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RELATED: How to Put Together Your First Smarthome (Without Getting Overwhelmed) As for Google, they own Nest, which makes the ever-popular Nest Thermostat. However, unlike Ecobee (a direct Nest Thermostat competitor), Nest has become more than just a smart thermostat company. They also offer a handful of Wi-Fi cam models, a video doorbell, smart smoke alarm, security system, and a smart lock developed in partnership with Yale. In other words, Nest has grown from its smart thermostat roots to become a powerhouse smarthome company on its own, and they’ll likely continue to grow....

Ever since the rise of smarthome technology and smart speakers like the Echo, companies have gone out of their way to add voice control to pretty much anything and everything, and it needs to stop. Don’t get me wrong, voice control is great to have for a lot of things, like adjusting the thermostat, playing music, or simply wanting to know what the weather will be like today without fishing for your phone....

Different Tiers of Cybercriminal In the physical world, there are different tiers of criminals. Clearly, those who plan and execute diamond heists are not the same ones who snatch a handbag and run down the street. It’s the same with cybercriminals. There are many different types of threat actor, from the ever-popular Hollywood trope of the kid in his bedroom to the state-sponsored, advanced persistent threat groups used for offensive and defensive international cybercrime and cyberwarfare....

If you spend a lot of time surfing your phone on your patio or streaming music while you do lawn work, you need a decent Wi-Fi signal. Here are some things you can do to get the best outdoor signal from yours. The Wi-Fi inside your house may be lightning fast, but the moment you step outside your front door, you likely lose a good chunk of that speed. Homes can act as giant Faraday cages of sorts, thanks to thick exterior walls that are usually made out of beefier materials than your interior walls....

Want to spice up your Google Slides presentation by including a YouTube video in it? If so, use Slides’ built-in feature to embed your YouTube videos with customizable options. We’ll show you how to do just that. When you embed a YouTube video, you can make the video play from the beginning or at a specified time. You also get to choose the time when your video ends. Additionally, if you don’t want the video’s sound, you can mute your video, as we’ll explain below....

Groups are one of Facebook’s best features. They’re really handy for anyone who wants to run a club or interact with people who share the same hobbies. Groups can have one of three different privacy levels: Public, Closed, and Secret. If it’s set to Public, your Group is visible in Facebook searches. Anyone who finds it can see everything that’s posted to the group and can join it without needing another member’s approval....

RELATED: Should You Change Your Passwords Regularly? Update Your PayPal Password If you have not already chosen a new password for your account, consider learning a few tips to come up with a strong password. RELATED: How to Create a Strong Password (and Remember It) Then, start the password change process by opening a web browser on your device and launching the PayPal website. Log in to your account with your current password....

The notification “Bubble” is a feature introduced in Android 11 that works like Facebook Messenger’s “Chat Heads.” Conversations can be popped-out into windows that overlay your current activity. If you don’t want to use Bubbles, it can be disabled. Bubbles are an opt-out feature, meaning they’re enabled by default. When an app presents a Bubble for the first time, you’ll have the option to turn off Bubbles for that specific app....

If you have ever tried to download videos from the Hulu website, you will have probably noticed that most methods don’t work because of the protocol that Hulu uses. Here’s how to download any video you want from the Hulu website. Note: This will work on both x86 and x64 installations of Windows, however the browser you are using must be 32-Bit. Downloading Hulu Videos The first thing you need to do is grab yourself a copy of RTMPDumpHelper from the NirSoft website....

Firmware updates are annoying, but they’re essential to a properly working (and secure) device. The Wink Hub is no exception, but if you’d rather not have to deal with updating the hub every time new firmware comes out, you can actually enable automatic updates. RELATED: How to Set Up the Wink Hub (and Start Adding Devices) This new feature is available in the Wink app for iPhone (sorry, Android users), and it’s quick and easy to enable if you want your Wink Hub to handle all the updates itself....

If you’re replacing your Nest Thermostat, or are moving and want to take it with you to your new place, here’s how to factory reset and uninstall it. RELATED: How to Install and Set Up the Nest Thermostat Even if you’re keeping your Nest Thermostat, but are simply just moving it to a new house, you’ll still need to factory reset it, since the Wi-Fi network will be different, and more importantly, the heating and cooling systems at the new house might be different from what your Nest Thermostat originally had set up....

Setting up the HomePod is pretty easy, and only takes a couple of minutes. However, if you’re coming across a mysterious blank white window during the setup process, here’s how to fix it. RELATED: How to Set Up the Apple HomePod The HomePod relies on Apple Music as its streaming service whenever you want to tell Siri on the HomePod to play a specific song, artist, or album. You can use your HomePod even if you don’t subscribe to Apple Music, but you’ll run into an error during setup after you pick its room:...

Sometimes, you need to find information about your PC—things like what hardware you’re using, your BIOS or UEFI version, or even details about your software environment. Join us as we take a look at a few Windows tools that can provide varying levels of detail about your system information. Use the Settings App to Check Basic Info If you just need a basic overview of your system, you can find it in your Settings app in Windows 8 or 10....

Adding hyperlinks is an efficient way of getting your reader to the intended web page. Though it’s no secret that you can add hyperlinks to text, Gmail also lets you add hyperlinks to images in the body of the email. Here’s how to make it happen. Inserting Images in Gmail We’ll assume that you’re already in your Gmail account. If not, go ahead and get there. When you’re ready, select the “Compose” button which can be found at the top-left corner....

Some PCs, including Microsoft’s Surface Laptop and the Windows on ARM PCs, run “Windows 10 in S Mode.” In S Mode, Windows can only run apps from the Store—but you can leave S Mode in a few clicks. Warning: This is Irreversible! You can’t undo this choice. You’re free to leave S Mode at any time, but you can’t put a PC back into S Mode after leaving it. This is a one-time decision for the life of your PC’s hardware....

Download and Install Skype If you’re new to Skype, the first thing you have to do is download it to your device. Whether you’re on Windows, a Mac, Linux, or an iPhone, iPad, or Android phone, you can download the appropriate version of Skype from its website. If you go to Skype’s web portal, you can use it from your browser with video-calling functionality. Skype for the Web will only work in Google Chrome or Microsoft Edge, though....

Whenever there’s a natural disaster, your friends and family will want to know that you’re safe. Facebook has tried to make this easier with its Safety Check feature. Here’s how to let everyone you know on Facebook that you’re safe with a couple clicks, instead of messaging everyone individually. Facebook aims to automatically activate Safety Check if you’re in the area of a disaster it knows about. If you live in an area where a number of people are posting about an event, Facebook may send you a notification asking if you’re safe....

The Switch is great! Nintendo’s dock design is…less great. While buying a third-party dock can be risky, there’s an alternative: replace the plastic shell on the original to make it a lean, mean, fast-docking machine. Accessory makers have begun selling alternate dock shells. They’re really just pieces of plastic, and they’re designed to hold the electronic guts of the official Nintendo dock in a new and much more user-friendly position....

If you’re like me, you connect your Time Machine backup disk every time you’re at your desk. You know you should unmount that drive when it’s time to hit the road, but opening the Finder just to hit “Eject” feels like a waste of time. Enter Semulov. This lightweight, open source application adds an “Eject” button to your Mac’s menu bar, so you can unmount any drive in just two clicks....

Slow motion video recording is one of the coolest features on the iPhone. Here’s how to use it. The camera in the latest iPhones (and especially the iPhone X) is incredibly good. For slow motion video recording, it’s actually significantly better than many DSLRs. On the iPhone 8, 8 Plus, and X, you can record 1080p video at either 120 or 240 fps. On the iPhone 7, you get 1080p at 120 fps and 720p at 240 fps....