

the WiFi settings. 

On a Mac, click the WiFi icon in the top right corner of your screen. Your system will find nearby networks automatically and list them for you. If you don’t see the name you gave your hotspot, click Other networks. 

If you’re using a PC, click the three icons to the left of the clock in the bottom right corner of your screen to open the System Tray panel. Make sure the WiFi icon is on (it should be blue), and open your computer’s WiFi settings by clicking the arrow next to it. There, you’ll see a list of available networks containing your hotspot’s name. 

Use your phone as a hotspot over a USB cable

You can connect your tablet or laptop to your phone’s hotspot via a USB cable, but it’s a lot easier with an Android. When it works, though, the connection between your phone and hotspot-using device is smooth as silk. 

Connect to your iPhone hotspot through a USB cable

There’s a catch here: You may only be able to easily do this between Apple products, so you might not be able to share your iPhone’s data with your PC or Chromebook, for example. 

1. On your iPhone, make sure your hotspot is active (from the Personal Hotspot menu, toggle on the switch next to Allow others to join) and connect your phone to your Mac using a USB cable. 

2. An alert will appear on your Mac—click Trust this device. You should see your iPhone appear as a drive on your computer’s Finder and you should be able to go online. 

If you’re not connected, go to your Mac’s System Settings and Network. You should see iPhone USB on the list of services—open it, click Make inactive, then Make active, and you should be good to go.

If you don’t see iPhone USB on the list, you’ll need to set it up as a new network. Scroll down all the way, click the three-dots dropdown menu, and choose Add service. Then follow Apple’s instructions to finish the setup.

Connect to your Android hotspot using a USB cable

Tethering your Mac or PC to your Android phone is surprisingly easy, and the connection is seamless. 

1. Connect your Android phone to your Mac or PC with a USB cable.

2. Go to the Hotspot & tethering menu (Settings > Network & internet > Hotspot & tethering) and toggle the switch next to USB tethering. The option will only be available if there’s a cable connecting your phone to another device. 

3. On a PC, Windows will offer to set up the connection between your phone and laptop, but you’ll realize you don’t have to do anything—as soon as you turn on the USB hotspot, your computer will connect to the internet. 

Something similar happens on a Mac—when you connect your phone, macOS will ask if you trust it. Click Trust this device and you should automatically have an internet connection. If you don’t, go to Settings and Network, and under Other services find your phone’s name. Open the item and click the button Make Inactive, which will change to Make active. Click it again and you should be good to go. 

How to create a phone hotspot with Bluetooth

You can share your phone’s cellular data with another device over Bluetooth, but connectivity tends to be slower and more finicky than WiFi- or USB-driven hotspots. In fact, we had so much trouble getting this to work that it might only be useful as a last resort.

Connect to your iPhone hotspot using Bluetooth

For this, you’ll need to pair your phone to whatever device you want to connect to the internet—how you do that will depend on your device. 

1. On your iPhone, make sure your hotspot is on (from the Personal Hotspot menu, toggle on the switch next to Allow others to join).

2. If you’re connecting your Mac to your hotspot, go to System Settings and on the left sidebar go to Bluetooth. If you’ve ever connected your iPhone to your Mac via Bluetooth, you’ll see your phone’s name under My devices—just hover the mouse over its name and click on the Connect button that appears. If you’ve never connected your gadgets, you should find your phone’s name under Nearby devices—you may have to scroll down a bit to see it. Hover the mouse over your phone’s name, click Connect, and follow the instructions on screen. 

If you’re trying to tether your iPhone to a PC, open the System Tray by clicking on the three icons to the left of the clock in the bottom right corner of your screen. Make sure the Bluetooth icon is blue (that means it’s on) and click the arrow next to it to open your computer’s Bluetooth settings. If you’ve connected your iPhone to your PC in the past, you should find your phone’s name under Your devices, but if you haven’t, you’ll find it under New devices. Either way, just click on it and follow the instructions on screen to establish a connection. 

Once the devices are paired, you’ll need to connect to the internet on your laptop. It’s very different depending on the make of your computer, and it’s definitely not as intuitive as hopping on a WiFi network.  

On a Mac, click the Control Center icon (two toggle switches) in the upper right corner of your screen. From the emerging menu, click Bluetooth to see a list of connected devices. Find your phone and hover the mouse over it—click Connect to Network when the option appears. 

On a PC, open Settings and go to Network & Internet. Scroll all the way down and under Related settings, pick More network adapter options. On the emerging window, you should see an item called Bluetooth Network Connection—open it, find your phone, and right-click on it. On the menu, hover over Connect using and choose Access point to connect to the web.

Connect to your Android hotspot using Bluetooth

If your devices play nice with each other over Bluetooth, you can use your mobile data plan with your laptop. Just keep in mind that some Android phones, like the Pixel 7, may have trouble connecting to a Mac computer. If that’s the case for you, we suggest you save yourself some grief by choosing the easier WiFi approach. 

1. Make sure your laptop is discoverable through Bluetooth. On a Mac, open the Control Center and ensure the Bluetooth icon is blue—if it’s not, click it to turn it on. On a PC, open the System Tray by clicking the icons to the left of the clock (bottom right corner of your screen) and make sure the Bluetooth icon is blue. If it’s not, click it to enable it.

2. On your phone, swipe down with one finger from the top of your phone screen to open the notification drawer, and on the tiles at the top of your screen, long-press on Bluetooth.

3. If you’ve tethered your phone and laptop before, find your laptop’s name under Saved devices, tap the cog icon next to it, and choose Connect on the next screen. If you’ve never paired your gadgets, choose Pair new device. Wait until your laptop appears in the list of discoverable nearby devices, and select it to start the pairing process. You’ll see prompts with five-digit codes on both screens—make sure they match and confirm the pairing. 

[Related: How to find free WiFi when you really need it]

Once the devices are paired, you’ll need to connect to the internet on your laptop. This will work differently depending on the make of your computer, and it won’t be as intuitive as hopping on a WiFi network.  

On a Mac, open the Control Center by clicking its icon (two sliders) in the upper right corner of your computer screen. On the emerging menu, click Bluetooth to see a list of connected devices. Find your phone and hover the mouse over it—click Connect to Network when the option appears. 

On a PC, open Settings and go to Network & Internet. Scroll all the way down and under Related settings, pick More network adapter options. On the emerging window, you should see an item called Bluetooth Network Connection—double-click to open it, find your phone, and right-click on it. On the menu, hover over Connect using and choose Access point.

The post All the ways you can use your phone as a mobile hotspot appeared first on Popular Science.

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The Mac menu bar is iconic. With the Apple logo in the top-left and the text menu for the current application to the right, this feature has been at the top of the screen of every Apple computer since 1981. The last big update came 10 years later when the Cupertino company added icons to the right side. The menu bar has more-or-less looked the same ever since. 

But just because Apple hasn’t really changed the menu bar in the last 40 years doesn’t mean you can’t change it now. There are all kinds of subtle ways you can take control of how the menu bar looks and functions, starting with the order of those icons in the top-right corner. Here’s how you can customize the Mac menu bar to work just the way you want. 

Organize your Icons

It’s definitely not obvious or intuitive, so it’s ok if you didn’t know that you can rearrange your menu bar icons: Just hold the Command key and drag your icons into whatever order you like. This works for every icon except three: the Control Center icon, Siri, and the clock. Those stay in the top-right corner no matter what, but everything else is fair game. 

Customize your system icons

By default, the Mac includes icons for Siri, Wi-Fi, and your battery in the menu bar. If you’d rather not see those icons all the time, don’t worry: just head to System Settings. You can get there by opening the dock icon with the gears, or clicking the Apple logo in the top-right corner and then choosing System Settings in the emerging menu. Head to Control Center on the sidebar to configure which system icons you want to show up in the menu bar. This can be a quick way to remove clutter or add relevant information. 

[Related: 4 tips and hidden settings that will speed up macOS]

You can also customize the clock from here, allowing you to add the date, day of the week, and even the seconds. You could also replace the text showing the time with an icon of an old-school analogue clock, if you like. 

What you can’t tweak here is icons for your applications.

Stop the transparency

The menu bar, by default, is slightly transparent, allowing a little bit of your desktop wallpaper to bleed through. If you don’t like this effect (and the other transparency in the macOS operating system) head to System Settings, Accessibility, and click Display. Check Reduce transparency and your menu bar will be solid white in light mode and solid black in dark mode. 

You can also customize the size a little bit—beside Menu bar size check Large and the text in the menu bar will be a slightly bigger. 

Hidden Bar is a free application for hiding the clutter

Way too many applications insist on putting something up in the menu bar, so the top-right corner of your screen can quickly look cluttered. The worst part is that there’s no native way to hide icons in macOS the way you can in Windows, for example, where you can move them to a secondary tray. On the Mac, meanwhile, the only way to hide an icon for a given application is to dig around in the app settings and hope it offers a solution—it’s a hit or miss sort of situation.

Fortunately, there’s a free application called Hidden Bar that brings this feature to the Mac. Download it from the App Store so you can hide icons by dragging them to the left while holding Command. You’ll be able to see all hidden icons by clicking the right-pointing arrow. 

It’s a very simple application that gets the job done. Why Apple hasn’t built something like this into the operating system, I will never understand. 

Bartender hides icons and changes how the menu bar looks

For many the free Hidden Bar will do the job, but Bartender ($16) offers customization options the former doesn’t have. 

Yes, you can hide icons by dragging them to the left, just like you can with Hidden Bar. But you can also create a custom rule for when to display certain icons. Want to see the battery icon, but only when you’re not plugged in? Bartender can do that, and also show you the Wi-Fi icon only when you’re not connected to a network.

You can also change the look of the menu bar with this application—apply a color tint or add a border. You can bring back the drop shadow that Apple recently removed, or even round the corners of the menu bar so it looks less like a block. 

[Related: Master your Mac by creating custom keyboard shortcuts]

Basically, if you want to tweak every aspect of how your menu bar works, Bartender is the application you’re looking for. 

Hide the menu bar altogether

Customizing the menu bar is all well and good, but what if you just wish it would go away? You can hide the menu bar in System Settings. Head to Control Center and scroll down to the bottom. In the dropdown menu next to Automatically hide and show the menu bar, select Always. From now on, the menu bar will only show up when you move your mouse to the top of the screen. The rest of the time, it’ll stay out of the way. This means you get a bit more screen real estate, allowing you to focus on the task at hand instead of whatever the icons the menu bar displays. 

The post 6 ways to customize your Mac’s Menu Bar, and another to make it disappear appeared first on Popular Science.

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There’s a new feature in the Google Bard AI assistant: connections to your other Google apps, primarily Gmail and Google Drive, called Bard Extensions. It means you can use Bard to look up and analyze the information you have stored in documents and emails, as well as data aggregated from the web at large.

Bard can access other Google services besides Gmail and Google Drive as well, including YouTube, Google Maps, and Google Flights. However, this access doesn’t extend to personal data yet, so you can look up driving directions to a place on Google Maps, but not get routes to the last five restaurants you went to.

If that sets alarm bells ringing in your head, Google promises that your data is “not seen by human reviewers, used by Bard to show you ads, or used to train the Bard model,” and you can disconnect the app connections at any time. In terms of exactly what is shared between Bard and other apps, Google isn’t specific.

[Related: The best apps and gadgets for a Google-free life]

Should you decide you’re happy with that trade-off, you’ll be able to do much more with Bard, from looking up flight times to hunting down emails in your Gmail archive.

How to set up Bard Extensions, and what Google can learn about you

If you decide you want to use Bard Extensions, open up Google Bard on the web, then click the new extensions icon in the top right corner (it looks like a jigsaw piece). The next screen shows all the currently available extensions—turn the toggle switches on for the ones you want to give Bard access to. To revoke access, turn the switches off.

Some prompts (asking about today’s weather, for instance) require access to your location. This is actually handled as a general Google search permission in your browser, and you can grant or revoke access in your privacy settings. In Chrome, though, you can open google.com, then click the site information button on the left end of the address bar (it looks like two small sliders—or a padlock if you haven’t updated your browser to Chrome 119).

From the popup dialog that appears, you can turn the Location toggle switch off. This means Google searches (for restaurants and bars, for example) won’t know where you are searching from, and nor will Bard.

As with other Google products, you can see activity that’s been logged with Bard. To do so, head to your Bard activity page in a web browser to review and delete specific prompts that you’ve sent to the AI. Click Choose an auto-delete option, and you can have this data automatically wiped after three, 18, or 36 months. You can also stop Bard from logging data in the first place by clicking Turn off.

There’s more information on the Bard Privacy Help Hub. Note that by using Bard at all, you’re accepting that human reviewers may see and check some of your prompts, so Google can improve the response accuracy of its AI. The company specifically warns against putting confidential information into Bard, and any reviewed prompts won’t have your Google Account details (like your name) attached to them.

Prompts reviewed by humans can be retained by Google for up to three years, even if you delete your Bard activity. Even with Bard activity-logging turned off, conversations are kept in Bard’s memory banks for 72 hours, in case you want to add related questions.

Tips for using Bard Extensions

Extensions are naturally integrated into Bard, and in a lot of cases, the AI bot will know which extension to look up. Ask about accommodation prices for the weekend, for example, and it’ll use Google Hotels. Whenever Bard calls upon an extension, you’ll see the extension’s name appear while the AI is working out the answer.

Sometimes, you need to be pretty specific. A prompt such as “what plans have I made over email with <contact name> about <event>?” will invoke a Gmail search, but only if you include the “over email” bit. At the end of the response, you’ll see the emails (or documents) that Bard has used to give you an answer. You can also ask Bard to use specific extensions by tagging them in your prompt with the @ symbol—so @Gmail or @Google Maps.

[Related: All the products Google has sent to the graveyard]

Bard can look up information from emails or documents, and can read inside PDFs in your Google Drive. For example, tell it to summarize the contents of the most recent PDF in your Google Drive, or the contents of recent emails from your kid’s school, and it will do just that. Again, the more specific you can be, the better.

In terms of YouTube, Google Maps, Google Flights, and Google Hotels, Bard works more like a regular search engine—though you can combine searches with other prompts. If you’re preparing a wedding speech, for example, you can ask Bard for an outline as well as some YouTube videos that will give you inspiration. If you’re heading off on a road trip, you could combine a prompt about ideas on what to pack with Google Maps driving directions.

We’ve found that some Bard Extensions answers are a bit hit or miss—but so are AI chatbots in general. At certain times, Bard will analyze the wrong emails or documents, or will miss information it should’ve found, so it’s not (yet) something you can fully rely on. In some situations, you’ll get better answers if you switch over to Google Drive or YouTube and run a normal search from there instead—file searches based on dates, for instance, or video searches limited to a certain channel.

At other times, Bard is surprisingly good at picking out information from stacks of messages or documents. You can ask Bard “what’s the most cheerful email I got yesterday?” for example, which is something you can’t do with a standard, or even an advanced Gmail search. It’s well worth trying Bard Extensions out, at least briefly, to see if they prove useful for the kinds of information retrieval you need.

The post How to use Bard AI for Gmail, YouTube, Google Flights, and more appeared first on Popular Science.

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Making the iPhone keyboard bigger is one of the easiest ways to make Apple’s phones easier to use. Doing so will allow you to see the keys more clearly, providing a more comfortable typing experience and reducing your chances of pressing the wrong characters. This is particularly helpful if you have larger fingers or visual impairments.

Follow along with our step-by-step instructions on how to enlarge the keyboard on your iPhone, and stick around for additional iPhone keyboard settings tips and tricks that should improve your ability to interact with your iOS device.

How to make the iPhone keyboard bigger, instantly

The quickest way to get a larger iPhone keyboard is to rotate your device until it’s horizontal. This will automatically switch the screen orientation to landscape, providing a wider, more spacious keyboard for easier typing.

If the keyboard won’t turn sideways, your phone is locked in portrait orientation. To remedy this on an iPhone without a Home button, swipe down from the top right corner to open the Control Center. If you have a phone with a Home button, swipe up from the bottom edge of your screen to get to the same place. Then tap the Portrait Orientation Lock button (a padlock with an arrow around it) to ensure it’s off—it will display in red if on and locked.

Set the keyboard to display only uppercase letters

The iPhone keyboard alternates between lowercase and uppercase letters depending on the shift setting, but the lowercase characters can be harder to see. To make each key easier to identify, you can tell your iPhone to always display uppercase keys, simulating a physical keyboard with all keys printed in capital letters. You will still be able to type in lowercase letters as long as shift or caps lock is off.

[Related: 24 iPhone settings that feel like secrets]

To see only uppercase letters, go to Settings, tap Accessibility, then Keyboards. Toggle off the switch next to Show Lowercase Keys, and you’ll make the keyboard letters bigger.

Make your iPhone keyboard bold

Bold type is easier to see, making text and letters stand out. To make your iPhone keyboard more bold, and therefore, bigger, go to the Settings app and select Display & Brightness. From there, tap Text Size and hit the toggle switch next to Bold Text. Now, the letters on your keyboard and the text you type and see on your phone will be bold.

Switch to Zoom view

The iPhone’s Zoom function will allow you to magnify the entire screen, making it easier to see and interact with the content. Just be warned: enabling Zoom will activate it immediately, and you may struggle to go back to normal. If you need to turn Zoom off, double-tap the screen with three fingers. Now that we’ve hopefully prevented a stressful situation, you can enable the feature: Go to the Settings app, select Accessibility, and turn on the toggle switch next to Zoom.

From there, you will see instructions for controlling magnification with finger taps.

You can also adjust the Zoom level according to your preference:

• Follow Focus: Stays focused on typed and selected text.
• Smart Typing: Zooms into the text box to make it easier to see when typing.
• Keyboard Shortcuts: If you’ve connected an external keyboard to your iPhone by enabling full keyboard access, this will let you use shortcuts on that keyboard to control Zoom.
• Zoom Controller: Lets you slide your finger around the screen to choose what Zoom focuses on.
• Zoom Region: Allows you to use Full Screen Zoom or Window Zoom (partial screen zoom).
• Zoom Filter: Customizes the color of your screen when Zoom is enabled. Choose from: None, Inverted, Grayscale, Grayscale Inverted, or Low Light.
• Maximum Zoom Level: Drag the slider to adjust the level of Zoom.

Use a third-party keyboard app

Maybe the iPhone keyboard just doesn’t cut it, and you’d prefer something else. Thankfully, customizing your iPhone by adding a third-party keyboard is simple. First, go to the App Store and search for one of the best keyboard apps. After you install the one you want, go to the iPhone’s Settings app, tap General, Keyboard, and hit Keyboards.

Next, select Add New Keyboard. Find the third-party keyboard app on the list and tap on it to add it to your active keyboards. To use your new keyboard, open the app itself and make any modifications that will make the keyboard bigger.

Boost your iPhone’s text size

Increasing the size of the text on your iPhone’s screen can make it easier to see what you’re typing (and reading). To change your iPhone’s text size, go to the Settings app and select Display & Brightness. There, tap Text Size and adjust the slider to make the text larger.

This won’t change the size of the keyboard, but it’s still a useful tip if you’re struggling to see what’s written on your iPhone’s screen.

[Related: Best iPhone 14 cases]

Change your iPhone keyboard sensitivity

If you’re having trouble typing on your iPhone, you may want to consider adjusting the keyboard’s sensitivity. This will determine how your phone responds to how long you press and hold your finger on the screen. To find it, got to Settings > Accessibility > Touch, then tap Haptic Touch.

The post How to make the keyboard bigger on an iPhone, so you can finally see what you’re doing appeared first on Popular Science.

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With hundreds of thousands of Android games on the Google Play Store, it can be tricky to find ones that are suitable to play. Often, the games we see advertised the most for Android phones and tablets are also the most predatory. Avoiding games designed more to take our cash than to entertain us is difficult, but we can help by recommending five of the best Android games that break the mold and still provide plenty of fun.

 Super Auto Pets

Super Auto Pets is an answer to auto-battling games like Hearthstone: Battlegrounds, Riot’s Team Fight Tactics, and Marvel Snap. The game has a clear monetization scheme and instantaneous unlocks, yet still holds onto the addictive gameplay loop the aforementioned auto-battlers have. But the obsession comes from fun and achievements, not grinding out currency and unlocks.

During gameplay, you’ll assemble a team of cute animals (including a dinosaur or two), feed them, and head off to battle. As the primary game mode is asynchronous, it’s a perfect game for busy adults. You won’t have to hurry through turns if you dip into play intermittently throughout the workday. If you have time, however, you can sit down for a ranked match, which plays like more typical multiplayer online games. What animals (and food) you play with are determined by sets, which can be purchased in full with a single direct purchase, no “gems” or other in-game currency required. The first set is free and you can eventually play with all animals for free via weekly random and/or curated sets.

Super Auto Pets is free, and you can buy additional packs in the app.

2. Vampire Survivors

Vampire Survivors became a cult classic on PC during the summer of 2023. With graphics that can be described as “1998 DOS freeware” and a user interface defined by only one word—chaotic—this is definitely a stylized game. The effect is outstanding, however, and a satisfying game loop quickly seals players within its grasp.

Each session starts with a character and a weapon or two, automatically flying about the screen. As your weapon hits enemies who increasingly crowd around you, numbers begin to fly everywhere, levels rise, and resources accumulate. Regular pauses in the action give you a chance to breathe and plot, while also giving you access to items that will improve your build. As time progresses, so does the intensity of the opposition, with the final bits of action proving the true power of your build and if you’re worthy of unlockables.

Vampire Survivors is free with in-app purchases.

3. Dominion

Dominion is a classic board game. Now, it has a new Android app edition, suitable for both new and recurring players. Dominion is a deck-builder that emphasizes trade-offs and long-term planning. Each turn, you collect cards that either boost your score or your potential to grab even better cards later. Grabbing early-game, high-point cards while you can will always feel good, for example, but seeing those cards (dead weight in your hand) again and again throughout a match can feel exhausting.

As mentioned, this game originates from older source material. However, this digital rendition is a fairly new implementation of the game, and at the time of this writing, it remains in early access. As a result, if you’ve been put off by other mobile implementations of board and card games of this era, you should strongly consider coming back for Dominion to see if a new generation of graphics, UI innovations, and controls can get you in the game.

Dominion is free, and you can buy expansions in the app.

4. Peglin

Take PopCap’s Peggle, toss in a Slay the Spire overworld and character development system, and throw in some unique thematic arcs of its own and you have Peglin. Essentially, the game’s core loop is you—depicted as a green goblin with pointy ears—throwing rocks and orbs through a board to hit pegs. To oversimplify greatly, the more pegs you hit, the more damage you do to oncoming monsters. It’s a hit-or-be-hit world. After battles end, you get to add a new rock or orb to your backpack and, potentially, get the chance to attend an event or obtain a game-changing artifact.

While the opening act of the game, set in a forest, feels like Peggle with RPG mechanics on top, that feeling doesn’t last. By the time you’ve prevailed past a castle and into the void, gravity and gameplay will both be significantly different. Mastered all the areas? You’ll still have the “cruciball” challenge, which tilts the odds against you, and new characters to play with as well. Plus, the developerss keep updates coming, both improving upon the game and adding new orbs to fight with. Peglin is a fully-contained offline adventure.

Peglin is free with in-app purchases.

5. Shattered Pixel Dungeon

If you want a traditional, adventure roguelike Android game, then Shattered Pixel Dungeon is worth your time. Ditching awkward numpad controls and step-by-step movement, Shattered Pixel Dungeon takes you on a finger-accessible journey with mobile sensibilities. Collecting items, discovering the unknown, and bashing enemies with swords and spells are all still there in all their traditional roguelike glory for you, though.

[Related: The best Android apps for your Chromebook]

You may already be familiar with part of the title of the game, and that’s because it comes as a fork, or separate branch, of the open-source code of Pixel Dungeon. While other forks of this game exist, Shattered Pixel Dungeon is generally favored above others for its consistent development, plethora of extra items and entities, and nearly 10 years of independent history. If you like this game, other Pixel Dungeon variants may also be worth a spin.

Shattered Pixel Dungeon is free to play.

While these games are meant to be best enjoyed on an Android phone, the fun doesn’t have to stop there. If you’d like to get them on a bigger screen, check out our guide on how to use Android games on PC.

The post The best Android games for unlocking new worlds appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

The Android versus iPhone debate continues to rumble on. But one thing is certain: Google’s phone software is still more versatile and customizable than Apple’s offering. Dig into the settings and discover Android’s secret capabilities, including a host of hidden features and useful tools. We’ve collected 12 of them here.

A quick note before we begin: Android has a wide variety of makes, models, and versions, which makes it difficult to find features that will be consistent across all devices. We only verified the following tips on stock Android 14—they should also work on related systems, but some of the menus and procedures may vary slightly.

1. Enable flash notifications for silent updates

Loud notifications are annoying, but have you ever heard a phone vibrating on a glass table? Somehow, it’s even worse. So whether you want to stay up to date with your texts in a quieter way or you’re hard of hearing, Android now allows you to set flash notifications, where your phone’s screen or built-in flash will blink to let you know there’s something new requiring your attention. 

To set it up, go to Settings, Accessibility, and Flash notifications. You’ll get two options: toggle the switch next to Camera flash to have the light on the back of your phone flash three times when you get a notification; or toggle the switch next Screen flash so that your device lets you know of any new messages by flashing a yellow overlay on your screen. You can enable either or both of them to get an even more effective visual alert. 

To see how they work, make your preferences and hit Preview. 

2. Run apps side-by-side

This feature has been around since Android 7.0 Nougat, but it’s one of the few users tend to forget about. This side-by-side or top-and-bottom app view (depending on the orientation of your screen) comes in handy when you want to display photos, optimize your social networking, or multitask.

To set it up, make sure both apps you want to see are already open. Then, open the app carousel by doing a short swipe-up gesture from the bottom of your screen. Find the recent app you want to use and press on the circular icon at the top of its preview. On the emerging menu, you should see a Split top option. Keep in mind that not all apps support this feature (like Instagram, for example), so if you don’t see this option, it’s because you can’t use it like this. If you see it, tap Split top, and the app will automatically position itself at the top or left of your screen. On the other side, you’ll see the app carousel, from where you can open a second app. This time, just swipe your way to it and tap on the preview to open it.

You’ll notice a thick black line separating both apps—from the middle drag it up or down to re-distribute your screen. To exit Split Screen mode, just drag the black line all the way up or down.

3. Lock phone borrowers inside one app

This is one of those Android tricks you need to know if you find yourself constantly lending your phone to a friend or young family member. Because if you do, you probably know that sudden anxiety that comes with the possibility of them going through your private information or posting to your social media accounts. 

App pinning lets you be generous without giving up your privacy and will lock one app to the screen until someone unlocks your device. Essentially, the user won’t be able to access any other parts of your phone without your credentials.

[Related: How to safely share your phone with others]

Screen pinning is easy to set up. Open Settings, go to the Security & privacy menu, scroll down to choose More security settings, and tap App pinning. Once you’ve turned on the feature, launch the app your friend needs to use and open the app carousel by making a short upward swipe from the bottom of the screen. Swipe your way to the app you want to pin and tap on the circular icon at the top of the preview. On the emerging menu, tap Pin. To unpin the app, swipe from the bottom of your screen and hold. This will lock your phone and you’ll have to enter your pattern, password, PIN, or biometrics to use it.

4. Activate one-handed mode

As today’s phones continue to grow in size, they become harder and harder to operate one-handed. So Google’s custom keyboard, which is the default option on certain Android phones, has a solution: A special one-handed mode that you can switch to with a simple shortcut. If you own a Pixel phone, this keyboard will be your default typing option. If you’re on a Samsung or LG phone, you’ll have to first download Google’s version and set it as your default keyboard (as demonstrated in Tip 7).

Open up the keyboard as normal and tap and hold on the comma key. Drag up to the right-hand icon to enable one-handed mode. The arrow lets you switch this smaller keyboard from side to side, the bottom icon lets you reposition it, and the top icon restores the full-size keyboard. Other phone keyboards may also have one-handed modes, but they can be harder to access than Google’s. Try looking up your phone model and searching “one-handed keyboard” to learn more.

5. Customize your experience with regional preferences

If you live in a foreign country either permanently or temporarily, you might find it frustrating that all apps and services are built to work according to that area’s specifications—metric units, calendar settings, etc. Some apps allow you to change these settings one by one, but that takes a while and you’ll have to do it all over again if you change phones, for example. 

This is why Android 14 debuted Regional preferences, a menu where you can change these settings at a system level so you don’t have to dive deep into each individual app. Find this feature by going to Settings, System, and then Languages. Once you’re there, open Regional preferences—you’ll be able to pick temperature units, number preferences, and the first day of the week. These changes will apply wherever possible within your device.

6. Choose new default apps

One of the differences between Android and iOS is that Google’s mobile operating system lets you choose different default apps for web browsing, texting, viewing photos, etc. A default app is the one that opens automatically when you try to do something on your phone—so when you click a link, for example, your default web browser app will automatically open it.

Take advantage of this flexibility by setting up the defaults as you want them. Head to Settings, go to Apps and choose Default apps. Select any of the categories on screen to see a list of installed apps that can take over default duties. For example, if you’d prefer to chat with friends via Facebook Messenger, rather than your phone’s built-in SMS app, you can make Facebook’s product your default messaging app.

7. Cast your Android screen

For a number of years, you’ve been able to broadcast your Android phone or tablet’s display to the larger screen of a television using a Chromecast. In addition to beaming video from all the usual movie and TV apps, this streaming device can mirror your phone. Take advantage of a shortcut in the Quick Settings pane especially made for this feature, which you can access by dragging down from the top of the screen with two fingers. You should find a Screen Cast option in this menu. If it doesn’t show up, swipe left on the Quick Settings menu for more options, or tap the pencil icon at the bottom to add the shortcut.

[Related: How to put video calls on your TV]

There’s also another way to set up mirroring. First, check to make sure you’ve installed the Google Home app for Android—you probably already used this program to set up your Chromecast. Open the app and choose your Chromecast and your device’s display should appear on the big screen. On your phone, tap Media and choose from Music, Video, Podcasts, or Radio and select a service to start streaming.

8. Make text and images more visible

If you’re struggling to see what’s on the screen—or, alternatively, if you want to cram as much content as possible onto the display and don’t mind doing a bit of squinting along the way—you can zoom in or out on text and objects. Not all apps will respond to these adjustments, but most of them will.

To change size settings, open Settings and go to the Display heading. From there, tap the Display size and text and drag the slider under Font size to make text larger or smaller as needed. Android 13 introduced a new slider on this menu—Display size. You can play around with it to make icons and the Google search bar chunkier.

9. Disable the lock screen at home

To keep your device safe, you need to set up a PIN code or biometrics scan to unlock your phone. But this makes it more inconvenient to access your apps. Google’s Smart Lock feature lets you remove this obstacle, giving you instant access to your phone—but only when you’re safely at home.

From Settings, tap Security & privacy, go to More security settings and choose Smart Lock. As well as disabling the lock screen when you’re at home (that’s the Trusted Places option), you can also disable the screen when your phone’s Bluetooth is connected to a trusted device, such as your car stereo unit, or when it detects you have it on you.

10. Change volume settings independently

Your device plays several different types of audio—including ringtones, notifications, alarms, phone calls, and media. If you’ve ever gone to the Settings menu and opened Sound & vibration, you’ll have seen that you can use individual sliders to adjust these audio types individually.

However, Android gives you a quick-and-easy shortcut. Tap the physical volume buttons on the side of your device to make whatever’s currently playing quieter or louder (if no media is playing, this action will adjust your ringtone volume). When you do, a small box will pop up on the screen, showing which volume setting is changing and how. At the bottom of that box, you should see three dots. Tap them, and the box will expand to show multiple volume sliders at once. This can save you a trip to Settings.

11. Bring back lost notifications

So you accidentally swiped away one of the notifications that you wanted to read fully and now you have a nagging sense someone emailed you, but are not sure. It happens. If you want to review all of your recent notifications on Android, you’re in luck. This ability is possible—though the option isn’t easy to find.

[Related: Switching from iPhone to Android has never been easier]

Tap and hold on an empty part of the home screen, and a screen-adjusting mode will pop up. Choose Widgets, and find the Settings shortcut. Drag this icon to an empty space on one of your home screens, drop it in place, and a list will automatically pop up. Choose Notification log from the list and tap the icon to open up Android’s notification history.

12. Get an always-handy magnifying glass

Other than changing display options and making icons and text bigger, Android 14 introduced a new feature that lets you magnify specific parts of your screen. To enable it, go to Settings, Accessibility, and Magnification. Start by toggling on the switch next to Magnification shortcut, which will introduce a red magnifying glass button to the right of your screen.

Whenever you need a little help looking at text, pictures, or animations, you can summon the Magnification tool by tapping the red icon. An orange frame will appear on screen, zooming into the display portion underneath it (just like a magnifying glass), and you’ll be able to move it wherever you need it. If the default zoom is not enough, use your thumb and index fingers to expand the view even more. Tap the red icon again to disable the tool.  

This story has been updated. It was first published in 2017.

The post 12 hidden Android features you should be using appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

One of the new iPhone functionalities ushered in with the arrival of iOS 17—like offline Apple Maps support—is StandBy mode. This feature turns your iPhone into a small smart display that will show you everything from calendar appointments to your favorite photo albums.

Perhaps the obvious use of StandBy mode is to turn an iPhone into a bedside clock, displaying the current time and even dimming the display once the lights go out. But there are plenty of other ways to use it.

StandBy mode is available on iPhones running iOS 17—that’s the iPhone XR, iPhone XS, and iPhone XS Max launched in 2018, and every handset that’s appeared since.

If you have a Pro or Pro Max version of the iPhone 14 or 15, your device can display StandBy permanently on screen. On other models, you’ll need to wake the display to see it: You can do this by tapping the display or waving your hand in front of it.

How StandBy mode works

You can enable StandBy mode by going to StandBy on the Settings screen and turning on the StandBy toggle switch. If you’re using an iPhone with an always-on display, use the Always On toggle switch to determine whether StandBy mode stays permanently on the screen.

[Related: 6 great features to try out on iOS 17]

To have StandBy mode activate automatically, charge your iPhone and prop it up on its side and at an angle (so not flat on a surface). Once your device meets all of these conditions, StandBy mode turns on—the first time that happens you’ll see a message explaining what StandBy mode is. By default, you’ll see clock and calendar widgets appear first. To quit StandBy mode, simply pick up your phone, lay it down flat, or remove it from the charger.

The feature works with both wired and wireless charging, but MagSafe chargers have a bonus functionality: StandBy mode remembers how you’ve configured it on each separate charger, so you can have different setups for different rooms (the bedroom and the kitchen, for example).

Customizing StandBy mode

Swiping left or right on the StandBy mode screen cycles through the different views available to you. There’s a widgets screen, a photos screen, and a clock screen, and on each one you can swipe up and down for different configurations.

On the widgets screen, the display is split in two so you can swipe up and down on them separately to scroll through the available widgets. You can pick from the weather forecast, your upcoming calendar appointments, and any active reminders.

Long press on the widgets screen to remove add-ons from the list (via the minus button) or add new ones (via the plus button). The widgets you see will depend on the apps installed on your phone, but there are a bunch of native ones built into iOS to get you started.

Other than the widgets available to you, you’ll see other options similar to the ones you have for widgets on the home screen. Smart Rotate will intelligently change the available widgets based on the time of day and your usual habits, and Widget Suggestions will add in widgets based on the apps you already use a lot.

A long press also unlocks options on the photos screen, allowing you to choose a particular album in your gallery that’s different to the images StandBy mode chose for you.

A long press on the clock screen brings up the available options of that particular view, but as of yet, there’s no option to add a new clock face.

Back on the StandBy screen in iOS Settings, you can customize the StandBy feature in a few more ways. The Show Notifications toggle switch determines whether incoming notifications appear in StandBy mode—enable the Show Preview on Tap Only option underneath if you’d rather not have previews (like the first lines of messages) appear on screen.

[Related: Hand gesture reactions are one of macOS Sonoma’s coolest new features]

You can also tap Night Mode and enable the Night Mode toggle switch. This feature dims the display and turns everything on it red whenever your iPhone detects it’s in a dark environment. That way, StandBy doesn’t stop you from getting to sleep. The same screen has a Motion To Wake toggle switch: Keep it on if you want to be able to wake the screen with a wave, or turn it off if you find your nightly tossing and turning is constantly lighting up the display while you’re in bed.

The post Turn your iPhone into a bedside clock with StandBy mode appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

Money transfer apps are incredibly useful, which is why they’re so ubiquitous. But Venmo, one of the most popular of the bunch, has a problem: by adding a social element to our spending, the platform makes all transactions public by default. 

This means that all of the internet (or, best-case scenario, your friends and their friends) knows you’ve been ordering pizzaPeruvian food for breakfast at least twice a week. Or that you bought a statue of questionable taste from some person on Facebook Marketplace. Or something beyond what we can put to print. Venmo keeps some things private, but certainly discloses enough information to let other people know who you’re spending with, and potentially on what, so finding out your friends went for brunch without you is only a matter of scrolling.

This is why you should make your Venmo private right now. Thankfully, accessing and changing the platform’s settings is easy. 

How to change your privacy settings on Venmo

1. Open Venmo and tap your profile picture in the bottom right corner of your screen. 

2. Tap the cog icon in the top right corner to open the settings menu. 

3. Go to Privacy. 

4. Under Default privacy settings, make sure you select the bubble next to Private. This will make sure transactions are only visible to you and the person who’s paying or receiving money from you. 

[Related: The 7 best apps for sending money]

There’s also a Friends option, which will make your activity visible to your friends and their friends, but we’d discourage you from going that way. Venmo is an extremely practical app people usually only use to transfer money, which is why we don’t usually think too much about who we befriend on there. Think about that one time you went out for drinks with a large group of people and one person picked up the check so everyone paid them instead. You may not even know that person well, but if they’re your friend on Venmo, they, along with all of their friends, can see how you spend your money. 

If you’ve been using Venmo for a while, you should know that changing your privacy settings doesn’t work retroactively, and will only keep your future transactions private. To protect everything from the past, tap Past transactions on the privacy menu and select Change all to private. 

To go even further, and since you’re already in the privacy menu, tap Friends list and set it to private. This will prevent people from knowing who you’re friends with on the app. To finish, toggle off the switch next to Appear on other users’ friends lists. This will ensure that, even if your friends can’t be bothered with their privacy settings, at least you won’t show up on their lists.

More Venmo privacy tips

Maybe you like the social element of Venmo and prefer to keep things between friends (and their friends). That doesn’t mean you can’t still take care of your privacy. 

Make individual transactions private

You should know that you can always make individual transactions private. This is easy to do but not very intuitive, so you might’ve missed it. 

After completing a payment, open the transfer on your timeline or profile. Under Transaction details and to the right of the date and time, you’ll see the transaction’s privacy settings in blue—tap it to change it. You’ll get the same options as on the app’s privacy menu, and you’ll be able to make your activity visible only to you and the other person, your friends and their friends, or the entire world wide web. 

Opt for nondescript descriptions

As we mentioned before, Venmo doesn’t disclose the amounts of money you transfer on the app, but it says who you’re paying, and who you’re friends with, if applicable. 

That’s a lot of information as it is, but most importantly, the platform shows everyone the description of each interaction, which usually gives away the nature of the transaction and the context. So, for example, if you see someone paying somebody else and posting a pizza or drinks emoji, you can easily assume they ate or drank together, which can easily fuel gossip or, in the worst cases, “conspiranoia.” 

[Related: It’s time to start paying for everything with your phone]

If you’re keeping things between friends, give your transactions a non-obvious description. Since this is a required field to finalize payments, you can type gibberish or anything else that doesn’t give away what the payment or request was for. If you think you might need a receipt in the future, text that person directly confirming tha transaction. 

Check your friends list often

When you search someone on Venmo or scan their account QR code, the app will immediately take you to their profile page. You’ll be able to see their picture and their name, but you’ll also be able to spot somewhat of a dark pattern—it’s easier to add them as friends than it is to just make or request a payment. 

This is because the Add friend button is immediately below a person’s account details, whereas the transfer button (a white coin and a pencil against a blue background) is all the way down in the bottom right corner of your screen. You probably know this, but you can easily miss it, especially in the “We gotta pay and go” mindset after a meal. 

Again, if you set your privacy settings to Friends, make sure you take a moment, maybe once every few months, to revise your friends list. Make sure you know everybody on there and delete anyone you might not interact with on the app again. That way you’ll have a good idea of who your audience is and keep some control over it. 

The post It’s time to make your Venmo transactions private appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

I, like many people, prefer texting to calling. So why does Apple think I want to talk to Siri out loud? 

I understand that in some circumstances talking out loud is easier, but when I’m in a public place I’d rather type notes to my virtual assistant than look like I’m talking to myself. This approach is particularly easy on my Mac, where I have a big keyboard ready to be used. 

If you’d also like to keep your conversations with Siri private, you can dive into the Accessibility settings to enable the Type to Siri feature and stop Apple’s assistant from responding to you out loud. 

How to turn on Type to Siri

Turning on Type to Siri is easy and the same on iPhone, iPad, and Mac devices. Keep in mind that the change only affects the gadget you’re using, so if you’re tweaking the settings on your Apple computer, it won’t affect your iPhone.

Start by opening the settings application for your device. On a Mac, you can find System Settings on the dock or by clicking the Apple logo in the top-left corner of your screen and clicking System Settings. On your iPhone or iPad you can find the Settings app either on your homescreen or in the app drawer. 

[Related: Simplify your life by creating routines for Alexa, Siri, and Google Assistant]

Continue by scrolling down on the left-sidebar, going to Accessibility, and clicking Siri.

From here, toggle the switch next to the Type to Siri option to activate it. 

From now on, whenever you summon Siri, your system will show you a text box and allow you to type instead of waiting for you to talk. On the Mac, this happens in the top-right corner of the screen. On your iPhone or iPad, your on-screen keyboard will open along with a box prompting you to chat to Siri. Type a question or request and, as always, you’ll get a response. 

No matter what device you’re using, all Siri functionalities will stay the same, so you’ll still be able to ask follow-up questions like you can when using Siri out loud. 

Note that, on the Mac, you can set a keyboard shortcut for Siri, which is perfect considering you’re using the keyboard for the actual conversation. In Settings, head to Siri & Spotlight and click the dropdown menu next to Keyboard shortcut. You can choose between three default shortcuts or create your own by choosing Customize. 

How to prevent Siri from responding out loud

You’re not talking out loud to Siri but, by default, Siri will still respond by talking back to you out loud. To change this and have her reply with a written response instead, head back to the Settings application and go to the Siri and Spotlight (Mac) or Siri and Search (iPhone and iPad) section. 

[Related: Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant all have alternate voices. Here’s how to find them.]

Click Siri Responses and toggle off the switch next to Voice feedback. 

Note that on mobile you can’t prevent Siri from talking back at all times, and it’ll keep responding out loud whenever you’re driving. This will also happen when you’re using headphones and your iPhone’s screen is off. But the rest of the time Siri will communicate with you using text. 

The post How to text Siri instead of talking to it out loud appeared first on Popular Science.

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Whether it’s to save messages for posterity, troubleshoot problems, capture memorable gaming moments, or run tutorials, the ability to take screenshots is so essential that it’s built into Windows, macOS, Android, and iOS.

ChromeOS, Google’s operating system for their Chromebook laptops, is no different and has easy-to-use tools to grab screenshots and screen recordings. The OS also provides some basic integrated editing tools for your captured content if you need them.

Start by launching the screenshot toolbar

Taking screenshots on a Chromebook will require you to summon the screenshot toolbar. There are several ways to do this, so pick the one that works best for you. 

Newer Chromebooks come with a dedicated screenshot key—it looks like a circle inside a rectangle and you’ll find it up on the top row of the keyboard. As you might have suspected, pressing this button brings up the screenshot toolbar at the bottom of the screen.

[Related: The best cheap Chromebooks in 2023]

If your Chromebook doesn’t offer this option, you can try the overview key: This is also on the top row of the keyboard, and looks like a rectangle with two vertical lines next to it. This key brings up an overview of all your open windows, but if you hold down Ctrl+Shift and then press it, the screenshot toolbar will appear.

Finally, you can get to the screenshot toolbar by bringing up the Quick Settings panel. Click the clock in the lower right corner of the screen and on the emerging menu, click the Screen capture button.

Customize how you take screenshots on ChromeOS

No matter how you brought up the screenshot toolbar, once it’s open, your options are then the same. On the far left of it you can click either the camera icon or the video camera icon to switch between the ability to take screenshots and screen recordings.

The next three icons to the right let you grab different portions of the screen. Choose the first one to capture the whole screen, the second one to select part of it, or the third one to grab an image of a specific open window. Further to the right is a cog icon that opens the screenshot settings—most of them relate to videos, but you can also choose where in your Chromebook you save your screengrabs.

If you’re making a recording, you’ll be able to include audio from the Chromebook microphone, the feed from your webcam, along with clicks and presses from your mouse and keyboard. These are all useful options if you’re recording a tutorial or a gaming session, for example.

With everything set up the way you want, it’s time to take a screenshot or start a screen recording: For full screen captures, click anywhere on screen; to grab a specific part of the screen, use the crosshair tool to select a portion of it, or if you want to capture a single app window, just click it.  Your Chromebook will snap screenshots instantly, but for videos, you’ll see  a countdown before recording  starts. You can stop them whenever you want by clicking the red button on the shelf at the bottom of the screen.

Editing your screenshots on Chromebook

When you finish capturing a screenshot or screen recording, a small pop up appears in the lower right corner of the screen—click it to see the image or video stored on your Chromebook.

[Related: Revive your old computer by turning it into a Chromebook]

The pop up for screenshots also has an Edit button on it, though you don’t get this with screen recordings. When you click it, the image will open in the basic screenshot editor included with ChromeOS: Hover over the icons at the top to crop and rotate the picture, resize it, add annotations, or change the exposure, contrast, and saturation. 

It’s the annotation tool labeled Draw that’s perhaps most useful for screenshots. A new pane pops out on the right, showing different pen types and colors. Once you’ve made your choices here, you can start scribbling on the image. Click Done when you’re happy with the changes, or Cancel if you don’t want to save them. There’s also a link to launch the image in Google Photos on the web, where you’ll find more editing options.

The post You should learn how to take screenshots on a Chromebook (and edit them) appeared first on Popular Science.

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A router is technically a device for directing packets of data between two or more computer networks, but it’s also shorthand for the piece of tech you’re probably thinking about right now: your home WiFi router. 

A normal WiFi router creates a local area network (LAN) in your home that allows your computers, smartphones, and other devices to connect to your internet service provider’s, or ISP’s, network—enabling access to the open internet. A router is essential if you want multiple devices in your home to access the web.

For example, let’s assume you are reading this article on your smartphone on your home WiFi network. When you tapped the link to this article, your smartphone sent a series of data packets to your WiFi router requesting the contents of this article, which it then forwarded to your ISP’s network, and on to whatever server PopSci is hosted on. That server then sent the contents of this article back along much the same path to your WiFi router, which neatly handed it back to your smartphone.

Do I need a WiFi router?

If you want to connect more than one device to the internet in your home or place of business, then yes, you need a WiFi router. It’s the best way to create a WiFi network that will allow all your devices to go online at the same time. 

[Related: Device won’t connect to WiFi? Here’s what to do first.]

Most WiFi routers are also wired routers. They normally have multiple Ethernet ports so you can connect devices that don’t have WiFi capabilities, or if you want to directly access the high-speed, reliable connection that an Ethernet cable provides.

While you probably need a WiFi router, you might not need to buy one. When you sign up for an internet plan, most ISPs will send you both a modem, which allows you to connect to the internet, and a router, which creates a LAN for all your devices—though the two devices may be combined into one.

What is the difference between a router and a modem?

Although your ISP may combine both a router and a modem into a single device, the two serve different purposes. 

As we’ve discussed, a router creates a LAN and manages data on it. A modem connects your router to your ISP so you can actually browse the internet. 

If you have a router, but no modem, you will be able to create a LAN and send data between your devices. (This is how people used to play multiplayer games with their friends before online gaming.) You just won’t be able to connect to the open internet.

Now, if you have a modem, but no router, you will be able to connect one device to the internet at a time via an Ethernet cable, but you won’t have a WiFi network for multiple devices to connect to.

Are there advantages to getting your own router?

While the routers provided by ISPs will do the job, if you want the best WiFi router you can get, you will likely have to buy one yourself. There are a number of advantages to upgrading your WiFi router:

• Better WiFi routers will support newer versions of the WiFi standard, which allow for faster network speeds and a more stable connection for more devices. For example, the best WiFi 6 routers support gigabit WiFi speeds.
• Mesh routers will allow you to create a single WiFi network with multiple routers, allowing you to cover your whole home with a solid WiFi signal. 
• Most ISP routers aren’t optimized for online gaming. If you want to get the best gaming performance you can over WiFi, you should consider a dedicated gaming router.

Of course, if you just want to connect a smartphone or two to the internet, then any router will do. Just make sure to update your router security settings to keep your browsing safe and secure.

The post What is a router? It’s like your WiFi’s post office. appeared first on Popular Science.

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Spam’s everywhere: even when you’ve dealt with the junk mail coming through the post and the unsolicited messages clogging up your email inbox, you’ve still got to deal with the spam you get through SMS and other messaging services.

Fortunately, today’s smartphones and messaging apps come with built-in tools for limiting the amount of spam you see. This means that with a little work, you can keep your conversation lists clean and free from junk.

But before technology can do the heavy lifting for you, help it help you by being more careful with your mobile number. To prevent it from ending up in sketchy marketing lists, don’t put it on forms or in any kind of communication if you can help it, and keep it away from your social media profiles on the web.

How to fight spam on iOS’s Messages

The default Messages app on iOS, covering both basic SMS texts and Apple’s iMessage service, lets you block specific numbers: Tap the name or number at the top of any conversation, choose Info and Block this Caller. Blocked texts won’t show up for you at all, but the sender won’t know they can’t reach you. To manage the numbers you’ve blocked, go to Messages and Blocked Contacts from the iOS Settings screen.

[Related: Why it’s still so tricky to track spam calls and texts]

You can also have Messages filter out spam automatically, though this ability only works on texts you receive through Apple’s own iMessage service. From iOS Settings, go to Messages and enable Filter Unknown Senders. This will create a new Filters link at the top of the conversation list in Messages: Tap it to see messages from known senders, unknown senders, or all messages together. This might include new numbers that are not yet in your contact list, so it’s a good idea to check the unknown senders folder from time to time in case you miss anything.

You can also report junk messages to Apple, which doesn’t stop the sender from texting you, but it gives their information to both Apple and your carrier. The company doesn’t explicitly say what good this does, but we’re assuming repeat scammers end up on some kind of blacklist. To report junk, swipe left on a conversation in Messages, tap the red and white trash button, then pick Delete and Report Junk.

How to fight spam on Android’s Messages

For Android users, Google’s Messages should be their default platform for both SMS and RCS texts. This app has built-in anti-spam protections that will automatically detect spam and move it out of your way, but it’s not on by default. To turn on this feature, open Messages, tap your profile picture (top right), go to Messages settings and tap Spam protection.

To see messages that have been filtered out in the app, tap your profile picture, then Spam and blocked. From here, you can tap the three dots (top right), then Blocked numbers to see the current blacklist. While Messages often deals with spam automatically, if the platform isn’t sure about a text, you’ll see a “suspected spam” dialog appear at the top of the message when you open it. If this is indeed an unwanted message, tap Report spam on the dialog to get rid of it.

If the Messages app hasn’t picked up on a spam message, press and hold on it in the main conversation list, then tap the block icon at the top (it looks like a crossed-out circle). Finish by choosing OK on the emerging dialog box to block the number and move the message to spam. The emerging box also gives you the option of reporting the sender’s details to Google, which helps it better detect spam messages in the future.

Fighting spam on WhatsApp

If WhatsApp for Android or iOS is your messaging app of choice, you can deal with spam messages without much fuss. On an iPhone, press and hold on a message in your conversation list to find the Block option. On an Android phone, press and hold on a message on the list, then tap the three dots (top right) and hit  Block.

This will prevent the person behind this number from sending you any more messages. On both Android and iOS, you’ll also see an option to report the sender to WhatsApp as well as blocking them. This means they’ll be known to WhatsApp as a potential spammer, and the platform might ultimately take action against them.

To see the numbers that you’ve blocked, and reinstate them if necessary, tap Settings, Privacy, and Blocked on iOS, or the three dots (top right), Settings, Privacy, and Blocked contacts on Android. WhatsApp won’t identify or filter out spam on your behalf, so it’s up to you to manage this list of contacts.

How to fight spam on Facebook Messenger

Unlike WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger for Android and iOS does attempt to do some kind of spam filtering. Tap the three horizontal lines in the top right of the interface and choose Message requests—you’ll see the messages from people who you aren’t currently friends with or that Facebook Messenger thinks might be spam. Occasionally, you might find genuine messages in here, so it’s worth checking every now and again.

Messages in your main chats list are from people you’re friends with on Facebook, so in theory there shouldn’t be any spam here. But there are exceptions—maybe a spambot has been impersonating a friend of yours, or a scammer has gained access to their account. In that case, verify their identity through other forms of contact and let them know of the situation.

If you go into a conversation with someone, then tap their name at the top, you’ve got three options for dealing with spam or unwanted messages. The first one is Restrict, which won’t result in you blocking the person, but Facebook will auto-archive their messages and won’t send you notifications about them. The others are Block, where the person will no longer be able to message you, and Report, where you’re reporting the account to Facebook for spam messages or something else.

Fighting spam on other messaging apps

We don’t have the space to cover every single messaging app here, but if you dig around you’ll find similar options to these in other platforms. You’ll at least get the ability to block and report spammers, even if your messaging client of choice doesn’t have its own spam filter installed.

[Related: Scammers busted in India for impersonating Amazon and Microsoft tech support]

If you use Instagram for Android or iOS to message people, you’ll see a Requests link at the top of your direct messages inbox—this is where the platform puts messages from people you’re not following. Meanwhile, you can block and report spammers whose messages get through from inside individual conversations: Just tap the sender name at the top of the chat to find the options.

Over on Signal for Android or iOS, messages from senders who are not in your contacts are flagged up as requests, though they still appear in the main chat list. When you open them, you can accept the message or block the sender. To block someone not flagged up in this way, tap the sender name or number at the top of a conversation and choose Block on the next screen.

The post Stop spam texts with some help from your favorite messaging app appeared first on Popular Science.

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There are few things more tedious than the back and forth between you and someone you need to meet. They may say they’re free whenever (me) but when you say a time and date, they wince and say that’s actually the only time they can’t get together (also me). 

To make coordinating meetings easier, Google has launched a new free Calendar feature called Appointment Schedule. The tool has been available to Google Workspace customers since early 2022, but earlier this month The Big G granted all users access to it—albeit with limitations, depending on whether they’re paying or not. 

With Appointment Schedule, you can set up chunks of availability on your calendar so that whoever wants to meet you—be that over a video call or in real life—can pick any time and date within your set parameters. The feature is highly customizable, and setting it up just right is the best way to make it work for you.

How to use Google Calendar’s Appointment Schedule

No matter the type of account you have, you’ll start setting up Appointment Schedule by going to Google Calendar in a web browser and hitting Create in the upper left corner of your screen. On the emerging menu, click Appointment Schedule, and a list of options will appear on the left side of the interface.

1. Give your appointment schedule a name. Free-tier users will only be able to create one schedule, whereas paying customers (or those who are part of a Google Workspace organization) can have multiple ones, so naming them will make things easier. Don’t spend too much time on this—you can always change it later. 

[Related: What to know about using Google Calendar’s Time Insights feature]

2. Set up an appointment duration. This will be the standard meeting duration. It can go from 5 minutes up to 23.1 hours. Why the extra 6 minutes? Who knows, but you and whoever you’re meeting will surely agree that an appointment that long is not exactly practical or productive. Don’t stress about cutting your meeting short: people can book more than one slot with you per day as long as the daily cap has not been met—more on that later. 

3. Set up your general availability. Under this setting, you’ll establish the big chunks of time you’re available for meetings. If you want this schedule to run forever until you turn it off, leave the Repeat weekly dropdown menu as it is. But if you just want to set up your availability for the next week, click on it and choose Does not repeat. 

Below this, you’ll see a list of the days of the week, and next to each one, start and end times for big availability windows. These are the chunks of time where people will be able to book an appointment with you, and you can add as many to each day as you want by clicking the plus sign to the right of each day. For example, if you’re available all day at the office, you could put down 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., but if you don’t want anybody to bother you from noon until 1:30 p.m., you can set up two availability windows around that. Once that’s done, you don’t have to repeat the settings for each day of the week—click the copy icon on the right (two rectangles on top of each other) and it’ll automatically replicate your general availability Monday through Friday.  

Note that by default, Saturday and Sunday will be set as unavailable for meetings, but clicking the plus sign will change that. 

4. Adjust scheduling. The next menus will let you fine-tune details of how you want Appointment Schedule to work. For example, you’ll be able to set when it kicks in (select Available Now under Scheduling window, or Start and end dates) and how far in advance people can book time with you (up to a year). 

You can also tweak Adjusted availability for specific dates where you’d normally be able to meet. This works exactly like the general availability option, but instead of days of the week, you’ll choose specific dates. So, if your teeth cleaning falls during a time you’ve marked yourself as generally available, you can add that date here and adjust your schedule as needed. 

If you need time to prepare for each meeting or just want to prevent your day from becoming an endless parade of people asking you questions, you can limit your availability time by setting up a Buffer time and Maximum bookings per day. The latter will set a cap of daily meetings, and you’ll appear as unavailable when that cap is met.

5. Choose how Google Calendar determines if you’re busy. Your appointment schedule will always check your Google Calendar to see if you’re busy so that there’s no overlap with any other meetings you might’ve accepted. 

But here’s the catch: If you’re not a paying Google user and have more than one calendar (a personal and a work one, for example), you will only be able to pick one of them to define availability. Paying Google account holders and members of Workspace organizations don’t have to choose, so they can continue to compartmentalize their lives in a more practical way. 

When you’re done with these settings, click Next to continue.

6. Edit your Appointment schedule details. On the following menu, you’ll find more settings you can mess around with:

• Booking page photo and name: Your booking page is what people will see when they want to book time with you. The name and photo you use for your Google account will appear there, so if you want something that looks professional, make sure you change these settings in the My Account page.
• Location and conferencing: Tweak this to establish where you’d prefer to meet the person booking your time. You can choose to have the platform automatically generate a Google Meet link upon booking, specify a physical place (your office, for example), or transform all of your meetings into phone calls. You can also choose None / to be specified later so you and your guests can decide how you’ll meet. 
• Description: Here you can say anything you want about your meeting. Maybe you want to make it clear to your students that you won’t be responding to questions about their latest exam, or you want to let people know about the price of your services. Yes—if you’re a Google Workspace subscriber you can also set up a Stripe account to receive payment for your time. 

7. Set up a booking form. Under Booking form, you’ll be able to specify all the fields guests have to fill before booking time with you. By default, Google Calendar requires their first and last name, as well as their email address, but you can add more if you want. Click Add item—you’ll be able to ask people to provide their phone numbers or fill out a custom field, like their preference of coffee shop. Check the box next to Required to make something mandatory and finish by clicking Add item. 

On this menu, paying Google users will also see the option to require email verification. Click the box beside it to have people verify their emails when booking time with you using a non-Google email account. This extra step might be annoying for some, but it’s also extremely useful to prevent malicious bookings, especially if your booking page lives in a public place, like a social media bio. 

8. Make sure your guests know about your meeting. Now, choose whether you want to remind the people booking time with you about their appointment. Free-tier users will only be able to send guests a confirmation upon scheduling, whereas paying Google customers will be able to blast out as many email reminders as they want. 

By default, the box next to Email reminder will be selected and set to send a message a day before the scheduled appointment. Click on the dropdown menu to choose another time frame or create a custom one. If you want to send more than one note, hit Add reminder. 

Finally, hit Save to finish setting up your appointment schedule. 

Note that you might find multiple entries of your appointment schedule on a single day. This happens because the name of your appointment schedule will always appear on days when there are time slots to be booked, but there will also be specific appointments that were already scheduled. You’ll know the difference because the former will have a four-square icon next to it, while the latter will have the name of the person who booked the slot inside parentheses to the right of it. 

When you open Appointment Schedule from the Calendar view, you’ll also see a trash can icon—click it to get rid of your bookable schedule partially or entirely. On the next menu, you’ll be able to delete that day specifically (This week only), that day in all upcoming weeks (All weeks), or erase the schedule entirely (All availability). Check the bubble next to the option you want and hit Save. 

How to invite people to schedule an appointment with you on Google Calendar

To let people book time with you on Google Calendar, you’ll need to direct them to your booking page. This is a simple website where they’ll be able to navigate your availability and choose the time that works best for them. Note that they’ll only be able to see when you’re free to meet, but won’t see any details of your calendar. 

[Related: Syncing Google and Apple calendars is less annoying now]

To share this link, open your appointment schedule from Google Calendar and click Open booking page. From there, hit the Share button in the top right corner of your screen—click Copy link to copy the URL to your clipboard and share it with whoever you want on a platform of your choosing, such as email, text message, or social media. You can also go to the Website embed tab to get an embed code that will allow you to add a widget to your webpage that people can click to book time with you.  

The post Google Calendar now lets everyone line up their schedules perfectly appeared first on Popular Science.

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Facebook probably has a lot of your favorite videos—from lovely, mischievous puppies and memes, to all the memories from that wonderful trip to Europe last summer. They don’t have to stay there, though: You can easily save videos from Facebook, if you want to.

However, there are limitations. The platform doesn’t have a direct way to download videos, but there is an easy workaround to save footage that’s labeled as public or has been posted by your friends. This method doesn’t require downloaders or third-party software, and works on computers running Windows or macOS.

How to download your own Facebook videos

Downloading videos from your own Facebook page, whether they’re public, private, or only visible to your friends, is a pretty simple process.

1. Log into your Facebook account and go to your profile page.

2. Click Video in the Facebook navigation bar located just below your name and profile picture. On the next screen, you’ll see all the video content you’ve ever uploaded to the platform—find the video you want to download and click on it. 

3. Open the three-dot menu in the top right corner of your screen.

4. Click Download Video. An emerging window will appear allowing you to rename the video and save it wherever you like on your computer’s hard drive.

Another important note: Just because you can download a video doesn’t mean you can do whatever you want with it. If the video isn’t yours, it might be protected by copyright and you might need explicit permission from the owner before you share it on other platforms. Fail to do so and you could face legal repercussions. Keep all that in mind as you proceed.

1. Log into Facebook and find the video you want to download. Once you’ve located the video, click on the three dots in the upper right hand corner of the video.

2. Notice that the emerging menu doesn’t give you the option to download the video as it does with those uploaded to your profile or channels, so you’ll need to go a different route. Select Copy Link.

3. Open a new window in your browser, paste the link into the address bar, and press Return or Enter—this will display the full URL instead of the shortened one. Once you see the complete address, replace the “www” with “mbasic“, making sure to keep the rest of the URL intact. MBASIC is a pared-down version of Facebook designed to make the service easier to use on older smartphones. After making the change, press Enter.

4. On this page, you’ll see a stripped-down mobile version of the video grouped with other public Facebook posts. Click the play button located in the middle of your video to open it in another tab.

5. While the video is playing, right-click on the screen and select Save Video As.

[Related: How to keep your Facebook account secure]

6. A file explorer or finder window will open, allowing you to rename the video. By default, the video will save to the downloads folder on your hard drive, but you can choose another location within your system. Once you’ve renamed the file (if you want) and selected a download location, click Save.

7. Your system will save the video as an MP4 file, so you’ll need a media player that supports this file format to view it on your computer.

The post How to save videos from Facebook appeared first on Popular Science.

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Everything that makes email so convenient—free messages, quick delivery—also makes it susceptible to spam. With only a list of addresses (widely available online), professional spammers can merrily bombard their victims with as many messages as they like, and they have a host of automated tools to help them expand their volume and slip past filters.

It’s time to fight back against the deluge. Here are five strategies for banishing junk email and learning how to stop spam emails for good.

1. Train your spam filter

These days, most email clients include some form of spam detection. Your provider will automatically red-flag messages that seem worthless or fraudulent and move them to a special folder where you can review them later. However, these filters will work a lot better if you tell them when they chose well or made a mistake. In other words, the spam filter isn’t an end-all solution for getting rid of spam emails—you can configure its settings and actions to improve its performance. If you’re trying to figure out why you’re getting junk mail in your inbox despite having a spam filter enabled, you probably need to train it a little more.

For instance, every time you open an email in the Gmail web app, you’ll see a Report Spam button (it looks like a stop sign with an exclamation mark inside it) at the top of the page. Click this when you encounter any message that managed to sneak past Google’s spam filters. On the other hand, if you check your Spam folder and find a genuinely useful email, open it and click the Not spam button at the top of the page or the Report not spam banner in the email itself.

[Related: Why you should use whitelists to manage your email]

In Outlook, you mark a message as spam by selecting it in your inbox, selecting Report from the toolbar at the top, and clicking on Report Junk. When you’re browsing the Junk Email folder, restore a flagged message to your inbox by selecting it, clicking Report, and choosing Not Junk.

Just about every email client will include options like these. Simply dig into the settings or review the buttons that appear on the page.

2. Unsubscribe from unwanted messages

Many items that we think of as spam—such as newsletters and emails about deals—do aim to make your life better. However, these well-intentioned messages add up, cluttering up your inbox until they become stressful. Rather than deleting them en masse, look for unsubscribe links to stop receiving emails from that source.

These links usually appear at the bottom of an email—because most of the time, the sender doesn’t really want you to unsubscribe. If you do take time to hunt down these links, they often direct you to a page that asks you to confirm your decision. Once you do so, most sources will respect your wishes and remove you from their mailing lists. For Gmail users, this process is even easier, because if Gmail detects an unsubscribe link in the body text, it displays that link prominently at the top of the email. You can enjoy the same automated action in the Mail app on iOS—it will copy any unsubscribe link in the body text and display it at the top of the email, near the toolbar.

Another option is Unroll.me, a third-party service that scours your inbox for messages from mailing lists and gives you the option to unsubscribe in one click. If you’d like to keep receiving updates, but would prefer to see fewer of them, Unroll.me can condense all of those emails into a single daily message that’s easier to digest. The extension works with Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo Mail, AOL mail, iCloud, Hotmail, MSN, and Live Mail. Although it’s free and it will help you stop unwanted emails, it makes money by collecting anonymized email data on shopping trends, so be aware of that if you plan to sign up.

3. Use an alternative email address

A lot of unwanted messages make their way into your inbox when you order a product or subscribe to a mailing list—and then the company automatically signs you up to receive unwanted marketing updates or shares your contact information with an advertiser. One workaround for this problem is to create an email alias or a secondary address that you can use for some of these web activities, such as online shopping or hotel booking.

While another email address won’t stop spam from arriving, those unwanted messages will appear in a secondary email account rather than your primary one, keeping your main inbox free from clutter. If you already use Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Outlook, or Mail.com, you can set up a decoy account for free, following the same process you used to establish your original account.

[Related: 4 tips to help you achieve “Inbox Zero” in Gmail]

Depending on your email client, you may not need an entirely new account. Many clients will accept variations of your existing email address. For example, Gmail addresses ignore dots, so emails sent to “johnsmith@gmail.com” and “j.ohnsm.ith@gmail.com” will both arrive at the same inbox. Your emails will also come through if someone sends a message to your email address followed by a plus sign and extra words—so messages addressed to “johnsmith@gmail.com” and “johnsmith+extra@gmail.com” will both land in your inbox.

Why is this helpful? It means you can enter a variation on your current email address whenever you sign up for or buy something, and then create a filter to corral anything sent to that address in its own folder. To create a filter in Gmail, click the settings button (cog icon) on the top right, followed by See all settings and then Filters and Blocked Addresses. Click Create a new filter, enter your tweaked address in the To field, and then decide what you want to do with these types of emails. You could mark them as read immediately, archive them, slap a shared label on them, or some combination of these actions.

4. Download third-party extensions to stop spam emails

If a lot of junk mail slips through your email client’s spam filter, try adding a third-party app to supplement it. This type of service nabs messages as they travel between an email server (the cloud where messages are stored) and an email client (the display where you actually see your messages).

For a free option, we like the effective, easy-to-use Mailwasher. You just plug in your email login details, and this service applies a series of intelligent filters to identify unwanted messages. You can review the captured emails online before they show up in your inbox. For more features, including access to the app version of Mailwasher and support for more than one email address, you’ll need a Pro account, which costs $50 per year.

On macOS, users recommend SpamSieve ($40 with a free trial available). Like Mailwasher, it relies on an intelligent filtering system that gets smarter over time by recognizing the messages you agree are spam or mark as safe. As it adjusts to your preferences, it will only let genuine messages through.

The free SpamCop service works slightly differently. It allows you to report bad actors to internet service providers (ISPs) so they can block these messages at the source. While it requires more effort—you’ll need to report the unsolicited mass emails you receive—you can find help on the SpamCop website. You also get the pleasure of knowing that your efforts are helping others.

5. Protect your email address

We’ve already spoken about setting up a second email address to take the brunt of the spam you receive. In addition, you should aim to keep your primary address as secret as you can. That means hiding it from public pages, such as your personal website or your Twitter profile, where bots and scammers can collect it.

If your job requires that you make your contact information available, try writing out your email address longhand—something like “John Smith at Google’s email service”—whenever you need to display it on the web. This format makes sense to a human, but an automated bot won’t recognize it as an email address it can collect. You’ll often see this tactic on online contact forms.

In addition to collecting email addresses with bots, some email marketers will use what’s called a tracking pixel, or related technology, to figure out which email addresses are valid. This means they’ll send messages to a variety of addresses, and as soon as a real person opens one of these pieces of bait, the sender will receive a confirmation that the address is in use. To keep your contact information private, avoid opening messages you know are spam—just trash them directly.

Another way to fight tracking pixels is to turn off images—if images won’t load, neither will tracking pixels. Gmail users can also lean on the Ugly Email extension, which highlights emails that contain trackers.

Because marketing methods evolve constantly, neither of these options are 100 percent foolproof, but they can still reduce the number of bad actors who get their hands on your email address.

The post How to stop spam emails from destroying your inbox appeared first on Popular Science.

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Learning a second or third language can help you better navigate the world and thrive personally and professionally. But not everyone has the money for private tutoring or language lessons. Free language learning apps can fill the gap between your budget and your desire to learn teach you the linguistic skills to communicate in as many languages as you’d like.

These apps vary in their focus, technique, strengths, and weaknesses. Some offer comprehensive, easy-to-use lessons, while others provide practical experience conversing with foreign language speakers. We’ve put together a list of the best free language learning apps with options that span different fluency levels, time constraints, and ages.

1. Best Overall: Duolingo

Duolingo, while free, is one of the best language learning programs you can get, thanks to the number of languages you can pick up, and the app’s well-designed, bite-sized lessons. Duolingo aims to entertain while teaching, using challenges and game-like features to motivate learners. For example, you can earn gems by completing lessons—but you lose a heart every time you make a mistake. 

The app currently offers almost 40 languages, including a beta version that teaches Klingon—for you Trekkies out there. The short lessons typically last about five minutes and are designed for one lesson per day, though there’s no limit to how many you can do each day. However, the free version only lets you make five mistakes before the lesson pauses, and you’ll have to come back later. You can get around that by upgrading to the Super Duolingo subscription, which costs $7.99 a month (charged yearly). 

Duolingo lets you learn as many languages at once as you like, whereas some other apps, like Busuu, limit you to one language at a time. The option to learn two languages at once lets you explore a variety of linguistic possibilities, too. To get started, you’ll need to set up an account with a password, but once you’ve done that, there are few restrictions if you don’t mind a 30-second ad every now and then. 

The app’s organization and ease of use stand out among language learning apps. There’s a clear structure and order to the lessons. To keep you on track, you can’t move on to a new module until you’ve completed a certain number of lessons in the previous module. You’ll also have the option to review previous lessons, mistakes, and vocabulary as needed to refresh your memory and practice. Plus, you can listen to podcasts in your language of choice. 

On the downside, the amount of content isn’t the same for every language. Some, like Spanish and French, have content galore, while others, like Esperanto and Navajo, aren’t quite as fully developed. 

If you want more training, the Super subscription lets you use the app without restrictions and offers a few other perks like unlimited mastery quizzes and Test Outs, whereas free members only get so many. (Test Outs let you skip lessons if you’ve already mastered the skills.) You can also access extra speaking and listening practice with the Super membership, though repeating previous lessons can offer extra practice without the extra cost. 

Duolingo is available on iOS, iPadOS, iMessage, and Android.

2. Best for multiple languages: Memrise

Memrise’s free tier might be all you need if you’re brushing up on your language skills or want to learn the basics of several languages at once. This app is more of a study aid than it is a comprehensive language learning app. But it tops other apps for multiple languages because it customizes suggested lessons based on your past performance and features an AI chatbot that can help you learn.

This app relies on a number of memory techniques, but it heavily uses videos in its courses. For example, when learning vocabulary, you’ll see short videos of native speakers saying a single word. Learners follow a “watch, learn, speak” method to learn vocabulary and pronunciation. Memrise offers 23 languages, and you can work on as many of those at a time as you want. Plus, your account syncs across devices, so you can access lessons from multiple places, including a desktop computer.

[Related: How to get your computer and phone to work together]

Memrise lets you customize your learning settings so you can adjust the number of words you work on in each learning or reviewing session. However, if you make these changes in the app and later use the desktop version, you’ll have to adjust the learning settings again, as that is the only part of the app that doesn’t sync. 

Memrise offers a free and paid subscription, with the latter coming in at $14.99 per month, $89.99 a year, or $199.99 for a lifetime membership. The paid tier is ad-free and includes access to all lessons in every language, which you won’t get with the free tier. 

Memrise is available on iOS, iPadOS, and Android.

3. Best for general vocabulary: Busuu

Busuu may not have the wide language selection of apps like Duolingo and Memrise, but the app makes up for it in the quality of its vocabulary content and course structure. At the start of each lesson, you can clearly see what your goals are and what you’ll do next. They’re also broken down into manageable, logical chunks.

The free version of Busuu only allows you to work on one language at a time, and depending on the language you’re learning, certain features may not be available. If you want more and are serious about learning languages, we recommend the Premium Busuu plan ($6.95 to $13.95 per month). The fact that you can learn vocabulary in multiple languages alone makes the price worth it. However, if you’re looking to brush up or are happy learning a single language, the free version will work well.

A fun and unique feature that Busuu offers is the option to submit audio or written answers to the Busuu community for feedback and/or correction on your language skills. Community members who speak the language you’re learning will be able to offer suggestions or provide cultural context. This app’s instruction is excellent whether you opt for the free or paid version. Just know that if you’re looking to learn one of the less popular languages, Busuu may not have it because it focuses on 14 languages, including Spanish, Japanese, and Arabic.

Busuu is available on iOS, iPadOS, and Android.

4. Best for kids: StudyCat

StudyCat offers free language learning for kids ages 3 to 8 years old. While kids won’t learn everything they need to know from this app (like grammar), it’s a fun way to support their language development. Harvard and MIT researchers have found that learning a new language before the age of 10 provides the greatest opportunity for proficiency.

The app uses fun characters and games that appeal to young kids. Many of the games are similar to matching or quest games they may have already played on a phone or tablet. More than games, the app encourages a critical thinking approach to language learning. Each activity builds on the previous one to increase vocabulary while encouraging curiosity. Learning comes through categories, such as numbers, actions, food, and body. Through these categories, kids are exposed to speaking comprehension drills and reading skills. You can jump to different categories, but you have to start at the first lesson before advancing to the next, which allows your child to gradually build upon each lesson. 

[Related: How to set parental controls on any phone or tablet]

StudyCat comes in five languages, and each language has its own app. That’s a little limited if you want to expose your kids to languages other than Spanish, French, English, Chinese, and German. However, it also keeps the app simple, which works well for young learners. 

On the downside, the free version of the app doesn’t offer full access to all categories, words, and phrases. You’ll get access to two categories, and some won’t have all of the games. For that, you’ll have to pay for a monthly $14.99 subscription. I had to dig past the signup screen to get to the free version, but it’s there. The app is simple and fun for young kids, providing plenty of good practice without feeling like a drill.

StudyCat is available on iOS, iPadOS, and Android.

5. Best for conversation: HelloTalk

If you’re ready to practice your language skills with a native speaker, HelloTalk is the app for you. It’s a language app with translation tools, so you can learn while you converse. You might think you need to be an intermediate or even an advanced speaker to carry on conversations, but that’s not true with HelloTalk. 

To get started, you fill out a survey with the language you’d like to converse in and your fluency level. Then, the app creates a list of fluent speakers with whom you can chat. You can type what you’d like to say in English, and the app will translate it into the language you’re learning. There’s also a quick tap option to translate specific words. Plus, you can hear the answers read aloud or see a transliteration. HelloTalk also offers a grammar correction option to help you communicate more proficiently. 

Group chat features let you talk with several people all over the world, and you can save conversations to go back and review words or phrases. You can chat in 18 languages, practicing your conversation and writing skills at the same time. This is a great app if you’re feeling more confident in your vocabulary and sentence structure. Language development increases when you use it in practical ways with native speakers. 

The best part is the free version offers access to the same features as the paid version, but it includes ads. You can invest in the ad-free version for $6.99 per month or $45.99 per year. If you really love conversation as a learning tool, you can purchase a lifetime membership for $175. 

HelloTalk is available on iOS, iPadOS, and Android.

The post The best free language learning apps for building your vocabulary and conversational skills appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

The Meta Quest 3 could lay claim to being the best VR headset around right now, but it actually combines both virtual reality (completely enclosed digital worlds) with mixed reality (where digital elements are mixed with the real world).

With so many types of experiences available on the latest headset from Meta, there are a lot of features and settings to dig into if you want to make sure you’re getting the most out of your wearable gadget. Let’s get you started.

You can cast to a phone or a computer, as long as all the devices are on the same WiFi network. On a phone, you’ll need to be logged into the Meta Quest app for Android or iOS: Tap Menu, then Casting to start the show. On a computer, head to oculus.com/casting in a web browser, log into your Meta account, and follow the instructions.

Casts can be initiated from inside the headset as well. Press the Meta button (the Meta logo, a warped infinity symbol) on the Touch Plus controller, then choose Camera and Cast. You can then pick from Computer or Meta Quest mobile phone app.

2. Enter passthrough mode

Beyond the apps and games that make use of the Meta Quest 3’s mixed reality capabilities, you can also let the real world in when you’re browsing through menus and apps in the Horizon Home environment.

Tap the Meta button on the Touch Plus controller, then select the button to the right of the notification bell icon to switch between immersive (VR) mode and passthrough (MR) mode—the button you want looks like a pair of goggles and will be outlined or filled in depending on which view you’re using.

3. Customize your avatar

Your avatar represents you in a variety of places on the Meta Quest 3, so make sure it looks like you and not some generic gray blob of a person (the default). When you’re in your Horizon Home environment, select the mirror to get started.

[Related: Make a Memoji that actually looks like you]

You’ll need to choose an avatar template to get started, but don’t worry if it doesn’t look too much like you—you can customize your facial hair, your outfit, your body shape, and a number of other attributes to get the right VR representation of yourself.

4. Record photos and videos

Capturing screenshots and videos on the Meta Quest 3 is a good way to share what you’re up to. If you press the Meta button on the Touch Plus controller, then choose Camera, you can find Take photo and Record video options, but they’re really just for the Horizon Home environment.

When you’re inside games and apps, you can take a screenshot by holding down the Meta button, tapping the right trigger button, and then releasing both buttons. To take a video, hold down the Meta button, hold down the right trigger button until you see the video recording message, then release both buttons—repeat the action to stop the video.

5. Boost the refresh rate

The Meta Quest 3 comes with a significant boost in graphical capabilities over the Oculus Quest 2, including the ability to hit a 120Hz refresh rate if games and apps demand it. This means motion will look smoother and more fluid, though it also means the headset might get warmer, and the mode is more of a drain on battery life.

If you want to make sure games and apps are looking as good as they can be, tap the Meta button on the Touch Plus controller, then choose Settings, System, Display, and enable the 120Hz refresh rate option. If you’d rather have the extra battery life, turn it off.

6. Reset the view

You might sometimes find yourself a little lost in the VR (or MR) world, with the menu or dialog box you want to look at above or below or behind you. To reset the view so everything is in front of you again, press and hold the Meta button on the Touch Plus controller.

After a few moments, you’ll see a circle on screen—keep holding to complete the circle and reset the view. This works in games and apps as well as the Horizon Home environment, so you can use it whenever you’re disoriented.

7. Use hand tracking

The cameras on the front of the Meta Quest 3 can track the actions of your hands and fingers, so you can ditch the Touch Plus Controllers if you want to. The tracking isn’t perfect, but it’s a more natural way of getting around in VR or MR.

Press the Meta button on the Touch Plus controller, then select Settings, Movement tracking, and Hand tracking. Here you can enable the feature (via the top toggle switch) and customize how it works.

Use the options on this screen to choose how you want to switch between using controllers and using hand tracking: You can simply just put the controllers down, for example, or double-tap the controllers together to switch.

The post 7 hands-on (and off) tips for the new Meta Quest 3 mixed reality VR headset appeared first on Popular Science.

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With WiFi calling, you can make or receive calls with your smartphone over a WiFi connection in areas where you have poor cellular signal. It’s supported by most modern smartphones and most carriers, including Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile. Of course, you won’t be able to do any of this unless you know how to turn on WiFi calling in the first place.

Once you understand the basics and have enabled WiFi calling on your iPhone or Android phone, you can dig deeper into other important questions like how this technology actually works and if it’s free for international calls.

How does WiFi calling work?

WiFi calling is like a cross between regular cell phone calls and VOIP services like Skype that allow you to make phone calls from your computer. Instead of using a third-party service, your phone call is routed through the internet to your cell provider and then connected over the cellular network to the person you’re calling (or is calling you). This means that it still uses your phone number and your cell provider’s network, rather than a username, email address, or anything else. 

The big difference between WiFi calling and regular calling is that it uses your WiFi network, not your mobile data. This means it works well in areas where you have bad cell signal but good WiFi signal, like if you have a satellite internet connection at your rural cabin or just live in a building with an unreliable cell service. WiFi calling won’t help you if you’re out on a hike or otherwise totally off-the-grid, though. And if you have a good mobile data connection at home, you won’t notice much difference.

All modern iPhones support WiFi calling, although some networks only support the iPhone 6 (released in 2014) and newer. Basically, unless you are using a 10-year-old iPhone that you’ve somehow kept running, your iPhone supports WiFi calling. 

How to turn on WiFi calling on an Android phone

To enable WiFi calling on an Android, go to the Phone App > More > Settings > Calls, and enable WiFi Calling. If you don’t see it, your carrier likely doesn’t support WiFi Calling.

All modern Android smartphones support WiFi calling as long as they are running Android 6.0 Marshmallow (released in 2015) or newer. While the Android update situation isn’t as clear-cut as it is with iPhones, as long you bought your phone in the last five years or so, it almost certainly supports WiFi calling. If you’re unsure, check what version of Android your phone is running.

Does WiFi calling work on an iPad or Apple Watch?

Yes, if your carrier supports “WiFi calling on supported iCloud-connected devices” (check Apple’s official carrier support list to be sure), you can make and receive WiFi phone calls on your iPad and Apple Watch.

To enable WiFi calling on your iPad or Apple Watch, open your iPhone’s Settings app, then go to Phone, WiFi Calling, and turn on Add WiFi Calling For Other Devices. Calls that come through your iPad will be routed through your iPhone. When you’re using an Apple Watch, though, you’ll be able to receive calls even if your phone isn’t turned on or nearby, as long as your iPhone has previously connected to the WiFi network you’re using.

The post What is WiFi calling, and when should you use it? appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

Spotify has a wealth of options for music lovers: Mixes, new releases, genre picks, recommended tracks, albums you’re already obsessed with, and plenty more.

However, you can also take more control over your listening by making your own Spotify playlists. You can keep these compilations to yourself or share them with others—and you can even work on collaborative playlists with other people.

Putting together a curated list of songs takes longer than just diving into whatever Spotify’s algorithm offers you, but it means you’ll only listen to exactly what you want. It’s a more personalized and deliberate way of enjoying your tunes.

There are several ways to make a playlist on Spotify, and we’ll go over a couple of them plus other features to improve your listening experience.  We’ve focused on instructions for the Android and iOS mobile apps, but the process is similar if you’re using the desktop or web apps.

How to make a playlist on Spotify

You can create a playlist in the Spotify mobile app by tapping on Your Library, in the bottom right corner of your screen, followed by the + (plus) button in the top right, and then Playlist. Give your compilation a name and tap Create—the app will take you straight to your new, empty playlist.

New playlists are public by default, which means everybody will be able to find them, play them, and even access them with a shared link. But even though they’re public, your playlists don’t appear on your profile by default. To change this, open the playlist and tap the three dots: on the emerging menu, tap Add to profile to flaunt your compilation skills or Make private to hide your collection of tunes, remove it from search results, and disable its public link.

[Related: How to listen to Spotify’s huge library of audiobooks]

Straight away on your empty playlist page, you’ll find recommended songs based on your listening history. You can add any of these tunes to the playlist by tapping the musical note icon on the right. You can also tap Add to this playlist to start searching for specific tracks on Spotify.

You can add more tracks by browsing the Spotify catalog. Tap the three dots next to any song, album, or playlist to find the Add to playlist option. From there, you can pick a playlist you’ve previously created or start a brand new one for the songs that you’ve just selected.

You can make, edit, and share playlists whether you pay for Spotify or not, but only Premium subscribers can listen to them in the specific order given by the playlist creator—free users are stuck with shuffle play. To change the order of a compilation’s tracks, as well as its name, tap the three dots on the playlist page and Edit playlist.

Finally, there’s another playlist option worth mentioning. Spotify uses your listening history and machine learning to figure out your music taste and recommend artists, albums and playlists that you’ll like. But the service also acknowledges that there are a lot of reasons to make a playlist, and maybe you don’t want a particular compilation to affect your Spotify suggestions—maybe you created a playlist of kiddy songs to keep your nephews entertained when you babysit them, or a collection of epic tunes for your Dungeons & Dragons games that you don’t want to inform your daily mixes. If this is the case, create your playlist and before you add any songs, open the three-dot menu and choose Exclude from my taste profile.

How to share a Spotify playlist

You can share any public Spotify playlist via a link—just tap the three dots on the playlist page and go to Share and Copy link. You’ll get a unique URL you can paste anywhere you want,  like an email or chat conversation. Instead of choosing Copy link, you can share the link directly  through one of the suggested apps on your phone. To do that, just pick the app you want and follow the steps.

You could even paste this link on your website or in your social media bio to give visitors an idea of your taste in music. The playlist will open on the web, in the desktop app, or the mobile app, depending on the device the person is using when opening the link, and how it’s configured.

[Related: Spotify wants to understand your body on music]

You’ll find the same options for private playlists, but the generated link has a limited lifespan of seven days—if the person you shared your playlist with opens the link within that time frame, they’ll be able to access the compilation indefinitely. But that doesn’t mean they can share it with more people—only you, as the creator of a private playlist, have the power to share it.

On mobile, shared private playlists differ from shared public playlists in that you can see who has access to the compilation. Just below the playlist name, you’ll see the little profile pictures of the people you’ve invited and you can click or tap it to get a full and detailed list. If you want to revoke access from someone there, do it by tapping the three dots next to their name and choosing Remove from playlist.

Another option for sharing playlists is to use a Spotify code, which works a bit like a QR code. Tap the three dots on the playlist, then Show Spotify Code. You’ll see a series of lines that you can share by posting anywhere online or even printing it. People can then scan it using the Spotify app by tapping Search and then the camera icon in the top right corner.

How to make a collaborative playlist on Spotify

Creating collaborative playlists on Spotify can be extremely useful for everything from weddings to road trips. This feature allows you to invite your friends to the creation process and give them permission to add and remove songs on the playlist, as well as changing the order of the tunes.

On each public and private playlist page there’s an invite button—a portrait silhouette with a plus symbol. Tap it to generate a link to pass on to the people you want to give editorial access to your playlist. Just like the sharing link on private playlists, collaborators have to click or tap the URL within seven days. After that, there are no time restrictions on how long they can stick around for.

Pictures of collaborators will show up in small bubbles at the top of the playlist, the same way that people who’ve been invited to shared private playlists do. Tap these bubbles for more details and select the three dots next to any name to choose whether people can collaborate on the playlist or are simply allowed to look at it. From the same menu, you can also remove access completely, if you want.

And if at some point you’re done with your compilation, know that it’s easy to delete your Spotify playlist. Open the collection you want to get rid of, click or tap on the three-dot menu and select Delete. It’s that simple.

Two Spotify features to make your playlists even better 

If you thought those were the only ways to customize and create playlists on Spotify, think again. The streaming service has two more options you can play around with to create the perfect musical compilation. 

Blend

If you tap Your Library, then the + (plus) icon, you’ll see a Blend option next to Playlist. Blend lets you invite up to 10 people to a shared playlist, and then Spotify will automatically build a compilation that mixes the musical tastes and listening history of all the users you’ve invited. It also refreshes with a new mix every day.

Jam 

This feature facilitates collaborations at parties. It lets you invite friends to add tracks to a playlist in real time while still keeping veto power and control over the track order. Spotify will also help by offering up recommendations based on who’s accepted your invitation.

To start a jam you’ll need to be a Premium subscriber, but free users can help out as collaborators. On your phone, tap the devices icon on the Now Playing bar (it looks like a small speaker), then Start a Jam. You can find the same option by tapping on the three dots on a public playlist page. From there, you can invite people to the jam by sharing a link, or by opening the Spotify app and either tapping your phones together or scanning a QR code. 

The post How to make hit Spotify playlists, alone or with your friends appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

When you’re working on your PC, sometimes it’s handy to pin a window so that it’s always on top of the programs you’re using. Maybe you want to keep the calculator app or a text document visible at all times, or maybe your favorite team is playing and you want to make sure you don’t miss out on all the action.

Windows doesn’t offer this ability by default but you can add it through the Powertoys app. This tool brings with it a bunch of great features to Microsoft’s OS, including Always On Top, which can pin any window so that it stays right in front of everything else in your workspace. Here’s how to set it up.

How to set up Always On Top

1. Download the Powertoys app from the Microsoft Store. Once the program is installed, it should open automatically.

2. On the left sidebar, click Always on Top to configure it.  By default, you’ll be able to trigger the feature by using the keyboard shortcut Windows + Ctrl + T, but you can change it to something else—more on that later. 

[Related: 7 hidden Windows features you should be using]

3. That’s it—Always on top is ready to use. Now, open whatever app or window you want to keep in front and hit the keyboard shortcut to pin it in place. Use the same shortcut unpin it.  

How to customize Always On Top

By default, there will be a thick blue border around the window you pin, but you can change or remove it. 

1. Open Powertoys and head to the Always On Top section in the sidebar. 

• Pro tip: If you can’t find the app, click the Windows logo on the Start bar and use the search field at the top of the emerging window. 

2. Click Open Settings. Scroll down and under Appearance & Behavior, you’ll be able to remove the border entirely, if you like—just toggle the switch next to Show border around the pinned window. 

If you don’t want to get rid of the border, you can change its color. By default, the feature will use the current system color (Windows default), which is defined by your wallpaper, but you can switch it to any hue you want. Just open the drop down menu next to Color mode, and click Custom color. A new entry named Color will appear on the menu, and you can play around with the color picker on the right to choose whatever tone you like. 

You can also make the border transparent by dragging the slider next to Opacity to the left or right. Unfortunately, there’s no preview to guide you on how the different opacity levels will look, but you’ll see the changes in real time if you’ve got a window pinned to the top of your workspace already. Drag the slider all the way to the left, and the pinned window frame will become totally see-through. 

[Related: 10 new features to get you started with Windows 11]

Another element you can customize is the border thickness. Just play around with the slider next to Thickness. Again, you’ll need to have a window already pinned in place to see how the changes look in real time. 

Finally, by default there is a sound every time you pin and unpin a window—you can turn this on and off in the Sound section of the settings. 

Other options include the ability to exclude certain apps from being pinned and changing the keyboard shortcut to activate Always on Top. Click the pencil icon under Activation and type whatever shortcut you like. Just make sure the key combo you use is not taken by another action, or things can get pretty confusing and annoying pretty fast. 

The post This Windows feature lets you pin important apps to your screen appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

Meta, possibly in an effort to convince people it’s a transparent company, just equipped Instagram with a new feature that lets users know what it learns about them through other websites. Unfortunately, getting that information is not as easy as Meta wants you to believe.

Other than what you post and how you interact with the platform, Instagram’s parent company also gathers data about you through other sites and organizations that use the company’s products and services. That means that if you buy something from a vendor that uses Meta Pixel on their website, for example, Instagram will know about it. 

With this new feature, you can see who’s sharing your information, delete the data already in Instagram’s hands, and prevent any future sharing. That may sound like a lot of work, but we tried it and made mistakes so you don’t have to. 

How to find out what other sites share with Instagram about you

You can learn all the hot gossip other sites tell Meta about you on the Activity off-Meta technologies menu. This option was once only available to Facebook users, but it’s now an integral part of the company’s Account Center, which includes Instagram. 

[Related: How to make your social media posts truly private]

1. On the Instagram app, open your profile by tapping the silhouette of a person in the bottom right corner of your screen. Go to the hamburger menu (three lines) in the top right corner, choose Settings and privacy, and then Accounts Center. 

On the web, log into Instagram, click More in the bottom left corner of your screen, and go to Settings. There, click Accounts Center. 

2. From here on out, the options are the same no matter if you are on your phone or your computer. Go to Your information and permissions and then to Your activity off Meta technologies. 

On the next screen, you’ll be able to learn a bit more about the type of data Instagram receives from third parties when you interact with them. This data can be a number of things, such as when you opened an app, logged into it using Facebook or Instagram, added an item to your cart, bought something, or even made a donation. Meta says this information doesn’t include health or financial data, or other sensitive details like date of birth or passwords.  

3. Under the What you can do heading, go to Recent activity to see all the sites sharing your information with Instagram. You may need to enter your Instagram password to continue. You’ll see a list of companies, and you can click each one to learn more details. 

Here’s the tricky part, though: when you click the number of interactions the company has shared with Meta, you won’t see a detailed account of the interactions the site shared with Instagram. Instead, you’ll see more information and a button you can hit to Download activity details.

You’d think that by that they mean downloading only the details of your interactions with other apps and websites, but you’d be wrong. You’ll actually need to request to download a file that contains your entire Instagram account information, and you still won’t find what exactly other sites shared about you. 

4. This leaves you with nothing to do except cut the data flow off at the source. Back in the Recent activity menu, you can click or tap Clear previous activity or Disconnect specific activity. The first one will remove everything Instagram has on you from third parties, but it won’t prevent the same sites from continuing to share information in the future.

To do a thorough job, start by choosing Disconnect specific activity and picking a site you want to cut off. It’s counterintuitive to start here, as it’s the second option, but clearing the activity will prevent you from disconnecting third parties, as their names and the option to disconnect will disappear. That means you’ll need to wait until they appear on the menu again to block them once and for all. 

5. The next screen will show you a list of the websites sharing data with Instagram. Select the ones you want to sever ties with by checking the circle next to their name, then hit Continue. 

6. The next screen will show you more information about severing ties between that third party activity and your account, including the fact that doing so might log you out of that external website if you used your Instagram account to log in. It also clarifies that you’ll still see ads from the site, albeit less personalized, and Meta will continue to receive information, but it just won’t be associated with you. Hit Confirm when you’re done and repeat the process with all the sites you don’t want sharing your data. 

[Related: How to go incognito on these 6 popular apps]

Back on the Recent activity menu, you can also tap on the name of a company and select Disconnect. This, of course, requires you to disconnect sites one by one, which is not as efficient as doing it by hitting the Disconnect specific activity button.   

Keep in mind that disconnecting these sites doesn’t mean they won’t keep sharing information with Instagram—it just means the data will be anonymized, so not tied to you specifically. This is something a lot of companies do to protect users’ privacy, but it’s also worth knowing there are studies claiming data can never be truly anonymized, especially when certain data points, like location, are involved

7. Now it’s time to delete what Instagram already has on you by clicking or tapping Clear previous activity. Continue by choosing your account and hitting Clear. Confirm your choice again by selecting Clear previous activity. 

As you can see, Instagram’s new way of managing third-party activity is, well, disappointing. Navigating the new menu is incredibly frustrating, as it’s mined with dark patterns, and even after doing a deep dive, we still don’t know what third-party websites shared about us, and we couldn’t prevent them from sharing more information in the future. Certainly not the best experience.

The post How to see which websites are sharing your data with Instagram appeared first on Popular Science.

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As television shows become available online, there’s less of a need to watch your favorites on a set schedule. But if you choose to cut the cord entirely, you’ll miss out on live channels, such as news and sports. Luckily, you can still watch live TV on your computer. You have two options: Plug a TV tuner device—which catches broadcasts like an antenna does—into a USB port, or stream shows through your web browser.

Plug in a TV tuner

Network channels, including NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox, PBS, and local stations, air for free. All you need to watch them is an antenna to snag the broadcasts and a device to share them with your computer. The latter, called a TV tuner, can come in the form of a dongle or a larger box that plugs into any spare USB port.

Tuners come with bundled software that helps you navigate. When you’re getting started, these built-in applications will install the necessary drivers, scan for available channels, and display them on your computer screen. Then you can click through your options.

Once you’ve finished installation, the bundled software will help you receive channels, browse program guides, and make recordings. However, you can also download alternative applications, such as Kodi and Plex, to do the same tasks. Kodi is free but has a slightly more complicated setup, while Plex has a simpler process but requires a Plex Pass subscription that costs $5 per month, $40 a year, or $120 for lifetime access. Plex also has a handy “discover” feature that lets you track down anything you want to watch.

Buying a tuner

When you go shopping for tuner hardware, first look for compatibility with your computer’s operating system. Also consider whether the device includes extras like a bundled remote control. If you choose a model that comes with two or more integrated tuners, you’ll be able to record one channel while watching another, record two shows at once, or create a picture-in-picture effect with two channels.

We’d recommend the Hauppauge WinTV-DualHD ($80 on Amazon), though it only works with Windows machines. It includes two tuners, which lets you view or record two shows at once. Once you plug it into a spare USB port, the supplied software will take over, which makes the setup process extremely easy.

Buying an antenna

If you’ve already wired your home with a TV antenna, you can connect it to your new tuner and be good to go. If not, you’ll need to purchase an antenna to catch the TV signals flying through the air. Unfortunately there’s no easy way to figure out how many channels an antenna will catch—many factors make a difference, including the presence of surrounding buildings and nearby hills, and the distance between your home and the closest tower. You’ll just have to buy the hardware and try it out, so make sure the seller has a good returns policy, in case the reception is poor. If you live in a place where structures are few and far between, you may also want to check out our review team’s roundup of the best TV antennas for rural areas.

One of our favorite options is the Mohu Leaf Supreme Pro ($70 on Amazon), which boasts a sleek-looking design and a 65-mile range. Because it’s multi-directional, you don’t need to point it in a specific direction, so you can lay it flat or mount it to a wall. It’s meant to be used indoors, but it works great wherever you put it.

[Related: The best TV antennas]

Another choice we’d recommend is the 1byone Digital Amplified Indoor HDTV Antenna ($18 on Amazon), which is cheaper than the Mohu but has a smaller range—it only connects to transmission towers within 50 miles.

Once you’ve purchased your new gear, connect the antenna to the tuner, then the tuner to your laptop. Finally, download the free installer software (if necessary) and launch the application. It will walk you through the process of bringing up live TV channels on your laptop.

Stream channels online

Don’t want to buy new hardware? You can still watch live TV through your web browser. While services like Netflix focus on on-demand programs, other services include a live component so you can watch broadcasts—such as sports—as they happen.

If you’re only interested in watching a few channels in particular, head to the websites for those companies. Many of them—including ABC, Fox, and NBC—let you stream directly from their sites. However, there’s a catch: Different channels have different rules, and some require that you already have a TV provider or similar subscription (you have to sign in to confirm those credentials before watching). For example, you can watch CBS shows live only if you have a Paramount Plus subscription, which costs $6 per month and still includes ads.

Monthly online TV services

To get more than one channel at once, including premium options, you’ll need to subscribe to a monthly service like Hulu Live TV, YouTube TV, or Sling TV. All of these options provide a strong connection and easy setup, but they differ in the channels they offer. For example, YouTube TV doesn’t have a great spread of sports channels, while Sling TV has two plans that contain different stations but doesn’t focus on local ones. Before you invest in any subscription, test out that service’s free trial (they all offer one) to get a feel for the experience and make sure it includes the TV channels you want to watch. Here’s some more information that should help you choose.

Hulu offers four plans that include live TV, and the cheapest is $75.99 a month, but it does not allow you to access Hulu’s regular on-demand library—it’s live stuff only. You can spend $1 more ($76.99 per month) to add access to Hulu’s streaming library, Disney Plus, and ESPN Plus, all with ads. You can also pay more for additional features, such as premium channels like Showtime and Max (formerly HBO).

[Related: Watch anything you want without signing up for every streaming service]

With a slightly lower price of of $72.99 a month, YouTube TV offers access to more than 100 live channels, but you will need to enter your ZIP code to see what’s available in your area. For an additional $2 to $30 a month, you can bolt on extra ones, including NFL RedZone and Showtime. It also gives you an unlimited amount of free cloud DVR storage, so you can record as much content as you want and store it on YouTube’s servers.

Sling TV focuses on premium cable channels rather than local networks like ABC, CBS, and Fox, although you may be able to get some local channels, depending on your area. Prices start at $40 a month for a pack of 32 channels, and you can increase your subscription fee to add more. You can watch on a variety of devices besides your computer, including a smartphone or an Apple TV. Sling also offers a cloud DVR service, but you’ll have to pay an additional $5 a month to save recordings in the cloud.

Cable subscriptions

If you already pay for a cable subscription, this may be the easiest way to tune into live television on your computer. All you need are your username and password.

Take Comcast’s Xfinity Stream service. It gives subscribers access to more than 250 channels. Just navigate to the Xfinity Stream site, log in with your credentials, and start watching. DirecTV offers similar services, and you can access it through a web browser.

This story has been updated. It was originally published in 2019.

The post How to watch TV on a computer, even if it’s live appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

The latest iPads, like the iPad Pro M2, offer incredible speed and visual clarity that make them a favorite for work, school, and everything in between. However, to take full advantage of everything an iPad offers, you’ll need the right iPad apps. Your work and lifestyle will influence the apps that offer the most convenience and functionality for you. We’ve put together a list of the best iPad apps in a range of categories, from those that keep you organized to apps for editing, drawing, and taking notes.

1. Best for note-taking: Microsoft OneNote

OneNote, made by Microsoft, offers excellent note-taking features that stand out for ease of use and top-notch organizational features. The app is available in free and paid versions that come with Microsoft Office 2019 or a Microsoft 365 subscription. (Office 2019 costs $149.99 and Microsoft 365 costs $9.99 for a monthly subscription or $99.99 annually with a yearly subscription) The free version can do everything the paid version can except for storing files locally on Windows and a few stickers, which are pictures that offer another way to express yourself visually.  

The app’s organizational structure includes Notebooks, which break down into Sections, Pages, and Sub-Pages. The Notebooks display as colored tabs on the left of the screen, giving you easy access. The app takes a freeform approach to writing by allowing you to write anywhere on the page, like you would on a piece of physical paper. It automatically opens in text mode to type using an iPad keyboard or the on-screen one, but you can easily change to “draw” and use an Apple pencil to sketch pictures or leave handwritten notes. You can then tag lines of text so you can search for them later. 

A huge pro for OneNote for the iPad is the ability to draw along with taking text notes. You can add sketches, handwritten notes, or graphs to and over the top of text. The ability to draw around and through text within the same document is unique and separates OneNote from heavy competition by popular note-taking apps like Evernote and Joplin. You can also add attachments anywhere in the text so they show up where you need them to. 

2. Best for drawing: Pixelmator Pro

Among the many drawing apps for iPad, Pixelmator Pro rises to the top for its balance of simplicity, versatility, and price. The app offers over 100 brushes, pencils, and other tools that will let you build variety into your sketches. You can paint with watercolor or use sponge brushes to build texture in sketches in ways you can’t when drawing on paper without a bucket full of supplies. 

Pixelmator also has a photo editing system, which includes features that you can add to original drawings. For example, you can use layers, apply effects, and fine-tune colors to build depth and character to your work. You can also add shapes from Pixelmator’s library or add text with varying effects. Beyond drawing, the latest version also lets you work with RAW images, edit PDFs, and create iPhone 15 mockups.

[Related: How to unlock the hidden, more powerful camera on the iPhone 15]

We also like that you can easily export your drawings in different formats and send them directly to cloud storage like Dropbox or Google Drive. Overall, the app puts incredible creative power into your hands and gives you multiple ways to share your creations on other devices. However, the learning curve can be steep for those with little graphic experience. Pixelmator Pro doesn’t have a huge library or tutorials, so some learning will have to come from trial and error. 

Pixelmator Pro is available on iOS and iPadOS.

3. Best for planning: Todoist

Todoist falls somewhere between the ultimate to-do list and project management. This cloud-based service syncs with any device on which you have the app, so you can access your lists from your iPad or a desktop as long as both have the app. An incredibly well-designed interface makes it easy to use despite the fact that it’s packed with features. 

You can schedule due dates, create tasks, and build lists. You can organize projects by tasks and subtasks. There are options to manually reorder tasks or set sorting options for the project. And Todoist lets you add labels so you can search among your projects later on. 

Plus, you can share it with multiple users, which is where the project management aspect comes in. The free version lets users organize five personal projects, provides space for 5MB file uploads, and keeps one week of activity history. The pro version, which costs $4 per month billed yearly, offers 300 personal projects, 100MB file uploads, and unlimited history with task reminders and task duration options. Businesses may want the business subscription, which costs $6 per month billed yearly, to get 500 team projects, unlimited collaborators, and the option to limit access and control with admin and member roles.

[Related: How to use split screen on iPad and conquer multitasking]

With the paid version, you can assign people tasks or add due dates, making it a robust way to manage a family schedule or small business team. Todoist is powerful, and the free version works well for personal organization. However, if you want to manage a family or small business using Todoist, it’s worth upgrading to either of the paid versions.

Todoist is available on iOS, iPadOS, watchOS, and Android.

4. Best for photo editing: Adobe Lightroom

Adobe Lightroom is a top choice when it comes to photo editing power. You upload your photos to Adobe’s Cloud, and once there, they’re available to edit on an iPad. The iPad version of Lightroom isn’t quite as robust as the desktop version, but it still offers excellent photo editing tools. You can download it for free with in-app purchases to unlock the features you need. The monthly prices for premium upgrades range from $4.99 to $49.99 per month. 

The app now has more advanced photo editing features like local adjustments, lens-profile-based corrections, and noise reduction, too. We like the local adjustments feature, which is fairly new to the iPad version. With this feature, you can select an oval or linear area in which to apply your edits rather than to the entire image. You’ve got 17 adjustment features to apply within the area, like graduated or radial filters and softness and strength adjustments. Of course, there are more traditional editing tools like photo adjusters and adjustments for clarity and shadows. You’ve also got the option to shoot photos directly in the app, which is more tempting now that iPads come with higher-quality cameras.

The downside with the app is that there currently aren’t great options to batch-edit a large number of photos, say for a wedding, which is odd considering that the features are geared more toward pros than beginners. But for individual photos, you can do everything you need from your iPad and send them to the desktop app when you’re done.

Adobe Lightroom is available for iOS, iPadOS, and Android.

5. Best for calendar: Google Calendar

Google Calendar’s versatility and collaboration options make it one of the best iPad apps for those who have a Google account. If you don’t have one, you’ll need to get one, and it’s worth considering for the range of features this calendar offers. 

You can create several calendars and view them separately or together. Organize a family calendar with your spouse and children or keep one for extended family to coordinate events. Google Calendar can be particularly helpful when working with teams because everyone can share their work calendars and schedule meetings using the app. There are options to create tasks, reminders, and recurring events. Within each, you can set times, invite participants, change colors, and add locations. Plus, you can share specific events if you don’t want to share your entire calendar. 

[Related: 5 Google Calendar tips to ensure you never miss a date]

All of that is with the free version, which, really, is all most people need unless you’re working with a large team. The premium version offers analytics and insights as well as the ability to schedule appointments or allow others to schedule appointments with you. Plus, you can sync all of your calendars to keep your life organized in one space.

Google Calendar is available on iOS, iPadOS, and Android.

The post The best iPad apps for making the most of your device appeared first on Popular Science.

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No one likes slow WiFi—it’s right up there with creaking doors and leaking taps as one of the most frustrating household problems. To increase your WiFi speed back to where it should be, try making these tweaks to your router and other devices.

We’ve already covered some of the hardware upgrades you can invest in to remove dead spots and boost your home upload and download speeds. So in this guide, we’ll focus on software fixes and changes you can make to your existing gear. If those adjustments don’t work, switching to a mesh network or buying a WiFi extender can also improve your wireless internet speed.

Upgrade your router software

Just like your laptop and cell phone, routers run their own software. In this case, it’s called firmware because it’s so tightly tied to the hardware—the manufacturer installs and configures it before shipping the device. Companies don’t often issue updates for their routers’ firmware, but many do make new versions of their software available for download. These updates fix bugs and may also include performance upgrades, as well as extra support for newer devices on the market.

The best way to find new firmware for your router is to head to the manufacturer’s website or the internet service provider that gave you the router. If you can’t find a download link, run a web search using “firmware” followed by your router’s make and model.

The exact process for installing firmware varies from router to router. Typically, you open the device settings on your computer and look for the option that lets you install an update from a downloaded file (often a ZIP archive) on your hard drive. The downloaded package usually includes installation instructions, but if you’re still not sure how to do it, consult the router instruction manual or look up the instructions online.

Change the wireless channel

Here’s another trick to try with a slow router: change the wireless channel it uses. This means slightly adjusting the wireless frequency that your WiFi signal is broadcast on. Your router should have a setting that lets you modify the channel, likely listed under a heading like Wireless or Advanced. If you can’t find it immediately, look up instructions online or in the router manual.

Most routers use channel 6 by default. Change this to 1 or 11 (to minimize interference with channel 6), and you might notice better WiFi performance. All of your connected devices will also need to connect to this new channel, but the majority of your gear will do so automatically, with no need to adjust the WiFi name or password. You might have to play around a bit before you arrive at the best channel, but stick to 1, 6, or 11 for the best chance of getting the fastest speeds.

[Related: 6 router settings you should change right now]

In a related trick, some more advanced routers offer two frequency bands: the standard 2.4GHz band and the faster 5GHz band. These bands follow the same principle as the channels mentioned above, but when you switch bands, you’re shifting the frequency much further. That means WiFi-enabled devices you connect to different bands won’t interfere with each other.

If your router supports dual bands (check your model’s documentation for details), you’ll usually see two different WiFi networks you can connect to. Divide your devices across both networks, depending on the speed and range each piece of hardware needs from your WiFi. For example, the 5GHz band typically offers faster speeds but shorter range, so devices closer to your router should use that one. It’ll stream your Spotify tunes more reliably to your gaming console, but it’s not as good at blasting through walls and doors as the older 2.4GHz standard. Use the latter for devices you move around your home, such as phones, or those located farther away from the router, and you should see increased WiFi speeds on all your devices.

Not every router can handle both bands, but most manufactured in recent years support these standards. On either band, if you’re getting sub-optimal WiFi speeds and seeing buffering wheels more often than you’d like, you can still change the wireless channel used in the 5GHz range or the 2.4GHz one. Check out your router’s help pages for more information on your options.

Control the bandwidth

Internet use can quickly eat up your available bandwidth, especially on slow connections or those shared among multiple people. So if you’re struggling to get a decent speed, try investigating what else is happening on your network. For example, running Netflix alongside Hulu while you take multiple video calls probably isn’t the best way to maximize your streaming speed.

As you work, visit a site like Speedtest.net to check your internet speed and see what you’re currently getting. But taking steps to increase those speeds means you’ll have to patrol the specific use of your home WiFi network—which is up to you and the people you live with. The easiest solution for maximum speeds is turning off devices not currently in use. This will not only save you money on your energy bill, but will also make sure that those computers, televisions, and tablets can’t possibly be wasting the bandwidth you need for another application. You can also dig into individual device settings to see which apps are using up the most WiFi.

[Related: Find the perfect internet speed for you]

At the same time, you’ll want to make sure no unwelcome visitors or invasive neighbors are lurking on your home network. Your router should have come with WiFi password protection already enabled. Changing this password on a regular basis—not to mention keeping it secret—will help you keep your network to yourself and your invited guests.

Another option is to specify which internet uses you value most. Some routers include a feature called Quality of Service, or QoS, which lets you prioritize certain applications (like Netflix) or types of content (like video) over others. You could use it to make sure your video calls stay stable even if that makes the Spotify stream spotty. Some routers also let you prioritize certain devices (maybe your computer) over others (maybe your roommate’s). If your router has a QoS feature, look on the manufacturer’s website or in the supplied manual for instructions on setting it up and telling the router what you’d like to prioritize.

Avoid the fish tank (and other large, dense objects)

Plenty of innocuous household objects will slow down your WiFi—including the water inside fish tanks. Now you know why your laptop never gets a signal when it’s behind the aquarium in your study. Even if you keep a fish-free home, try moving your furniture to put as few objects as possible (including walls) between your devices and your router.

In addition to bulky objects, anything that emits a wireless signal can interfere with the WiFi your router broadcasts. That includes wireless baby monitors, wireless landline phones, microwaves, Bluetooth keyboards and mice, and even string lights. All of these generate electromagnetic interference that can reduce your upload and download speeds. In most cases, the disruption should be minimal, but it’s worth bearing in mind if you’re experiencing problems. Rearranging the aforementioned items can help boost WiFi speed throughout your home, but if that solution is inconvenient, just switch your router to its 5GHz channel: Most microwaves and other wireless gear use the 2.4GHz frequency, so the higher band should be less congested.

This story has been updated. It was originally published in 2017.

The post How to increase your WiFi speed appeared first on Popular Science.

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If you struggle to fit reading into your day, the best audiobook apps let you multitask and listen to the latest releases while driving, exercising, or even making dinner. Audiobooks are increasingly popular, and by 2022, more than 140 million Americans had listened to one, according to Publisher’s Weekly. 

Audiobook apps vary in features and the breadth of their libraries. Many require a monthly or yearly subscription, and some offer media beyond audiobooks, such as podcasts. Voracious listeners may prefer a subscription service where you can indulge in as many audiobooks as you want in a month. But if it takes you a month or two to get through an audiobook, a pay-per-book platform will probably be more economical. 

Ultimately, the operating system of your devices, your listening preferences, and budget will all factor into the app that’s right for you as you discover your next great adventure.

1. Best overall: Audible

Founded in 1995 and acquired by Amazon in 2008, Audible is one of the pioneers in the audiobook space. The service lets you get your hands on almost any title that’s in audiobook form. You’ll also get access to podcasts, exclusives, and originals that are only available on the platform. 

Audible offers two membership tiers, and both provide access to the Audible ‘Plus’ catalog, which contains more than 10,000 audiobooks. The Audible Premium Plus membership adds one credit per month, so you can buy books outside of the Plus catalog, giving you access to an additional 470,000 audiobooks. Without the premium membership, you can purchase credits to listen to more audiobooks.

The platform also lets you keep access to your Audible books even if you cancel your subscription. In contrast, similar apps, like Scribd, only provide access to purchased books as long as you subscribe to the app. Others, like Hoopla and Libby, let you peruse your local library’s list of audiobooks. But they only provide access for a few weeks before you have to get on the reading list again. 

2. Best for iPhone: Apple Books

Apple Books is a convenient way to get digital reads and audiobooks that sync to all of your Apple devices. Unlike many audiobook apps, Apple Books isn’t a subscription service. It works more like a digital bookstore, where you pay for each book. 

For those who only listen to a book or two a month, Apple Books might cost less than a subscription service. Plus, if you have months where you don’t have time to listen at all, you won’t be paying for an unused subscription. There’s also a decent selection of free audiobooks that includes classics such as Pride and Prejudice if your budget gets tight. 

Beyond the monetary pros and cons, the app itself offers a robust library that’s easy to navigate, thanks to effective categorization. You can browse thousands of titles by popular genres, but you can also search by other categories such as free books, new and trending, book club picks, and Apple recommendations. And you can sample short snippets before you make your final decision. 

The library goes beyond audiobooks to digital titles as well. In theory, you could do most of your reading, audio or otherwise, in this single app. Your Apple devices will require iOS 10 or later, but you can sync across the board, including iPads, iPhone, some iPods, and some Apple Watches. Bonus—you also have the option to download and import Audible titles, so add that to your Audible tips and tricks list if you find yourself moving between the two.

Apple Books is free for iOS, iPadOS, and watchOS.

3. Best for nonfiction: Blinkist

Blinkist isn’t just an audiobook app. It’s not even just a book app. This unique app focuses on all things learning, from podcasts and book summaries to audiobooks. It’s some of the best value you’ll get if you’re focused on nonfiction, even more so if you’re usually short on time. 

The app offers book summaries in manageable 15-minute chunks, and includes popular books like Atomic Habits by James Clear. You can download titles to access them offline or send them to Kindle. Books are arranged by topics, including love, self-help, memoirs, autobiographies, and more. Popular new releases and classics are readily available. The goal is to “feed your brain” and improve your mind and body with content that fits a busy lifestyle. 

[Related: Tips for learning two languages at once]

Blinkist is an easy way to access facts and books you might not have time to get to otherwise, and it doesn’t take long before you get personalized recommendations based on your preferences and habits. You get a seven-day free trial, then it costs $15.99 per month for the monthly plan or $8.24 per month if you opt to pay yearly.

Blinkist is available on iOS, iPadOS, and Android.

4. Best free: LibriVox

Subscriptions and monthly purchases can quickly add up. For those on a tight budget, LibriVox offers free (and legal) audiobooks. Their catalog consists of more than 40,000 books available in the public domain, read by volunteers. 

You won’t find the latest releases, but you can catch up on classics. The books are DRM-free so you can download audiobooks as many times as you’d like and listen when you’re offline or on other devices. This matters because DRM (Digital Rights Management) prevents unauthorized copying of copyrighted content, but can cause problems on your devices, too. No need to worry about all that with LibriVox, though, because every bit of its content is in the public domain. 

The interface isn’t sleek or fancy, but it offers bookmark and timer features to support your basic listening needs. If you’re up for a bit of out-loud reading, you can volunteer to read a book yourself. However, the quality of the narration varies by volunteer, so you may skip some books because the storytelling doesn’t do it justice. Still, you can’t beat free audiobooks and a platform that celebrates the love of literature. 

LibriVox is available for iOS, iPadOS, and Android.

5. Best budget: Chirp

Chirp is where thrift store meets audiobooks. It’s owned by BookBub, an author promotion site. Thousands of subscribers scramble to get deals on new or popular books, like $5 for a Harlan Coben audiobook. The deal on any one particular book usually lasts a few days and listings show a countdown for how much longer the deal will last. Authors vie for the best promotions because of Bookbub’s extensive reach.

Chirp fits into the picture by offering discounted audiobooks. For listeners, Chirp is a win for the savings, and for authors, the platform is a great way to  find new readers. You pay by the book rather than a subscription fee. And the depth of the discounts vary.

On the downside, deals are limited, so you have to act fast when you see a book you want. The app itself is free, and you get to keep the audiobooks you purchase, so it’s a great way to build your library on a budget.

Chirp is free for iOS, iPadOS, and Android.

The post The best audiobook apps for books and podcasts appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

The rear camera on your iPhone 15 (also present on the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max) is more powerful and versatile than you might have realized. It features a 48-megapixel sensor but default settings only allow it to take 24MP snaps.

The good news is that you can delve into your iPhone’s settings to switch your camera to full capacity and get more detail in your photos. There are some trade-offs you should know about, and the exact options vary depending on the iPhone you’re using. But if you’re serious about your smartphone photography, you should learn about the modes available to you and how they work.

How the iPhone 15 cameras work

When you take a photo on your iPhone 15 without the ultrawide or zoom sensors, iOS uses  the main 48MP sensor to create a 24MP shot. There are two reasons for that—first, it keeps file size down, and second, it allows pixel binning, which means the camera combines multiple pixels to capture more light and produce a better image.

However, if you have the room on your iPhone to store the resulting snaps, you can switch to 48MP photos. Professional photographers often make the switch because capturing more pixels provides more flexibility over the final shot by letting you take control over how those pixels are processed. 

[Related: Check out some of the winners of the latest iPhone Photography Awards]

But you should know there are differences depending on the iPhone you’re using.  The dual-lens on the iPhone 15 and the iPhone 15 Plus, has a slightly inferior 48MP sensor than the triple-lens on the iPhone 15 Pro and the iPhone 15 Pro Max—the number of pixels is the same, but the pixel-capturing tech isn’t quite as good.

The other key difference is that the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max can capture RAW images, which Apple calls ProRAW photos. This format provides all the raw data from a digital image, providing photographers even more control and options over their work. RAW snaps take a little longer to process, use up a lot more storage space, and need some photo know-how to optimize, which is why the average smartphone photographer doesn’t bother with them.

The iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus don’t have the processing grunt to manage RAW snaps, but they can still capture 48MP images in either HEIF or JPEG format. The result is still 48MP-size pictures but they’ll be slightly compressed, which takes away some of the manual post-processing control you get with RAW images. In certain ways, using a HEIF or JPEG format (which you can also do on the Pro models) goes halfway between shooting 24MP snaps and 48MP ProRAW, with the added benefit of significantly cutting down file sizes.

If you’re considering making the switch to 48MP photos, bear in mind that means a slightly longer time between tapping the shutter button and seeing your image on screen. What’s more, the dynamic range (the spread between the darkest blacks and the whitest whites) won’t be quite as good without pixel binning. 

How to change the iPhone 15 camera settings

Having absorbed all of that information about photo formats, you’re ready to start making changes. Head to Settings in iOS, then tap on Camera. Unless you’re already shooting in RAW, your first choice will be between High Efficiency (HEIF) or Most Compatible (JPEG) for the image format.

Which one you pick is really up to you and will depend on what you’re doing with your snaps after you’ve taken them. HEIF tends to result in smaller file sizes, but JPEG is generally compatible with a broader range of software on desktop and the web. There’s plenty of information about both online.

[Related: The easiest ways to back up iPhone photos without iCloud]

To unlock the 48MP photos, turn on Resolution Control (on the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus) or ProRAW & Resolution Control (on the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max). On the latter models you can also tap Pro Default to pick your preferred format: The list includes HEIF Max (up to 48MP), JPEG Max (up to 48MP), ProRAW 12MP, and ProRAW Max (up to 48MP). Underneath these options, Apple lists the average file size for each format, so you have an idea of how much space each picture will take up—10MB for a 48MP JPEG, for example, and 75MB for a 48MP ProRAW.

Launch the camera on your iPhone, and the new 48MP option will appear in the corner. It’ll be crossed out to begin with, so tap the icon to turn it on and choose which format you want to shoot—HEIF Max, JPEG Max, or RAW Max. On the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max, press and hold on the icon to switch between HEIF/JPEG and ProRAW. Note that you won’t get the option to switch to ProRAW on the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus.

By default, the Camera app will forget that you enabled 48MP photos when you switch to another app, so the option will be crossed out again when you come back to it. To tell the camera to keep the 48MP enabled, open the iOS Settings screen, tap Camera, Preserve Settings, and then either Resolution Control or Apple ProRAW & Resolution Control, depending on your iPhone model.

Note that because of the way the iPhone 15 produces photos, it will default back to 24MP whenever you’re taking Live Photos or macro shots, or using Night mode or the flash. This will happen no matter what settings you’ve changed simply because those different modes require different types of image processing.

The post How to unlock the hidden, more powerful camera on the iPhone 15 appeared first on Popular Science.

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Editing photos on an iPhone may seem intimidating, given all the options and settings, but it’s accessible to all skill levels. Thanks to its user-friendly interface and intuitive controls, you can easily enhance your images with preset effects or manually adjust settings to achieve the desired look. No expensive editing software necessary.

The iPhone’s photo editor also offers advanced features such as selective editing, which allows you to make precise adjustments to specific areas of your images. Additionally, you can easily share your edited photos directly from the app by posting them to social media platforms or sending them to friends and family. 

How to edit photos on an iPhone

Since most of us snap pictures on the fly, we are not thinking about the composition or lighting when we take the photo. We are trying to capture a moment as quickly as possible. Thankfully, that’s where post-editing comes in. Like icing a cake, editing images gives them a finished look. And editing photos on an iPhone might be even easier than messing around with gloopy buttercream.

Crop, rotate, or flip your photo

Was your selfie interrupted by a random bystander? No worries; that’s why there’s the crop tool. Cropping is one of the easiest and fastest ways to remove unwanted elements or distractions from the frame. Trimming the edges can also help improve a photo’s composition by adjusting the placement and balance of elements within the frame. In Photos, tap any thumbnail to view it in full screen. To start making changes, tap Edit, then tap the crop icon to choose one of three ways you can crop a photo.

1. Manual crop: With the crop icon selected, drag the rectangle’s corners to enclose the area you want to keep in the photo. Tap Done to crop.

2. Zoom crop: Alternatively, you can crop iPhone images by activating the crop tool and pinching them to zoom in. When the photo appears as you want it cropped, hit Done to save.

3. Use a preset ratio: Tap the aspect ratio icon in the upper right corner (a small rectangle with other rectangles stacked on top), then choose one of the cropping options, including square, wallpaper, 9:16, and 5:4. Hit Done to save the change.

• Pro tip: If you choose a ratio crop, such as 9:16, you can select a vertical or horizontal orientation by tapping the two rectangles below the image.

How to rotate a picture on iPhone

Tap the rotate icon (a square with an arrow curving around one corner) to turn the photo 90 degrees at a time. Keep going until you get the orientation you desire. Hit Done to confirm the changes.

How to flip a photo on iPhone

Touch the flip icon (mirrored triangles with an arrow above them) to reverse the image horizontally. Tap Done to save your edits.

Just know that if you don’t like your crops, rotations, and/or flips at any time during the editing process, you can tap Cancel in the lower left corner of the screen, then hit Discard Changes. 

Straighten your image and adjust the perspective

Sometimes, you don’t notice tilted or skewed lines in a photograph until after you take it. Fortunately, altering the perspective is simple with the iPhone’s editing software. Open a photo on your iPhone, tap Edit, then hit the crop icon.

Under the photo, you will see three options for straightening the horizontal lines in the photo and adjusting the vertical and horizontal perspectives. When you choose the one you want to use, drag the slider underneath to make precise changes. There is also an Auto option at the top of the screen, which will automatically adjust the photo based on the selected adjustment.

1. Straighten: This adjustment, well, straightens out horizontal lines within a photograph.

2. Vertical perspective: Corrects or modifies the perceived height or angle of objects in a photo, straightening vertical lines that may appear tilted or distorted.

3. Horizontal perspective: Changes horizontal lines and angles in photos, ensuring parallel lines and your desired alignment. 

After editing the perspective, select Done to save your changes; if unsatisfied, hit Cancel, followed by Discard Changes.

Adjust light and color

Light and color are important factors when editing photos on an iPhone—and anywhere, really—because they affect an image’s overall mood and visual appeal. The right lighting will bring out the subject’s features, add depth, and make important details stand out. In the same way, changing a photograph’s colors can make the viewer feel certain emotions, set a particular mood, or even send a message. Your phone’s Photos app has several tools that will let you adjust the light and color of your pictures.

[Related: How to take better selfies]

To begin, open the photo you want to alter. Tap Edit, then swipe left under the image to view the effects you can edit. The quickest and easiest way to make adjustments is to tap on Auto, and the slider under the Auto tab will allow you to adjust the intensity of the iPhone’s suggested edit.

If you prefer complete edit control, though, the iPhone photo editor lets you adjust each effect individually for a custom edit. The effects you can alter are:

• Exposure: Increasing exposure can make an image brighter, while decreasing it can create a darker and more dramatic effect. 
• Brilliance: Enhances an image’s overall clarity and vibrancy, making it more visually striking.
• Highlights: Brings out the brightest areas of an image, adding a sense of brightness and contrast.
• Shadows: Darkens the darker areas of an image, creating depth.
• Contrast: Makes the difference between light and dark areas more pronounced.
• Brightness: Changes how light or dark the photo is overall, but not as dramatically as adjusting exposure.
• Blackpoint: Adjusts the darkest point in an image, allowing for greater control over the overall tonal range.
• Saturation: Affects the intensity and richness of colors in an image.
• Vibrance: Similar to saturation, but designed to enhance the colors more subtly and naturally. 
• Warmth: Adjusts the color temperature of an image, making it appear either warmer (more yellow/orange) or cooler (more blue). 
• Tint: Adjusts the overall color balance of an image, adding a subtle hue to the entire picture. 
• Sharpness: Enhances the clarity and detail of an image, making edges and fine textures more defined.
• Definition: Improves an image’s overall sharpness and clarity by enhancing the distinction between different elements and adding depth. 
• Noise Reduction: Reduces digital noise in an image, resulting in a smoother and cleaner appearance. This helps minimize the grainy or speckled effect that can occur in low-light settings. 
• Vignette: Darkens the corners and edges of the image, creating a subtle or dramatic spotlight effect.

To use an effect, tap on its icon and drag the slider underneath to make precise adjustments. The outline around the button indicates the degree of adjustment, and you can toggle between the edited effect and the original to see how much you’ve changed the photo.

Apply filters

Filter effects enable you to easily add creative and artistic elements to your photos, resulting in more visually appealing and captivating images. To apply a filter, open a photo, tap Edit, then tap the Filters button (the three overlapping circles) to pull up the filter effect options. There are nine to choose from. Use the slider underneath your chosen effect to adjust its intensity, and if you need to remove a filter, tap Original. Hit Done to confirm the edit.