Ever wish you could live in a Jetsons-like future, where robots bring you beer and you could fly a car to work? Well, most of that probably won’t be real anytime soon, but CES likes to pretend it will. We hit the show floor this year so we could separate fact from fiction just for you. Here are our favorite things we saw in Vegas that you’ll actually use in the coming year or two—and a few things that were downright stupid....
Sure, you could opt for a whole folio-style wallet case that covers the screen, but these increase the thickness of your iPhone significantly. If you have a larger iPhone, your pocket is probably already being stretched to its limit. A screen protector can protect your iPhone 13 without that extra bulk. A good screen protector protects a part of your display that a case can’t—the oleophobic coating. Apple coats iPhone displays with a special layer to keep skin oils from marring the display....
Services that offer public APIs often get their best tools from third-party developers. Social platform Twitter is no exception: almost anyone who uses Twitter professionally will have TweetDeck on their desktop, which started out as an independent tool before Twitter acquired the project. If only the company was so proactive with its mobile apps. The official Twitter app can get the job done, but updates tend to focus on Twitter’s branding and questionably useful new features rather than the usability or quality of the app itself....
Using Desktop Slideshow To create your slideshow right-click on the desktop and click Properties. Click on Desktop Background located at the bottom of the window. Now hold down the Ctrl button on your keyboard and select each picture you would like to show on the desktop. Then choose the amount of time to to change the pictures, you can select from 10 seconds all the way up to a full day....
We opened the link to see the scam in action. Don’t try this at home: If you receive a scam message, we recommend against opening any links attached to it. You should also delete the message and block the sender. The scam text message says, “Your Verizon account security needs validation” and invites you to tap a link to “validate your account.” Once you do, you end up at a phishing website that looks almost exactly like Verizon’s real website....
As you research new smarthome products to put in your home of the future, you’ll come across a lot of terms and categories that seem completely foreign. At the top of the list: “ZigBee” and “Z-Wave” products. What does this mean, and what’s the difference between the two? ZigBee and Z-Wave Are How Your Smarthome Gadgets Communicate with Their Hubs ZigBee and Z-Wave are the two wireless protocols that pretty much all hub-based smarthome products use....
But astronomers have been doing that very thing (from far away, obviously), and they noticed what the clouds actually look like: Earth clouds. Not a dinosaur or anything. Though the atmospheres are radically different and it’s somewhat hard to breath on Mars, both planets appear to have pretty similar cloud formations. A study by the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Mars Express spacecraft and NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter examined dust storms on Mars, and found that clouds are formed in similar ways to clouds in Earth’s tropical regions....
What Is S Mode? Windows 10 or Windows 11 in S Mode is a more limited, locked-down Windows operating system. On Windows 10 in S Mode, you can only install apps from the Store, and you can only browse the web with Microsoft Edge. On Windows 11 in S Mode, you can install other browsers from the Microsoft Store—but Edge will always be your default browser. Microsoft is pitching security, speed, and stability here....
An iPhone that won’t charge properly is more than a little bit frustrating. Before you tear your hair out, take a stroll down out troubleshooting checklist to rule out common causes of charging problems—and, fingers crossed, resolve your issue without sending your phone in for service. There are a variety of issues that can cause problems when charging your iPhone or iPad, ranging from the easily-solved to the requires-Apple-service. Thankfully, in our experience, the problem is almost always a varying degree of easily-solved....
Whether you’ve installed the Linux subsystem on Windows 10 or are getting started using the Linux Terminal, there are all kinds of shorthands you need to learn…none of which are intuitive. For example there’s the tilde, ~, which represents your home folder. Typing cd ~/Documents switches to the Documents folder in the current user’s home directory, saving me from having to type /Users/justinpot/Documents every time. It’s a convenient shortcut, sure, but why is that particular character used for this?...
Microsoft’s free Windows 10 upgrade offer is over–or is it? There’s still a way to activate Windows 10 with a Windows 7, 8, or 8.1 key, in addition to Microsoft’s accessibility offer. You Can Still Use an Old Key with the Anniversary Update RELATED: You Can Still Get Windows 10 for Free from Microsoft’s Accessibility Site As part of Windows 10’s first November update in 2015, Microsoft changed the Windows 10 installer disc to also accept Windows 7 or 8....
The Internet can be a horrible place, but there’s a lot of beauty out there. Beautiful paintings and photos can remind you of that, and the right program can deliver them to you automatically. Whether you love classic art or photos of contemporary architecture, there’s a program with custom wallpaper out there for you. Here are a few of the best tools for the job we’ve found, and how to use them....
If you don’t use email as part of your day to day life, it can easily be one of those things that seems more complicated than it is. But there’s no need to break out the computer if you simply need to email something—a picture, document, something—because you can easily do it directly from your phone. Now, to those who do this often, it’s a simple task. But for someone who has never needed to attach something to an email from their phone, it can be a bit unintuitive....
When you create a table in Microsoft Excel, you might need to adjust its size later. If you need to add or remove columns or rows in a table after you create it, you have several ways to do both. Use the Resize Table Feature in Excel If you want to work with both tables and columns, whether adding or deleting them, the handiest way is with the Resize Table feature....
With the new (or new to you) Google Assistant, you can control smart home devices like the Nest thermostat, Hue lights, and more with just your voice—right from your phone. Here’s how to set them up. To control a device from Google Assistant, you’ll first need to add it to your Google account. Currently, Google only supports smarthome devices from five companies natively: Honeywell, Nest, Philips Hue, Samsung SmartThings, and Belkin WeMo....
If you’re working with different currencies in one Excel spreadsheet, you’ll need to change the currency symbol on certain cells, without affecting other cells. When you format your numbers as “Currency”, you can easily use multiple currency symbols in the same Excel spreadsheet. RELATED: How to Change Windows’ Default Currency from Dollars to Euros NOTE: If you’re going to use the same currency symbol throughout your Excel spreadsheets, you can change the default currency symbol throughout Windows instead....
If you want to add a cool new image to your channel, or you’re rebranding your channel and wish to upload an appropriate image, YouTube makes it easy to change the channel banner image. Here’s how to do that on desktop and mobile. YouTube Channel Banner Image Guidelines To ensure your image looks consistent and good across various devices, YouTube recommends your image be the following: The image must have a minimum resolution of 2048 x 1152 pixels with a 16:9 aspect ratio....
Just because a Wi-Fi network is not broadcasting its name doesn’t mean you can’t connect to it. Here, we’ll show you a couple of ways to connect to a hidden Wi-Fi network on Windows 10. Any security expert will tell you hiding your Wi-Fi network’s name doesn’t really offer security. You should go other routes if you’re looking to keep your home network secure. As you’re about to find out, connecting to a hidden network is fairly straightforward....
The COUNTIF function in Google Sheets lets you analyze data in your spreadsheet and returns the number of times it appears in your document if it meets a set of specific criteria. Here’s how to use it. Use COUNTIF to Match on One Type of Criteria Fire up Google Sheets and open a spreadsheet with data you want to count. Click on an empty cell and type =COUNTIF(,) into the cell or the formula entry field, replacing and with the range of data to count and the pattern to test, respectively....
Microsoft’s Xbox Game Bar in Windows 10 is a handy way to call up an overlay of useful widgets using the Windows+G keyboard shortcut. But not everyone needs it, and if you’d like to disable it (or enable it again later), all it takes is a visit to Settings. Here’s how. First, open Windows Settings. To do so, open the Start menu and click the small “gear” icon, or press Windows+i on your keyboard....
