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Aujourd’hui — 29 mars 2024Lifehacker

StackSkills Unlimited Courses Are $35 Right Now

You can get lifetime access to StackSkills Unlimited courses on sale for $34.97 right now (normally $600) until April 2. StackSkills Unlimited is an online learning platform that offers thousands of training courses. They aren’t a replacement for college courses, degrees, or certifications—instead, think of them as a way to learn about a subject you didn’t take or pay enough attention to in school. StackSkills Unlimited has courses in IT, web design, coding, language learning, Microsoft Office, Adobe Creative Cloud, business, marketing, and more. You’ll get instant access to over a thousand courses, with over 50 new courses added each month.

You can get lifetime access to StackSkills Unlimited courses on sale for $34.97 right now (normally $600) until April 2 at 11:59 p.m. PT, though prices can change at any time.

This Amazon Smart Thermostat Is on Sale for $25

Smart home devices can make life easier and more convenient (and might even save you some money on your utility bill). A smart thermostat is a great place to begin if you're new to the smart home world because they're easy to install and fairly affordable. The Amazon Smart Thermostat is all those things, plus it can connect to the Alexa app to be voice controlled.

Woot is selling refurbished Amazon Smart Thermostats for $29.99 (originally $79.99), (and until midnight on Friday, you can apply a $5.00 coupon with code "SMARTFIVE" at checkout). The sale goes until April 9 at 1 a.m. ET or until the thermostats run out. Woot only ships to the 48 contiguous states in the U.S. If you have Amazon Prime, you get free shipping; otherwise, it’ll be $6 to ship. Keep in mind that the thermostat is refurbished, so it might come with signs of wear, but it was serviced and given the thumbs-up to work properly. 

The installation is simple, and you can do it yourself. All you need to do is some basic rewiring on your current thermostat. If you're not sure what that entails, you can follow along on the video below. The Alexa app also guides you through the process of installation.

PCMag rated this thermostat as an "excellent" device for its price, support for the Alexa ecosystem, and ability to track and manage your HVAC system, potentially saving you some money on your utility bill. Don't expect all the fancy features that you can get from other, more premium smart thermostats, like motion detection, remote control, and support for other smart home systems. But for $24.99, it's a good value.

I Tested Three AI Essay-writing Tools, and Here’s What I Found

Writing essays can be draining, tedious, and difficult, even for me—and I write all day long for a living. If writing isn’t your special skill, it’s even harder, which is why there are so many sites and products out there that are designed to help you get your homework done. Some of them are pretty unethical, and I’m not going to recommend hiring someone else to write your papers for you, but there are some cool AI tools that can give you a hand that are worth considering. (The essay-writing businesspeople are probably using these, too, so you’re better off eliminating the middleman and using them on your own.)

The best AI essay-helper tools

I have an essay due next week on the history and impact of a federal law, 21 U.S.C. S856, which outlaws the operation of any building where drugs are made or used. I won’t lie: I’m excited to work on it this weekend, but that’s just me. I tested out a few of the more popular AI essay-helper tools, pretending I wasn’t excited about it, to see how they worked. Here’s my assessment. 

Grammarly

First up was Grammarly, which prompted me to fill out a personalization quiz before I could use it. I told the site I was a grad student, interested in improving the vocabulary I use in my work, and looking to brainstorm topics for my essay. I used the text-input section to type a quick introductory paragraph and selected “Generative AI” from the list of options. When I hit the “Improve It” button, Grammarly showed me a revised version that added a bunch of words, but still said the same thing as my more concise entry. To me, that’s annoying, but if you’re trying to hit a word count, this could be useful. I was also given options like “Make it assertive,” “Make it persuasive,” and “Make it confident.” When I selected “Make it more detailed,” the generative AI did expand the information pretty significantly, but it didn’t add any citations and I’m not convinced it drew on material outside of what I inputted. When I hit “Make it persuasive,” the AI automatically assumed the bias should fall in favor of the law, but when I added more detail to my original paragraph, suggesting for argument’s sake that the law has curtailed efforts to reduce drug overdoses throughout the country, the AI assistant said, “Grammarly assistance is unavailable for this prompt because it may result in sensitive content.”

Overall, this wasn’t great for my needs, as my topic's content was too “sensitive” and the generative AI really only added a bunch of words. This one would be most useful for someone trying to hit a word count. 

Cramly

Next I tested Cramly, which I hadn’t heard of before. Before upgrading to a $4/month plan, you do get to try five free prompts, so I pasted my basic intro paragraph in there and, after a few seconds, got five paragraphs in return. It was obvious the AI was pulling from external sources somehow, as it mentioned fines and prison sentences associated with the law that I hadn’t specified, but it didn’t actually cite those sources. Still, the information it provided was helpful, so this one would be great if you’re not sure how to frame or expand on a topic and need a general idea of what your essay could look like. You’ll just have to go through everything it spits back at you and look it up independently, finding solid sourcing. 

EssayGenius

EssayGenius is extremely easy to use. It asked me to type what I’m writing about into a box. I simply inputted the name of the law and, about 10 seconds later, got 10 paragraphs back, some with subheadings like “historical background” and “implications in criminal law and public policy.” Again, there were no citations here, but the service provided not only a lot of details that could be used as a springboard to find more, but a solid outline for what the paper could look like. The AI played both sides, objectively presenting the cases for and against the law, then provided a conclusion that made it easy to narrow down where to go with the topic. Impressively, I was able to generate all that for free, but if you want to write up to 10 essays per month, it’ll cost you $9.99 a month. 

JotBot

Finally, I tried out JotBot, which I have seen advertised on social media. It asked me what I was writing about, plus if I wanted an outline, but also gave me an opportunity to upload my old essays so it could replicate my writing style. As scary as it was, the paragraphs it generated after reading some of my older work did sound more like me than standard AI does. It give me subtopic suggestions, like “impact,” “historical background,” and “controversies,” which I could select from a sidebar and, if I liked the paragraph it wrote, drag into the essay itself. From there, I could accept or reject sentences one by one as it generated new ones. I could write in the essay editing section, too, and it generated more suggestions based on what I was typing. Frankly, this one was really cool and I can see how it would help beat writer’s block with ease, since you can type and get suggestions as you go. There was a learning curve, though, and I didn’t realize how quickly I was blowing through my 10 free daily “credits,” since it’s unclear what, exactly, costs credits and how many it costs to, say, accept one suggestion. You can unlock unlimited credits, unlimited autocomplete, unlimited sources, and more for $14 per month. 

Conclusions

Overall, EssayGenius and JotBot were the best AI tools I tested. I was impressed by EssayGenius’s ability to research the topic on its own and JotBot’s mimicry of my own writing style. They do cost money, but that might be worth it if you’re someone who struggles with idea generation, outline creation, or getting into the flow of writing overall. 

Bear in mind these are not meant to churn out entire essays for you and you shouldn’t use them to do that. I don’t mean because it’s unethical, but I mean because it’s pretty easy for professors to catch you doing it. Even if you do use an AI tool to generate a whole paragraph or more, try to write it in your own voice and think of it more as a way to study and learn about your topic than have the writing done for you. 

Or, pay nothing and just use ChatGPT to generate outline ideas. I do that all the time and never have to worry about getting in trouble, cheating myself out of an education, or paying for anything. I just asked ChatGPT to generate an outline for an essay on 21 U.S.C. §856 and its impact on American harm reduction efforts and got eight sections, each with three subsections, and an easy roadmap I could follow to write my paper on my own. Doing it this way ensures I’ll actually research and learn about the topic, which is important to me, but also avoid the risk of going down for plagiarism or cheating, which is probably important to you. 

No matter what you end up doing, always run your work through a plagiarism checker (like Grammarly’s, which is better than its AI essay-writing tools) and ZeroGPT to make sure you’re not turning in something that’s going to get you in trouble.

How I Cleaned My Stainless Steel Sink Without Spending Extra Money

There is a wide variety of ways to clean and buff a stainless steel sink. Some require the purchase of specialty products, and others are more reliant on household materials and DIY hacks.

While I won't dissuade you if you want to choose a ready-made, store-bought solution like Bar Keepers Friend or Weiman Stainless Steel Sink Cleaner, I did some testing to determine whether or not the cheaper methods work—and experienced some success. It turns out all you may need to clean your stainless steel sink is a melamine sponge and regular old baking soda.

How to clean a stainless steel sink with baking soda

Because I am a renter, my sink, like everything else in my apartment, came to me "pre-loved"—and it shows. It shows some serious scratches, evidence of its long history of being used to clean up cookware messes I can only imagine. A big part of cleaning stainless steel involves scuffing out minor scratches, which is why the internet is filled with recommendations for using abrasive cleaners or other granular agents. I opted for baking soda as my cleaning agent.

I next had to choose my cleaning implement. Perennial wisdom may tell you that you can use lemon wedges to remove stains, but in my experience, lemon-based hacks are hit or miss. I split the difference by choosing a lemon-scented S.O.S. steel wool pad

A dirty stainless steel sink
Before! Credit: Lindsey Ellefson

The first step to cleaning the sink is removing any dishes and wiping away any obvious residue. Since I just did a massive dish-cleaning session, my sink was extra grimy, so I pulled out a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser Ultra Foamy and scrubbed every inch.

Next, I sprinkled plain baking soda all over the sink. It’s abrasive, but mildly, so it’s perfect for removing light scratches and polishing the steel. I scrubbed the baking soda with the Magic Eraser, then rinsed and looked for lingering, more serious scratches or stains. I then used my S.O.S. pad to lightly buff at those spots, and saw a little improvement. Obviously, it’s hard to remove deep scratches by hand, but what little polishing I did had a noticeable effect.

I then rinsed out the sink again, and dried it with a soft cloth before applying a light layer of baby oil as a cheap, efficient polish. 

A clean stainless steel sink
After! Credit: Lindsey Ellefson

Overall, I was pleased with my low-cost, minimal effort results. If you're dealing with more stubborn stains, you can spring for an abrasive specialty cleaner like Bar Keepers Friend, but it's hard for me to justify the purchase when I only deep clean my sink every month or so. The baking soda worked perfectly well at buffing and shining my stainless steel sink, and I didn’t have to spend anything to do it, since I used products I already had on hand. 

Strange Tax Deductions You Might Not Know About

While most of us are familiar with the common tax deductions like mortgage interest, charitable donations, and retirement contributions, there are plenty of unexpected deductions and other little-known uses for pre-tax money.

Tax deductions you might not be aware of

Andy Phillips, Director of H&R Block’s Tax Institute, says that with the April 15 deadline fast approaching, his tax experts are getting plenty of unconventional questions from filers looking to maximize every deduction available to them. Phillips shared some of the strangest tax deductions people have claimed and actually gotten away with:

  • Gambling losses. While gambling winnings are taxable income, the IRS allows taxpayers to deduct their gambling losses up to the amount of their winnings. This deduction is often claimed by professional gamblers and those who frequent casinos.

  • Snacks. Daycares can deduct set amounts for the breakfast, lunch, and snacks provided to children in their care. 

  • Your pool or hot tub. If you are self-employed and use your backyard pool or hot tub to entertain clients or employees, you may be able to deduct a portion of your operating costs and even the initial installation. Just make sure to carefully document the business uses.

  • Tampons. Menstrual care products like tampons and pads are qualified expenses you can pay with your health savings account.

  • Pet food. For the most part, deducting medical expenses for pets is not allowed as a medical expense on your tax return. The only exception would be when an animal is a certified service animal, like a guide dog, to assist you. Service animals generally aren’t considered pets though. If you have a physical disability or are hearing or visually impaired, you can deduct medical expenses for your pets if they are certified service animals. Expenses that may be covered include purchasing, training and maintenance of the animal which includes food, grooming and medical care.

  • Some cosmetic surgeries. A taxpayer can deduct as medical expenses amounts paid for cosmetic surgery necessary to improve a deformity arising from, or directly related to, a congenital abnormality, a personal injury resulting from an accident or trauma, or a disfiguring disease. Breast reconstruction after cancer is an example of a deductible surgery. Vision correction surgery is another example of a deductible procedure. 

  • Clarinet lessons. Believe it or not, the IRS has allowed deductions for clarinet lessons as a medical expense in certain circumstances where the lessons were recommended by a doctor to help treat a health condition like stammering or neurological issues. You'll need a physician's letter to claim this one.

  • EV chargers. If you install an electric vehicle charger in your home, you may be eligible for a tax credit. 

  • Construction expenses. If you build a house, construction expenses you can include in the basis of your home include land, materials, architect fees, building inspection fees, and building permit fees. 

Phillips shares some more unexpected facts about deductions; for instance, people who are wrongfully incarcerated may be able to exclude settlement money they receive to compensate them. If you’re at least 65 years old or blind, you can claim an additional standard deduction on your tax return. And if you’re just starting to repay your student loans for the first time, you might not know that most taxpayers can deduct up to $2,500 of student loan interest payments each year. 

Remember to keep accurate records and consult with a tax professional if you have any questions or concerns. While the above deductions might not apply to you, there are still plenty of deductions to make sure you're taking advantage of—like home office perks or retirement contributions. And if you want to avoid the April 15 scramble, be sure to check out the best filing services for 2024.

Hier — 28 mars 2024Lifehacker

You Can Get an Apple Vision Pro for $200 Off, If It Fits

The Apple Vision Pro, arguably the most impressive virtual reality and augmented reality headset available for public consumption, is seeing its first significant discount. Woot is selling new 256 GB Apple Vision Pros for $3,299—a $200 discount—but only in the small Solo Knit Band size and 21W Light Seal.

This sale on the Apple Vision Pro will go on until the end of February. If you have Amazon Prime, you get free shipping; otherwise, it’ll be $6 to ship. (Heads up, though: Woot only ships to the 48 contiguous states in the U.S.)

Of course, $3,299 is still a whopping amount of money and not everyone's head will fit in the small band and 21W seal. If you have an Apple store close by, you can go and get yourself measured to see if the small band and 21W seal will fit you. If you're not that patient, you can see Apple's breakdown of what each measurement means in the screenshot below.

Apple VIsion Pro measurements
Credit: Screenshot from Apple website

The /r/VisionPro Reddit page also has a helpful breakdown of the sizes. And if you're more of a visual person, this video does a good job of giving you an idea of what to expect from the different sizes.

Please, Don't Trust AI to Identify Mushrooms

Eating wild mushrooms is a famously dangerous hobby. If you are an expert forager, you’ll know what grows in your area, where to find it, and how to be absolutely sure that you’ve found an edible species rather than a poisonous one. If you aren’t, you could end up chowing down on mushrooms with names like “death cap” and “destroying angel.” 

It takes years of experience and a keen eye for detail to become an expert in identifying mushrooms. There are no easy rules for telling good from bad; the poisonous ones often look very similar to popular, tasty edible mushrooms. But you have to know that this confusion is possible, and that you, as a beginner at this, are liable to fuck it up. Join your local mycological (mushroom-studying) society, and you can start learning from the experts. 

You may think there's a shortcut: can't you just download an app? If iNaturalist (for example) can tell you that the white-flowered tree in your neighbor’s yard is a dogwood, it should be able to tell you what mushroom you found in the woods, right? It cannot.

AI mushroom apps could literally kill you

In an in-depth report in Public Citizen, wild mushroom enthusiast Rick Claypool shows all the ways that AI-powered identification apps and AI-generated field guides can kill you or make you sick if you trust them. 

He cites an example of Google Lens identifying a mushroom nicknamed “the vomiter” as a different mushroom it described as “choice edible.” (The person who posted the photo got very sick, but survived.) In an even scarier 2022 incident, an Ohio man used an app to confirm that some mushrooms he found were edible—the app said yes—and ended up in the hospital fighting for his life. (An experimental treatment may be what helped him pull through; 40% of people who eat toxic Amanita mushrooms, the type he’s thought to have eaten, end up either dying or needing a liver transplant.) 

As Claypool points out, real live mushroom experts do not look at a picture and say “yep, that’s edible.” They’ll ask to see details of the underside and the bottom of the mushroom, they’ll want to know exactly where and when it was found, and they may recommend further steps for identification like making a spore print. They’ll also be able to say how sure they are of their conclusion. Claypool notes: “An app that responds to an identification attempt with a vague or non-committal answer may be perceived as malfunctional instead of cautious.”

He also points out that identifying the species is not the only step in knowing whether mushrooms are safe to eat: “The first mushrooms novice foragers find are often mushrooms that are beyond the state of freshness required for safe consumption. Foragers are in a race against mold, insects, slugs, and everything else in the wild that eats mushrooms. Unless you know the signs, whether a mushroom is infested with maggots or grubs might not be obvious until it’s cut.”

AI is not “intelligent” and never has been

The term “artificial intelligence” is a buzzword, a nickname, a fantasy. It is not a description of what these apps are or do. It’s a term coined by scientists who dreamed about what might be possible in the future, and was then popularized in science fiction. The creators of tools like ChatGPT chose to use it because it sounds exciting and futuristic. 

Never forget that AI hype is mostly just marketing from big tech companies who hope to get money from other tech companies before the bubble bursts. This will all die down once people realize AI is not actually doing anything useful for anybody who cares about the output, but it will take a while for the tech bros to figure that out.

Claypool’s article lays out several things that AI can ostensibly do for mushroom identification, and the deadly flaws in each: 

  • Photo identification, through mushroom apps: Even a human cannot identify all mushrooms with certainty through pictures. 

  • AI-created guidebooks: These have been found to contain incorrect information. (It hasn’t been conclusively proven that the guidebooks in question were written by AI, but they sure look like it.)

  • AI-generated pictures: When Claypool tested image generation tools, they routinely drew incorrect pictures of the features of edible and toxic mushrooms, and labeled them incorrectly. 

  • AI descriptions of pictures: Mushroom experts use specific terminology to describe the features of mushrooms in guidebooks. When Claypool asked an AI tool to describe a photo of a toxic mushroom, it said the mushroom had “free gills” when it actually had attached gills, and got other identifying features wrong.

  • AI-summarized search results: Google happily provided a recipe for cooking toxic mushrooms, claiming that boiling can remove toxins. (This is not true.)

The AI tools Claypool tested also dropped bits of misinformation here and there in the process, implying that toxic mushrooms are brightly colored and that brightly colored mushrooms are toxic (neither is true as a rule).

The bottom line for you and me? AI doesn’t actually “know” anything. These algorithms are better thought of as predictive: if you ask it a question, it writes a prediction of what an expert’s answer to that question might look like. Sometimes it’s good at this kind of prediction, and sometimes it’s absolutely terrible. 

Just like when Futurama’s Bender the robot made terrible food for his human friends because he didn’t understand the concept of taste, AI produces text or images that superficially look like what it thinks you asked for, without understanding the concepts involved. AI does not know toxic from edible mushrooms. It doesn’t even know what a mushroom is. It just spits out words and images that it thinks will make you happy, and it does not know how to care whether you live or die.

Oregon Just Passed a Monumental ‘Right to Repair’ Law

Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek officially signed a new "Right to Repair" law on Wednesday that will make it much easier to repair our stuff—at least in the state of Oregon.

Much of the law follows in the footsteps of Right to Repair legislation passed by New York, Minnesota, and California: Tech companies that sell their products in Oregon will need to allow customers and third-party repair stores to buy things like parts, tools, and schematics for most electronic devices. The law retroactively applies to these devices, as well: It applies to smartphones released on July 1, 2021 and newer, and most other electronic devices sold on or after July 1, 2015. That means, if you live in Oregon, Apple will need to let you buy parts for that MacBook you bought almost nine years ago.

While these impacts alone would be a welcome change, what sets this Oregon law apart from the other three states is that is bans "parts pairing," a term that describes when companies prevent unauthorized parts from functioning in their devices. Parts pairing can also brick features of your device when these unauthorized parts are installed. We saw this with Apple with the iPhone 13: If you replaced the display with an unauthorized screen, iOS would shut off Face ID. (Apple later reversed course.)

But rather than rely on public backlash to bully companies into doing the right thing, Oregon's new law will ensure no company selling electronics in the state will be able to take away functionality because a user installs a part they don't approve of. Unlike the other side of the law, however, parts pairing legislation is not retroactive: It will only apply to devices made after Jan. 1, 2025. So while your existing electronics like phones and laptops can continue employ parts pairing policies, anything you buy in Oregon in 2025 will be banned from doing so.

What does this mean for repairability?

If you live in Oregon, your ability to repair your own products is improving dramatically—especially with devices you buy next year. But what's so great about this law is that it doesn't just apply to the devices we think of when we talk about repairability: It also applies to most electronic devices you own. If your smartwatch breaks, or you can't seem to clean with your vacuum anymore, those manufacturers need to offer you the option to purchase tools that can fix your devices, rather than force you to buy new ones.

The major exceptions here are medical devices, farm equipment, devices that run on an internal combustion engine (your gas-powered car isn't covered, unfortunately), or video game consoles. So while Microsoft might not need to worry about helping you repair your Xbox, it will need to offer parts and documentation for your Surface.

Right to Repair is really all about two things: The first is empowering consumers to continue using the devices they paid for. Companies have gotten us too used to abandoning cheap products once they fall apart. If the law makes them offer ways to repair these products, not only will we be able to fix our devices more easily, but we should see companies start to make more durable products as well—at least, that's the hope.

The second part of the movement, however, tries to put the power in the hands of the consumer when it comes time to repair those devices. Sure, fixing your tech is great, but if it costs an arm and a leg because you're forced to do it the way the manufacturer wants you to, it's hardly better than buying something new. Allowing customers and third-party repair shops access to parts and documentation levels the playing field, and makes repairs more affordable for everyone.

As states pass these laws, we're seeing improvements for everyone: Apple has a self repair program that allows anyone to buy genuine Apple parts and follow instructions for fixing their own products, as does Samsung. They're far from perfect though: Apple's program in particular is expensive. Hopefully, the more Right to Repair laws that pass, the more accessible these self repairs become.

Use This Plugin to Add Your WordPress Site to the Fediverse

Par : Justin Pot

I miss blogs. Don't get me wrong: I write professionally for various websites, and I have an email newsletter, but none of them quite give me that blog feeling from the 2000s. The closest thing I've found is Mastodon. Maybe it's the jankyness, maybe it's the do-it-yourself mindset, but scrolling through Mastodon reminds me of old school blogs.

As it turns out, I can combine my passion for old-school blogging with my love of Mastodon. There's a simple plugin you can install on any WordPress site to make it part of the Fediverse, which is the network of social networks that includes Mastdon and, eventually, Meta's Threads. Users of those networks can follow your blog and get all of your posts, right in their timeline.

To get started, you need only install the ActivityPub plugin for WordPress. You can do this by heading to Plugins in your WordPress dashboard and searching for the plugin. Install and enable it and you're done: your website is now on the Fediverse.

Just install and activate the plugin and you're on the Fediverse. It's that easy.
Credit: Justin Pot

Every user of your WordPress site can now be followed by users of Mastodon and other social networks built on the ActivityPub protocol (collectively called "The Fediverse"). I confirmed this by searching for, and following, my blog from Mastodon.

It's my blog, but on Mastodon.
Credit: Justin Pot

I also followed myself, just to see how it looks. Full posts are available right in the Mastodon timeline, allowing people to follow keep up with my blog without leaving Mastodon. But the coolest thing, to me, is that any reply anyone sends to your posts shows up as a comment on your site.

Someone on Mastodon responded to my blog post. It showed up in the comments section.
Replies from Mastodon and other services show up right in the comments section. Credit: Justin Pot

You can reply to the comments right in WordPress, if you want, and the user will get the reply the same way they would any other reply. This allows you to blog, just the way you remember, while allowing everyone else to use the tools they prefer.

And you can go even further. If you want to follow people back, if only out of respect, you're going to need the Friends plugin, which basically turns your WordPress website into a complete ActivityPub social network. You can even set up the plugin to work with Mastodon apps, including Mona, the best app for Mastodon.

That's just for power users, though. For most people, this is just a simple way to give potential readers another way to read and interact with your blog posts. Setting this up also means Threads users will eventually be able to follow your blog, without you having to use Threads. Other services, including Tumblr, are also working on integrating with ActivityPub. An ecosystem like that just might bring back blogging—at least, I hope so.

YouTube Is Testing a Feature That Uses AI to Skip to the Best Parts of a Video

YouTube is always trying out new features for its users, which they call experiments. The latest experimental feature is called Jump Ahead, which purports to skip to the best part of a YouTube video for you.

The new feature works in conjunction with the double tap feature already available in the YouTube app on Android or iOS, which lets you hop forward in a video in 10-second increments until you've reached the portion that interests you.

The Jump Ahead feature will analyze that user watch data and couple it with machine learning algorithms to automatically detect what it believes is the next "best" point in a video that a viewer may be interested in, and offer a prompt to take you to that point via an onscreen Jump Ahead button.

YouTube says the Jump Ahead feature will work for creators when watching their own videos, even if they aren't currently subscribed to YouTube Premium. Otherwise, the Jump Ahead feature is currently being tested with a small group of YouTube Premium subscribers in the U.S. There's no word as to when the feature could roll out more widely.

Previously, YouTube introduced similar functionality in the form of a graph integrated into a video's progress bar that shows you the "most replayed" parts of that video. Initially, the most replayed feature was similarly exclusive to YouTube Premium subscribers, so there's always a chance that, if proven popular and effective, Jump Ahead could become an all-access option in the future. Last year, the company also tested, then removed, then reintroduced the option to watch any video in double speed by pressing and holding on the video player from within the YouTube app.

Five Situations You Should Be Using a Contract (and How to Make One)

If you stop to think about it, society is pretty fragile. A lot of it’s just agreements between total strangers to do certain things in certain ways all the way down, and if enough people stopped honoring those agreements, everything would collapse pretty fast. Most of those agreements are unwritten and unspoken—like not playing the bongos at 3 a.m. while your neighbors are sleeping—but many are enshrined in a written contract. And we should all be using contracts more in our lives, because they remove uncertainty.

A contract is just a legally binding agreement between two or more parties that sets out the terms of an agreement. You don’t need to be a lawyer (or hire a lawyer) to write one, and they can protect you and the other party in a variety of ways. Any time you enter into an agreement that involves money or property, you should have at least a simple contract in place to make sure things go smoothly—because if they don’t and you need to take someone to court (even small claims court), having a contract will significantly strengthen your position and improve the odds of things going your way.

Contract basics

First, you have to know a few basic things about writing a contract. You don’t need fancy language, formatting, or specific legal terms in there, but the contract does have to include a few basics to be considered legally enforceable:

  • Consideration. There has to be an exchange of value, like when you pay someone to perform a service for you.

  • Clear acceptance. What’s being offered (e.g., a fee and a service) has to be very clear, as does the other party’s acceptance of the terms.

  • Legality. A contract that has illegal terms can’t be enforced, so forget about legally binding someone to commit crimes for your benefit.

  • Capability. Both parties in the contract have to be competent, of legal adult age, and capable of understanding what they’re agreeing to.

  • Mutuality. Everyone has to agree that they are, in fact, entering into a contract and agree to be bound by its provisions. In other words, you can’t trick someone into signing a contract.

Contracts don’t have to be lengthy, but they do have to be clear—any confusing wording or imprecise terminology may come back to haunt you. There are a lot of free downloadable contract templates out there, however, which you can either use as-is or alter to your needs. And if you have any doubts about your ability to craft a contract, you can always pay a lawyer to either write one for you or review one you’ve created yourself.

So, you can write a simple contract for just about anything. When should you?

When it makes sense to use a contract

Roommates

If you’re taking on a roommate—especially if it’s an informal arrangement in a property you own—you should consider preparing a contract that spells out how the arrangement will work. As anyone who has ever had a roommate will tell you, getting the rent or mortgage split out of them is just one battle. There’s kicking in for shared utility bills, discovering that your new roommate considers washing dishes to be an extremely optional activity, and waking up one day to find out your roommate has taken in a roommate of their own to split their half of the rent. This applies to both randos you lure to your home via an advertisement and friends, family, or even a partner, because defining financial responsibilities is a lot healthier than simmering in resentment towards people you love.

A contract can spell all of this out—how the money, chores, and lifestyle considerations will be handled. Plus, a contract can avoid awkward conversations by spelling out who gets the bigger bedroom, whether or not pets are allowed, and how you’ll handle it if your roommate needs to move out before the end of the agreement. The chances you will need to legally enforce a contract like this are relatively small (there are a lot of better options for handling bad roommates), but if things really degenerate and your roommate owes you a lot of back rent or causes other problems, having something in writing will be very helpful.

Loans

It’s always kind of awkward when a friend or relative asks for a loan. If you’re willing to help someone out with a personal loan, you should definitely have a loan contract created. For one thing, people sometimes have very short memories when it comes to their emphatic pledges to pay a loan back. For another, money has a way of distorting our memory and perception of events, so a contract can make the terms of the loan very clear.

Again, this doesn’t have to be complicated. A loan contract should state who the borrower and lender are, how much is being loaned, interest charged (if any), and the repayment terms, including a deadline for completely paying back the loan. Crucially, it should also include a provision for what happens if the borrower doesn’t pay it back. Do you get their baseball card collection? Do you charge a penalty? Do you get a specific number of Thanksgiving Day slaps? Putting this in writing will spare you a lot of stress if things go south.

Borrowed stuff

If someone wants to borrow your expensive stuff—or you want to borrow someone else’s stuff—a contract is a must. Whether it’s your vehicle, expensive power tools, or anything else, a contract protects your property by having the borrower assert that it is in undamaged condition when they take possession of it, by defining how it will be used and for how long, and clarifying that the borrower is responsible for any damage, tickets, or other problems stemming from their use of the property. A contract can also clarify that if they nail their hand to their thigh using your nail gun, you’re not responsible for their medical costs, and if they let your car roll down a hill because they forgot to set the parking brake they have to pay for repairs or replacement.

Pet- or house-sitting

Having a pet is a huge comfort—and a huge responsibility. When we have to leave our pets while we go on vacation or business trips, it’s pretty common to have someone check on them, feed them, and interact with them. And if you don’t have pets, having someone check on or even live in your home while you’re gone can offer a sense of security. You can hire professional house- and pet-sitting services for this, of course, but a lot of folks will just ask a friend to check up on their home and/or pets—or hire someone directly.

To make sure your home and beloved animals are properly cared for, a contract can help define all the expectations on both sides. From how often the sitter will check on the animals to their specific responsibilities (do the animals need medications? do you want music played during the day, or windows opened for them?) to the payment terms, whether a house-sitter can have guests, or how emergencies will be handled (including veterinarian bills incurred while you’re away), a contract will remove any uncertainty concerning how your animals should be cared for.

Handyman projects

Ah, the handyman and handywoman—an essential figure in home maintenance. Ideal for projects too small for a contractor but too complex for a homeowner lacking the right skill set, handypeople are often hired informally, and agreements are often handshake and cash in nature. The problem, of course, is that a handyperson is still in your home messing with essential stuff, and things can go wrong. A handyperson contract can lay out the scope of work, ensure there’s no confusion about how much you’ve agreed to pay them, clarify who’s responsible for buying materials, and make it clear they’re an independent contractor and you have no responsibility for their insurance.

Anything else

If you’re entering into an agreement with someone but you don’t have the specifics worked out quite yet, but want to nail things down a bit, you can craft a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU). This document is not a contract, and isn’t necessarily legally enforceable. But it’s useful if you’re negotiating because it lays out what both parties understand about the deal, and can be referred to when the actual contract is being composed. This way if someone tries to Darth Vader that deal by altering the terms you’ll have something in writing to fall back on. For example, if someone is negotiating to buy a big-ticket item from you (like a used car) but they need to secure financing, you can draw up an MOU that outlines the price you’ve agreed on and defines how long you’ll wait before you look for other buyers.

A contract might seem like a lot of trouble for small or friendly arrangements, but they don’t take long to put together and can save you a lot of heartburn if those arrangements turn wonky.

The Pixel 8 Is Getting Gemini Nano AI Features After All

After citing "hardware limitations" as the main reason why Google's Gemini Nano wouldn't come to the cheaper Pixel 8, the tech giant seems to have found a way to make it work after all.

According to reports from TechCrunch, Google has announced plans to roll out on-device AI features such as recording summaries and smart replies to the Pixel 8. These features have previously been locked to the Pixel 8 Pro, as Google said it had no plans to bring those Nano-powered features to the base Pixel 8 due to differences in the hardware.

For the most part, Google has mostly relied on AI-powered features that rely on the cloud. But now that the company is bringing its features to work on-device, it's (hopefully) going to open a lot of doors for faster processing and response times.

It is interesting to see Google going back on its claims that Nano-powered features wouldn't run on the Pixel 8. It's very likely that the company didn't see a way to make it work on the lower amount of RAM that the Pixel 8 sports—it offers only 8GB of RAM compared to the 12GB of RAM found in the Pixel 8 Pro. However, after some "testing and validation," the company is ready to push it out to the Pixel 8 in the latest Android developer build.

This is good news for Pixel 8 owners, as Google will hopefully continue to bring new Nano-powered features to the base Pixel 8 series device. And, if the company can get the AI to work on that base model, it might also be able to get some things to work on the upcoming Pixel 8a, which is rumored to contain very similar specs to the mainline Pixel 8 series.

There was, of course, a lot of uproar when Google said the Pixel 8 wouldn't offer Nano-powered features. Most notably, the "hardware limitations" reasoning given made it seem like a ploy to push more Pixel 8 Pro sales on consumers.

However, with Samsung bringing Galaxy AI features to older Galaxy devices, it makes no sense for Google to claim such issues, especially since many of the same features found in Samsung's phones rely on Google's AI development to run.

No real release date for the AI features has been given, though Google has said it will begin testing them in the next PIxel 8 developer build.

There’s a New King of the Chatbots, and It’s Not ChatGPT

If you asked the general public what the best AI model was, chances are good most people would respond with ChatGPT. While there are many players on the scene in 2024, OpenAI's LLM is the one that really broke through and introduced powerful generative AI to the masses. And as it would happen, ChatGPT's Large Language Model (LLM), GPT, has consistently ranked as the top performer among its peers, from the introduction of GPT-3.5, to GPT-4, and currently, GPT-4 Turbo.

But the tide seems to be turning: This week, Claude 3 Opus, Anthropic's LLM, overtook GPT-4 on Chatbot Arena for the first time, prompting app developer Nick Dobos to declare, "The king is dead." If you check the leaderboard as of the time of this writing, Claude still has the edge over GPT: Claude 3 Opus has an Arena Elo ranking of 1253, while GPT-4-1106-preview has a ranking of 1251, followed closely by GPT-4-0125-preview, with a ranking of 1248.

For what's it's worth, Chatbot Arena ranks all three of these LLMs in first place, but Claude 3 Opus does have the slight advantage.

Anthropic's other LLMs are performing well, too. Claude 3 Sonnet ranks fifth on the list, just below Google's Gemini Pro (both are ranked in fourth place), while Claude 3 Haiku, Anthropic's lower-end LLM for efficient processing, ranks just below a version 0613 of GPT-4, but just above version 0613 of GPT-4.

How Chatbot Arena ranks LLMs

To rank the various LLMs that currently available, Chatbot Arena asks users to enter a prompt and judge how two different, unnamed models respond. Users can continue chatting to evaluate the difference between the two, until they decide on which model they think performed better. Users don't know which models they're comparing (you could be pitting Claude vs. ChatGPT, Gemini vs. Meta's Llama, etc.), which eliminates any bias due to brand preference.

Unlike other types of benchmarking, however, there is no true rubric for users to rate their anonymous models against. Users can simply decide for themselves which LLM performs better, based on whatever metrics they themselves care about. As AI researcher Simon Willison tells Ars Technica, much of what makes LLMs perform better in the eyes of users is more about "vibes" than anything else. If you like the way Claude responds more than ChatGPT, that's all that really matters.

Above all, it's a testament to how powerful these LLMs have become. If you offered this same test years ago, you would likely be looking for more standardized data to identify which LLM was stronger, whether that was speed, accuracy, or coherence. Now, Claude, ChatGPT, and Gemini are getting so good, they're almost interchangeable, at least as far as general generative AI use goes.

While it's impressive that Claude has surpassed OpenAI's LLM for the first time, it's arguably more impressive that GPT-4 held out this long. The LLM itself is a year old, minus iterative updates like GPT-4 Turbo, while Claude 3 launched this month. Who knows what will happen when OpenAI rolls out GPT-5, which, at least according to one anonymous CEO, is, "...really good, like materially better." For now, there are multiple generative AI models, each just about as effective as each other.

Chatbot Arena has amassed over 400,000 human votes to rank these LLMs. You can try out the test for yourself and add your voice to the rankings.

What to Do If Your Neighbor’s Tree Hangs Over Your Property

Sometimes it seems like living in a society would be much better if we didn’t have to deal with all these other people all the time. If you own a home, you know that your neighbors are both one of life’s great blessings and often the biggest pain in your ass. On the one hand, sometimes you wake up and they’ve shoveled the snow from your sidewalk, and when you go on vacation they check on your cat! On the other hand, things can get really tense when disputes crop up unexpectedly—like when your neighbor’s tree hangs over your fence.

At first glance this might not seem like a big deal, but those overhanging branches can cause problems. They mess up your property by dumping leaves everywhere; they can scrape your roof shingles, smack into windows during high winds, and get tangled in power lines. Underground, the tree's roots could be worming into your sewer and water lines. That tree might be pretty, and you might enjoy its borrowed shade on sunny days, but if it starts to be a problem, what can you do?

Tree law

America is not so much a large country as a collection of tiny countries standing on each other’s shoulders wearing a trenchcoat, so the laws governing trees and property will vary from state to state—you’ll have to do some local research if you’ve got a situation brewing with a neighbor’s tree. That said, there are three things that are almost certainly true about your neighbor’s tree:

  • It has value. Sure, it’s a tree, and apparently grows for free out of the ground as if by elven magic. But a tree on your neighbor’s property has monetary value. For one thing, your neighbor may have paid for the tree and had it planted. Then there are other benefits, like the carbon dioxide offset of that tree, the cooling effect of its shade, or fruit that it provides. The USDA Forest Service offers a free calculator that estimates the economic benefits of a tree, which isn’t definitive but gives you some idea of how someone might define its value.

  • It’s your neighbor’s property. If the tree’s trunk is entirely on your neighbor’s property, no matter how much it overhangs yours, it belongs to them just like anything else in their yard. If the trunk straddles or crosses the property line, it’s probably considered a boundary tree—community property. That means that you have as much say and responsibility for it as your neighbor, but you still can’t unilaterally make decisions about it.

  • You have the right to defend your property. If the tree’s branches cross the property line, you have the right to trim them, especially if they threaten to damage anything. But you can’t go past your property line under any circumstances.

That last bit might make this all seem very clear and simple: If the tree is causing havoc on your side of the fence, get out there and cut it back to the property line. While you have the right to do that, you should think twice for one simple reason: If you touch your neighbor’s tree and damage it, destroy its aesthetic value, or kill it outright, you could be held liable for the loss and the cost of treating or replacing it. This can run to the thousands of dollars—especially if it’s an expensive ornamental tree that’s part of a cohesive landscaping design.

How to trim

So you have to be careful if your neighbor’s tree is invading and needs trimming. Here’s your best approach:

  • Talk to your neighbor. That liability goes both ways: Since the tree is your neighbor’s property, if it damages your property you can hold them liable. Approach your neighbor and ask if they’ll help trim the tree or grant explicit permission to do the work on your side, releasing you from liability—they might be incentivized to do so if the tree is causing damage. If it’s a boundary tree, you’ll need to negotiate with your neighbor anyway to get anything done.

  • Call the power company. If the offending tree is near power lines, you can probably call your local utility and schedule a free tree trimming. Most utilities have arborists on staff, and they are more than happy to clear branches away from power lines to avoid damage. That being said, keep in mind that the utility may trim more aggressively than you want. Also, keep in mind that once alerted to trees near power lines on your (or your neighbor’s property), the utility can come and trim them any time they want without your permission. Electric utilities have an easement on all private property to allow them access for maintenance and repair.

  • Hire a professional. The more you distance yourself from the tree trimming, the less likely you’ll run into trouble. You’ll want a company that has a certified arborist on staff, because trees are living things and they come in a wide variety of species. An arborist can identify the tree and prescribe the right way to trim it without damaging it or leaving it vulnerable to disease.

A tree growing right by your property line offers a lot of free benefits—but also free problems. If the latter is starting to outweigh the former, be careful—trimming your neighbor’s tree can open up a can of worms.

Use the 6/10 List to Take the Stress Out of Cleaning

Making a to-do list is a major step in being productive in any area of your life, from your personal pursuits to your work responsibilities, but when it comes to cleaning your home, you may not think to make one—let alone realize that some kinds of lists are better than others. You should definitely have an attack strategy before you start tidying up, which is why the 6/10 List is such a useful tool for busy people who still want their personal space to look nice.

What is the 6/10 List?

This cleaning method comes from Organized Chaos, which guides people through organizing, cleaning, meal planning, and more. The brand’s TikTok has over 800,000 followers and its video on the 6/10 List has over 3 million views, so it’s CleanTok-approved.

Basically, this method acknowledges and leaves space for the fact that you’re busy and cleaning is overwhelming. It provides an easy framework for how you should schedule and prioritize your cleaning tasks, taking the work out of figuring that out yourself and divvying the tasks across multiple days. 

The list is split into two main categories: “The Daily 6” and “The Weekly 10.” 

The Daily 6 are, roughly, these:

  1. Make beds

  2. Wash dishes

  3. Scrub sink

  4. Wipe counters

  5. Vacuum floors

  6. One load of laundry

The Weekly 10 are generally these:

  1. Wipe out fridge

  2. Wipe out microwave

  3. Tidy pantry

  4. Mop floors

  5. Clean bathrooms

  6. Clean sink drains

  7. Dust furniture

  8. Wash bedding

  9. Tidy car

  10. Clean pets’ bowls

Beyond that, there’s space for monthly tasks (scrubbing showers, deep cleaning appliances, cleaning out the garage, and vacuuming vehicles) and quarterly ones (wiping baseboards and doors, cleaning fans and lights, cleaning windows, cleaning furniture, changing your air filter, wiping down cabinets). 

How to use the 6/10 List

According to Organized Chaos, you can start small by choosing three of the six daily tasks to work on every day, then build your way up to tackling more. Those are the most necessary, basic cleaning steps that will keep your house looking nice, so it’s key to get in the habit of doing them every day. Of course, there are all kinds of other little tasks you could do on top of those—but like the 1-3-5 method of creating a to-do list, this recognizes that there really is a finite amount of things you have energy for in the day, so you should choose which ones you take on strategically. (And don’t forget the Pareto Principle, which says that 80% of your results come from 20% of your effort, so don’t waste your time on unnecessary tasks.)

The weekly tasks can—and should—be spaced out across the week so you don’t get overwhelmed. Once you get the hang of getting the daily and weekly chores done, reevaluate how using the list is going and feel free to swap out some tasks that might make more sense for your space. You might not have pet bowls to clean weekly, for instance, so something more specific to your life can fill that slot. The goal here isn’t to clean exactly as someone else prescribes, but to build timely habits that you can maintain and which will take the stress off of figuring out what you should even focus on in a given day. 

You Can Get This 4K Dual-Camera Drone on Sale for $75 Right Now

You can get this dual-HD-camera drone on sale for $74.99 right now (reg. $129.99). It's a budget drone that is excellent for beginners who want to experiment with flying: it has one-key takeoff and landing, altitude hold mode, and four-channel movement with a rolling 360-degree function. You can pair with your smartphone to take pictures and videos or see a real-time feed through the drone's two 1080p cameras; the front with 90-degree views and the bottom with 120-degree views. It also comes with four spare blades and two batteries for 26 total minutes of flying time.

You can get this dual-HD-camera drone on sale for $74.99 right now (reg. $129.99), though prices can change at any time.

25 of the Best Anime Movies Streaming

Anime, a category of animation that goes back at least to 1958's The Tale of the White Serpent, has nothing to prove at this point—though non-Japanese audiences are sometimes still surprised by the variety and depth of the films it encompasses, which are generally a lot broader and more varied than American animation (still mostly thought of as just kids' stuff).

The word "anime" is just a form of a Japanese word referring to animation, and, though Japanese filmmakers have excelled in crafting animated films for decades, it's often taken to represent a particular and specific style or genre. Not so: Movies like Ghost in the Shell, The Red Turtle, Weathering with You, and Howl's Moving Castle have very little in common other than their statuses as cinematic classics at large, and their brilliant, usually hand-drawn animation.

Many of the best anime movies streaming will be familiar to animation fans, but for newcomers, any of them would be a great place to dive into the broad world of anime.

Your Name (2016)

Country girl Mitsuha begins mysterious trading bodies with Taki, a boy from Tokyo, and the two slowly come to understand each other and their separate lives. Gut-punching revelations in the second act take what begins as a coming-of-age rom-com into deeper science-fictional waters, the film revealing itself to have far more on its mind that a metaphysical meet-cute. Director Makoto Shinkai (Weathering with You) and the animators brilliantly play with light, giving some of the movie's real-life locations stunning glow-ups. Never has a body-swap story been this gorgeously rendered, and the film holds a well-earned place near the top of all-time anime box office champs.

Where to stream: The Criterion Channel, Crunchyroll


Roujin Z (1991)

This wild ride from Hiroyuki Kitakubo, one of the animators of Akira, takes place in the near future—which, because this was made way back in 1991, happens to be the early 21st century. An 87-year-old widower named Kijuro Takazawa is the first test subject for an experimental robotic hospital bed designed to take care of all of a patient’s needs. But then the bed begins transmitting his thoughts, and things get more dramatic from there (if you think this story of a dying man and future healthcare couldn’t possibly turn into a mecha anime, you’re mistaken). For all the wild plot developments, there’s some smart commentary about our eagerness to ignore the needs of the elderly, and the ways in which even “humane” technological advancements can be dehumanizing.

Where to stream: YouTube


Akira (1988)

This is one that everyone's heard of, and with good reason: its wildly kinetic animation and its highly detailed cityscape set a new standard for anime—writer/director Katsuhiro Otomo and company gave birth to a new animated world with this movie, and we're still living in it. Set in a dystopian 2019 (well, differently dystopian than our 2019), the cyberpunk classic finds biker Kaneda forced to face down his friend Tetsuo after the latter gains telekinetic abilities in an accident. Akira is more than just its action, and it's dense enough that it can be hard to follow for the uninitiated—but it's a movie that keeps going bigger with every scene.

Where to stream: Hulu, Crunchyroll, Funimation


The Red Turtle (2016)

This Studio Ghibli production is, technically, a Japanese and French co-production with a Dutch director—pushing, perhaps, the definition of anime just a bit (globally, we tend to use the term for animation explicitly from Japan). But we're not here to nitpick, especially over something this lovely and moving. The dialogue-free film tells the story of a man who becomes trapped on a desert island with only a giant turtle for companionship, and it turns out the turtle is guarding a secret that changes the man's life. What starts as a survival tale takes on deeper resonance as their bond grows in this powerful emotional journey.

Where to stream: Starz


Paprika (2006)

Dr. Atsuko Chiba and her colleagues are working on a therapeutic tool, a device that allows for the sharing of dreams. She's a scientist by day, and, as her titular alter ego Paprika, a dream detective by night, venturing into dreams to help her psychiatric patients. The device she's using can shatter minds when in the wrong hands and so, when it is stolen, she knows it must be recovered. Satoshi Kon’s mind-bending masterpiece was a clear inspiration for Christopher Nolan's Inception, playing as it does with layers of emotion and reality without ever leaving its audience feeling disoriented.

Well, maybe a little bit disoriented. You'll definitely get a little lost now and again, but it's worth the ride.

Where to stream: Tubi


Dragon Ball Super: Broly (2018)

This one might be tough sell for the uninitiated, given that it's the twentieth Dragon Ball film—and that's without even mentioning the multiple TV series (nor, of course, the long-running manga). Still, as an entry to the series, you could do a lot worse than this wildly action-packed entry, which is probably the best of the films. Series leads Goku and Vegeta encounter exiled and incredibly powerful Saiyan fighter named Broly, leading to some typically colorful chaos. The sensitive and out-of-control Broly is a genuinely tragic antagonist, and the emotional stakes place this one a bit above the Dragon Ball average.

Where to stream: Crunchyroll


Tokyo Godfathers (2003)

Roughly inspired by John Ford’s 1948 3 Godfathers, this one opens on a drag queen, a teenage runaway, and a good-hearted middle-aged alcoholic living on the streets of Tokyo. The odd companions come across a baby in a trash bin on Christmas Eve. With few clues to go on, the three spend the night searching the streets of Tokyo for the baby's parents. The moving adventure that follows comes from director Satoshi Kon, who also directed other classics on this list, including Perfect Blue, Millennium Actress, and Paprika, in his too-short life and career (in 2010, he died from pancreatic cancer at just 46 years old).

Where to stream: Tubi, Hoopla, The Roku Channel


The Girl Who Leaped Through Time (2006)

Yasutaka Tsutsui’s 1965 novel of the same name is often cited as an early (and popular) use of the now-familiar time loop narrative, and it’s been adapted multiple times in Japan. The best version (even the book's author loved it) is this 2006 anime from director Mamoru Hosoda (Mirai), following 17-year-old Makoto Konno, who, following a bit of clumsiness that puts her in the path of an oncoming train, discovers that she has the ability to send herself backward in time. Quickly deducing that the use of the power for her own gain can have unexpected consequences, she begins deploying the power only for small and frivolous things. Which is fine, until she also realizes she can only use her power a finite number of times. Potentially tragic circumstances soon threaten to leave her powerless when she needs to alter time the most. Unlike some of the more mature or action-oriented films here, this one perfectly captures the vibe of shōjo manga, with its emphasis on its teen girl lead.

Where to stream: Crunchroll


Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie (1994)

For a newcomer, it can be deeply confusing trying to find an entry point into any of the Japanese mega-franchises. This one's an adaptation of the Street Fighter II Capcom game—but the movie, naturally, has a bit more plot than the fighter, and it's almost entirely standalone. There's not a lot of socially redeeming value here, nor emotional resonance...but the movie does offer exactly what's suggested by the title: sweet violence, with just enough character work to make the punches land a bit harder. The fight scenes are all impressively choreographed, and the ’90s animation style, while very '90s, holds up beautifully.

Where to stream: Prime Video


Mirai (2018)

Mirai feels ignored and abandoned when his new baby sister arrives, his feelings complicated by his father’s affectionate, yet emotionally awkward nature. But then Mirai wanders into a strange garden that transports him through time. He meets his mother as a child, and also his new baby sister as a grown-up. There's adventure to be found along the way, but the movie's real resonance comes in quiet, emotional moments, and from its sensitivity to the complications of growing up—both for us, and for the families that have to deal with us. It always helps to get a new perspective.

Where to stream: Digital rental


Redline (2009)

The plot is minimal, but that’s not in any way a disparagement: This gorgeously hand-drawn thrill ride is a work of art nonetheless. On a distant planet in an evocative future, the most popular race in the galaxy is set to begin. A daredevil driver is determined to compete, but before he has the chance, he’s got to overcome a criminal cartel, the police, and an army of robots. The movie tanked at the box office back in 2009, but quickly became a cult classic. It looks like nothing you've ever seen before.

Where to stream: Vudu


Ghost in the Shell (1995)

A legitimate cyberpunk mind-bender, Ghost in the Shell easily stands alongside spiritual cinematic siblings like Blade Runner or The Matrix (which it explicitly inspired). From director Mamoru Oshii and writer Kazunori Itō, the film finds cyborg security officer Motoko Kusanagi on the hunt for a seemingly invincible hacker. The case leads her to question not only her own identity as, essentially, a robot with a human mind—but also the very nature of reality itself. Along with Akira, this movie became a gateway to anime for an entire generation of American fans, and it holds up well.

Where to stream: Prime Video, Tubi, Freevee


Demon Slayer—Kimetsu no Yaiba—The Movie: Mugen Train (2020)

A dark fantasy with some old-school shōnen style (albeit from a very R-rated point-of-view), Mugen Train picks up following the first season of the Demon Slayer series—that, and the excessive title, would seem to make it a tough recommendation, but it broke box office records in 2021 and became the highest-grossing anime of the year while scoring excellent reviews and winning awards. While there’s undoubtedly some extra resonance to be had when watching the movie in sequence, it works well on its own as the story of a tragic lead Tanjiro Kamado who board the titular train determined to save its passengers. The movie satisfyingly balances its stellar action sequences with some real emotional consequences.

Where to stream: Funimation, Crunchyroll


Only Yesterday (1991)

Though Only Yesterday was Japan’s highest-grossing film of 1991, it remains less well-known than many of its Studio Ghibli siblings, and that’s unfortunate. From director Isao Takahata (also the author of the criminally non-streaming Grave of the Fireflies), Only Yesterday follows 27-year-old Taeko Okajima, who works at a company in Tokyo but takes a train trip into the country side to visit relatives and escape from the hectic pace of the city. The journey conjures memories, both good and bad, of her past life, forcing her to reconcile her present with the life she left behind. It’s a lovely, melancholy take on life’s unexpected pathways.

Where to stream: Max


The Tale of Princess Kaguya (2013)

Isao Takahata capped his career with this Academy Award-nominee based on the 1,000-year-old folktale known as "The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter." The deceptively simple pencil and watercolor style is endlessly gorgeous. The story itself involves a woodsman who finds a baby in the bamboo and ultimately decides that it’s his fate to give her the life of a princess. The girl wants nothing more than the love of her family, but the movie turns on the dichotomy between that simple virtue and the need to satisfy the desires of family and community.

Where to stream: Max


Blame! (2017)

In the future, the City grows like a virus, endlessly in all directions, and humans have long since lost control of the automated systems designed to run things. Those same systems now see views humans as “illegals” to be purged, leaving flesh-and-blood survivors caught between the city’s murderous defense systems and the need to find food. One group of humans is on the hunt for the existence of someone with a genetic marker that they believe will allow for access to the city’s control systems—a hunt lead by Killy, a synthetic human who might have the key. Some deeply cool world-building here, and solid CGI animation.

Where to stream: Netflix


The Sky Crawlers (2008)

In a world largely at peace (imagine!), mega-corporations hire fighter pilots to engage in genuinely dangerous combat operations that serve, on one level, as entertainment, but also as a way for the world’s population to blow off some steam and experience the visceral thrills and nationalistic fervor of war without any of the devastating consequences. There’s a lot going on here, including the stories of pilots genetically engineered to remain adolescents, but the beautifully animated aerial sequences (involving mysterious attackers who endanger what was initially intended as a reconnaissance flight) are a highlight. Mamoru Oshii (Ghost in the Shell) directs.

Where to stream: Tubi


Josee, the Tiger and the Fish (2020)

A meet-cute between 22-year-old university student Tsuneo and Josee gives way to a more unconventional relationship: Tsuneo is hired as a caretaker for disabled Josee by her grandmother. Money, tragedy, and regular life threaten to get in the way of their budding relationship, but the two keep finding themselves drawn back together. The typical "inspirational" disability tropes are kept to a minimum—Josee is a fully rounded character, and the movie takes great lengths to emphasize the barriers that a wheelchair-user is likely to face in Japan, both culturally and practically.

Where to stream: Digital rental


Child of Kamiari Month (2021)

Kanna Hayama was a dedicated runner until the death of her mother, after which she becomes withdrawn and joyless, refusing to share her feelings with her friends and family. Of course, we're in an anime fantasy, so she soon meets a fanged demon-boy during a race who tasks her with taking up her mother's mantle as a literal footrace deity, and sends her on a quest with the help of a talking rabbit. Her adventures put her on a path toward coming to terms with her mother's passing and rediscovering her own sense of joy.

Where to stream: Netflix


Weathering With You (2019)

Makoto Shinkai followed up Your Name with this equally successful successor, a gorgeous vision of rain-soaked Tokyo, and a young woman who can control the weather (visually, this movie beautifully does for water what Your Name did for light). Troubled runaway Hodaka meets and befriends Hina, whose emotions impact the weather. There are life- and world-threatening consequences to all of this, but, ultimately, it's about the triumphs and tragedies of first love.

Where to stream: Max


Words Bubble Up Like Soda Pop (2020)

A cute, music-filled teen love story, this one finds shy, haiku-writing Cherry working at a senior center when he meets Smile, an outgoing social media influencer who's secretly embarrassed about her teeth and braces. They're both deeply insecure in different ways, and each has developed their own coping strategies. Their relationship soon takes a backseat to the story of a couple from five decades earlier, and the quest for a record that connects their love story to that of one of Cherry's clients. The stakes are relatively small and entirely personal, and that's more than OK. It's vibrant and fun, one of the better modern examples of teen romance in modern anime.

Where to stream: Netflix


Memories (1995)

This science fiction anthology is comprised of three short films, each well-done and darkly entertaining. The highlight is the opening segment, directed by anime master Satoshi Kon (Perfect Blue, Tokyo Godfathers, Paprika)—it's called "Magnetic Blue," and is the story of space salvagers and the engineers who discover a haunted and unforgettably haunting abandoned space station. It's a perfect blend of science fiction and existential horror.

Where to stream: Prime Video, Tubi


The End of Evangelion (1997)

Hideaki Anno's Neon Genesis Evangelion TV series ended with a brilliantly abstract and shocking whisper—one that left many action-craving fans cold. They might have been careful what they wished for. Fim coda The End of Evangelion offers a slice of hell through the eyes of its child-soldier lead, giant robot pilot Shinji Ikari. Where the show ended with the imagery of group therapy gone well, this alternate finale hinges on an apocalypse so horrifying, survival is the cruelest twist imaginable.

Where to stream: Netflix


Perfect Blue (1997)

Satoshi Kon's Perfect Blue isn't going to be for everyone, a blurring of fantasy and reality that draws comparisons to the films of Darren Aronofsky—though, of course, it's really the other way around, as Perfect Blue came before both Requiem for a Dream and Black Swan, which echo it. (Perfect Blue has also inspired Madonna, so do with that what you will). If nothing else, it proves that anime can do the psychological thriller genre at least as well as any medium can. Its story follows a young Japanese singer who is pushed to quit her career to take a job on television—a move with horrific consequences in the best tradition of high-price-of-fame stories.

Where to stream: Shudder


The Hayao Miyazaki Collection

Hayao Miyazaki's career in animation began in the 1970s, but his work as an artist of global stature began in earnest with 1984's Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, the first of an unbroken sequence of masterpieces that have pushed subsequent animators into new territory. One can easily make the case that without Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli (which he co-founded), we don't have anything like the varied world of animated films we're privileged to see today. Miyazaki's oeuvre could easily take up half of this list so instead, I'm going to suggest that all his movies are similarly great, which is not the same as saying that they're all similar.

Among the director's most beloved are Spirited Away (2001), involving young Chihiro's quest to save her parents from puckish beings in a fantasy realm; Princess Mononoke (1997), a epic environmental parable; Howl's Moving Castle (2004), about a young woman's quest to break a curse and the castle with legs; and My Neighbor Totoro (1988), a sweet story of two girls who meet fantastic creatures in the first near their new home. There are really no bad choices, though, with all but Miyazaki's most recent (Oscar-winner The Boy and the Heron) currently streaming on Max. While wildly varied, each is stunningly animated and lushly detailed, and each deals with the trials and challenges of growing up (at any age).

Where to stream: Max

The Only Four Gardening Tools You Actually Need

According to a recent study, Americans spend over $500 a year on gardening tools. That's a lot. Gardening is one of those hobbies that requires a few tools, so it's inevitable that you're going to drop some cash, but you only really need a few. You can start gardening with incredibly little overhead. 

A pretty good shovel

If you’re digging in the dirt, you’re gonna need a shovel. They come in a surprising number of shapes, all of which serve a different purpose, but the one you’ll use most often is a common garden spade. With a wide pan, flared edges and a soft point, a spade will easily slide into the earth with a lip you can stand on. The width of the pan will allow you to scoop up the dirt generously, with edges that’ll hold the dirt on the pan, and you can use the point that you can use to break up the soil. While we often think of wooden-handled garden tools, I prefer shorter handles made of steel, which are less likely to break. I’m particularly fond of the Radius line, with its easy circular handles, but the Bully long-handled shovel is also solid. 

A hand spade or hori hori

Shovels work at a distance, but to dig a hole to plant in, or work with the dirt when you’re closer to it, you’ll want a hand spade. Like shovels, these come in many shapes, but it’s best to start with a general tool. A spade that isn’t too wide or narrow, with a good sharp edge and a comfortable handle that isn’t going to wilt in the summer sun or get gross in the rain. You can also consider a hori hori, which is a longer blade with a serrated edge.  While it won’t allow you to scoop soil in the way a spade will, a hori hori is a spectacular all around hand tool that allows you to get a deep hole precisely where you need it, without disturbing nearby plants, will cut through rhizomes like butter, and get right to the roots of weeds. 

Garden gloves

You don’t really need garden gloves. Digging in the dirt with your hands is good for your soul, if not your manicure. Gloves can, however, be useful if you are working with thorny plants, or worms give you the ick. For that reason, I keep a few sets around—a workhorse pair that will stand up to the thorniest roses, and a pair of softer gloves for basic gardening work. Since I lose them often, having more than one pair at any time is always useful.

A great hose attachment

If there are plants, they’ll need to be watered. Any hose will do for now, but you’ll want a decent nozzle for that hose so you can adjust how much you’re watering and where that water goes. If you have hanging planters or beds that are a little out of reach, consider a nozzle on an extension pole. For just buzzing around the garden, a simple spray attachment will work. Be sure to bring those attachments inside for the winter. These attachments tend to leak easily, so spend a little more to get one of decent quality. 

There are legions of tools that I enjoy and use, from seeding gadgets to aprons to trellises, but you’ll figure out what you enjoy using over time. None of them are required to enjoy spending time outside or start digging in the dirt.

How to Recognize an AI-generated Cookbook

As I sit here eating rich, juicy dumplings made by a dedicated human chef, I’m pondering—lamenting?—AI's role in the food industry. Specifically, I’m stewing over one small, wholesome corner that AI has been butting into: cookbooks. AI-generated recipes and cookbooks aren’t new by any means, but they’re more prevalent than ever, and better at impersonating human authors than before. These AI cookbooks are sneaky, but they're not perfect, and you should be able to decide if that’s what you really want to buy. Luckily, there are a few red flags to keep an eye out for.


By the way, the dumplings were from East Wind Snack Shop. The human chef and owner, Chris Cheung, wrote a cookbook, Damn Good Chinese Food, and it’s for sale here along with some other fantastic cookbooks:


An AI-generated cookbook in the wild

A recent post on X from Matthew Kupfer shows just how creepy AI cookbooks can be. It’s mostly hilarious, but quickly becomes alarming when you realize someone used AI to generate a bio and a photo of the “author.” 

A screenshot of @Matthew_Kupfer's post on X
Credit: @Matthew_Kupfer/X

Clearly, AI-generated recipes and cookbooks are already out there. That’s fine—besides the knowledge and work that it silently scraped from all the recipes on the internet—it is what it is. Even companies like Instacart have taken a dip in AI waters to generate recipes, but at least they're up front about it. They also note that the recipes "may not be perfect" due to the nature of its creation. AI recipes are untested, likely unedited, and there’s a possibility the meal comes out weird in some way, but hopefully not inedible.

But the dubious recipe quality is just one part of the problem. Cookbooks aren’t just collections of recipes. They’re years of hard work, mistakes, successes, incredible photography, experiences, and stories. Those stories are woven into recipes that share a person’s life. Maybe I’m a little sensitive because I’m an aspiring cookbook author myself, but it’s the impersonation that is unsettling. The lengthy prose of manufactured human experience, and the faux inspiration—you’ll have to excuse me, but I’ve lost my appetite. 

Your AI is showing

Since you can’t rely on the usual tricks—checking for the author’s photo or only searching for hardcover books—you might have to dig a little deeper, and trust your gut. Here are a few things to look out for when you're vetting a cookbook.

Odd cover claims

While the title might seem harmless, like The Complete Crock Pot in the X post, the subtitle, or other quips and promises on the cover can be a dead giveaway. For example, “2000 days easy delicious recipes” sounds like an extreme amount of days, and it seems to be missing a word.

Clunky phrasing or repeats

Speaking of missing words, this tip is from our post on how to tell if you’re chatting with a bot, and it’s applicable for cookbooks too. Look out for grammatical missteps, sure, but also oddly robotic phrasing and repetition. As Jeff Somers notes in the aforementioned post, “Even the best conversational AI often has trouble with the weird complexities and contradictions of language.”

If you feel like a sentence just doesn’t sound right, like “This electrical cooking equipment is used to make meals, particularly when you want to leave your cooking uncontrolled for hours,” you’re not being judgmental. This is not how most folks would describe crockpot cooking.

Repeated phrases are also a hallmark of AI writing. I intentionally switch up vocabulary when I write because I know it’s boring to read the same words again and again, but AI doesn’t get bored. It gets even. Just kidding, it’s awful at alternate phrasing. You wouldn’t believe how many times the section “What is Crock-Pot?” has the exact, or nearly identical, phrasing for “a crock pot, or slow-cooker, is a pot made of ceramic…” It’s a lot.

Publishing houses versus self published

Many AI-generated cookbooks are sold online, and they are self published. You can probably figure out why. As of right now, most established publishing houses are interested in making deals with human authors. It’s a shame because there are a lot of self-published authors out there who write great books, and big publishers can make it difficult for even great books to be seen. In the case of cookbooks though, look for what publishing company it's from; if it's listed as "self published" or "independently published," be wary.

Errors with key ingredients

If you can, look closely at some of the recipes in the book. While AI doesn’t usually make egregious measurement mistakes, like suggesting two cups of salt, it can omit things. If a recipe is titled “Barley Chicken Salad with Fresh Herbs,” and there are no herbs or barley to be found in the ingredient list, you might be dealing with an AI cookbook. Likewise, if a cookbook claims to be for special diets, like a low-glycemic cookbook or this vegan cookbook that got ripped off by AI, keep a lookout for recipes that don’t fit the diet. 

AI might hurt our human feelings when it imitates us, but this type of error is where untested, unedited recipes get dangerous. A vegan is likely to catch butter or mozzarella listed in a recipe, but beginners following a low-glycemic recipe might not catch a starch error.

Tips for cookbook shopping success

Don’t be fooled by an author picture and biography

AI generates photos with terrifying ease. Read here for tips on identifying pictures of fake humans (two words: errant earrings). If you’re not sure, you can also look up the author. AI “authors” will have no history besides the cookbook, so you won’t have to do much research.  

Check for AI-generated reviews

AI reviews look suspiciously alike—like word-for-word alike—and 20 or 30 reviews will post on the same date, or within a tight time frame. If you see that, the next step is to click on the one- or two-star reviews. Those are probably humans and they’re probably telling you the cookbook is AI generated.

Shop in a bookstore

A what? A brick and mortar bookstore. If you’re buying new, then you can rest assured that bookstores like Warwick’s and Greenlight Bookstore are buying their stock from reputable publishers. If you’re buying used, then at least you can flip through the book and thoroughly check for the red flags mentioned above. Plus, you’ll be supporting a real-life bookstore, and that’s nice too.

Gemini Finally Comes to Google Messages (for Some Users)

Google has been upfront about its plans to inject its Gemini AI into just about everything it can, save for the base Pixel 8—which it says has some hardware limitations that keep it from sporting the latest Gemini version. One of the latest ways to get the Gemini treatment is through Google Messages.

This rollout isn't surprising at all, as Google officially confirmed the addition of Gemini to Messages around a month ago. Now, though, it has finally started to become available to some Google Messages beta users, and here's what you can expect from the new integration.

For starters, it's only available for beta testers that have RCS enabled, are at least 18 years old, and own a Pixel 6 or newer, Pixel Fold, Galaxy S22 or newer, Galaxy Z Flip, or Galaxy Z Fold. Any other devices aren't eligible for Gemini in Google Messages just yet. Google also says you'll need to have your phone's language set to English in places where Gemini in Messages is available, or French if you're in Canada.

Once you're into the beta and have Gemini, though, you'll then be able to do a number of things with the AI chatbot, including talk to the bot for information. You can respond to Gemini using text or image prompts, and you'll even be able to use extensions in your chats with Gemini.

If you want help drafting messages, all you need to do is ask Gemini and it will provide an appropriate response you can edit and then send as you see fit. You'll also be able to give feedback directly in the Messages app by long-pressing and holding down on the response you want to provide feedback for and then selecting the thumbs up or thumbs down to indicate what kind of response it was.

Google hasn't said yet whether it will allow Gemini Advanced users access to their premium features in Messages, so we'll have to wait for more information about the AI feature to become available before we can say for sure. But, at least for now, you can join the beta for Google Messages and test out the feature as long as you meet the requirements outlined above.

Google Wants You to Use AI for Your Next Vacation

Google hopes you'll trust its AI-powered search enough to use it to plan your next vacation. According to a blog post released this week, Google's Search Generative Experience (SGE) can now help you plan an itinerary of destinations for your next trip, including highlighting must-visit locations, restaurants, and even an overview of possible flight and hotel options.

The new system builds heavily off of Google's AI search response system, which scours the internet for different responses to your queries. Google says that using SGE will provide you with all the details you need, including photos, reviews, and other info about businesses that you might visit. Of course, that isn't taking into account the problems that SGE is already experiencing, like the fact that it is pushing scam and malware sites in SGE results. Hopefully Google has resolved some of that, but be careful which links you click on in the meantime.

Aside from SGE, Google has also highlighted how recommended lists in Google Maps can help you plan your vacation better, including showcasing lists of recommendations from sites you trust as well as locals who know all the best spots. This doesn't really build off AI, but it's likely we'll see more AI features coming to Google Maps and other Google products in the future.

It isn't all that surprising to see Google pushing more AI features across its various projects. The company has made big strides to put its Gemini AI chatbot out there, and it is likely we'll even see these trip-planning features make their way to Maps at some point, though perhaps in a different fashion. However, it will probably be a while before you can fully trust the information these AI tools are spitting out at you.

What's New on Paramount+ With Showtime in April 2024

Par : Emily Long

Paramount+ viewers can start April with the premiere of the fifth and final season of Star Trek: Discovery (April 4), which will wrap up the 65-episode series that rejuvenated the sci-fi franchise in 2017. There's also season four of The Challenge: All Stars (April 10), the reality competition show that, this time around, brings together former players to go head-to-head in South Africa. There's also CTRL+ALT+DESIRE (April 16), a three-episode docuseries about the manhunt to capture Grant Amato following the murder of his family members.

For Paramount+ With Showtime subscribers, there's Talk to Me (April 1), a supernatural horror film from A24 about a group of friends who use an embalmed hand to communicate with the spirit world.

Paramount+'s live programming kicks off with the CMT Music Awards (streaming on April 7) followed by live coverage of The Masters, which begins on April 8. There's also The 100th: Billy Joel at Madison Square Garden – The Greatest Arena Run of All Time (April 14 at 9 p.m. ET), a livestream of the artist's 100th sold-out concert of his MSG residency.

Here’s everything else coming to the service in April. Note that titles with an asterisk are exclusive to Paramount+ With Showtime; everything else is also available to subscribers on the ad-supported plan. Those with two asterisks are available to Paramount+ With Showtime users streaming live on CBS and to all subscribers the following day.

Paramount+ Originals and premieres coming in April 2024

Arriving April 1

  • Talk to Me*

Arriving April 4

  • Star Trek: Discovery, season five premiere

Arriving April 7

  • CMT Music Awards**

Arriving April 10

  • The Challenge: All Stars, season four premiere

Arriving April 12

  • DORA, premiere

Arriving April 14

  • The 100th: Billy Joel at Madison Square Garden – The Greatest Arena Run of All Time**

Arriving April 16

  • CTRL+ALT+DESIRE

Arriving April 26

  • Knuckles, premiere

TV shows coming to Paramount+ in April 2024

Arriving April 1

  • Jeff Dunham: I'm with Cupid

Arriving April 3

  • Bubble Guppies (Season 6)

  • Bubble Guppies: Bubble Puppy’s Fin-tastic Fairy Tale

  • Bubble Guppies: Guppy Style!

  • Bubble Guppies: The Puppy and the Ring

  • CMT Crossroads (Seasons 21-22)

  • CMT Presents The Judds: Love Is Alive - The Final Concert

Arriving April 8

NCISVerse: The First 1,000**

Arriving April 10

  • Nick Cannon Presents: Wild 'N Out (Seasons 19-20)

Arriving April 17

  • Mighty Planes (Seasons 1-4)

  • RENO 911! (Season 8)

  • The Last Cowboy (Season 4)

Arriving April 24

  • Air Disasters (Season 9-10)

  • How Did They Fix That? (Seasons 1-2)

Movies coming to Paramount+ in April 2024

Arriving April 1

  • Arsenal*

  • B.A.P.S.

  • Bandslam*

  • Black Lotus

  • Blades of Glory

  • Catch and Release

  • Chaplin

  • Cheech & Chong's Still Smokin'*

  • Cloud Atlas

  • Cold Mountain

  • Daddy's Home

  • Deep Impact

  • Domestic Disturbance*

  • Drive Me Crazy

  • Edge Of Darkness

  • El Dorado

  • Emma

  • Empire Records

  • Face/Off

  • First Blood

  • Galaxy Quest*

  • Get Rich or Die Tryin'

  • Gunfight at the O.K. Corral

  • Hotel for Dogs

  • I Love You, Man

  • Identity

  • Inherent Vice

  • Jacob's Ladder*

  • Juice

  • Just Like Heaven

  • Lara Croft: Tomb Raider

  • Last Night*

  • Life

  • Like a Boss

  • Magnolia

  • Malcolm X

  • Max Steel*

  • Mimic

  • Muriel's Wedding*

  • My Baby's Daddy

  • Nebraska

  • Nick of Time*

  • Planes, Trains and Automobiles

  • Rambo: First Blood Part II

  • Rambo III

  • Saturday Night Fever

  • Secret in Their Eyes*

  • Team America: World Police

  • Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

  • Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze

  • Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III

  • The Crossing Guard*

  • The Evening Star*

  • The Heartbreak Kid

  • The King of Comedy

  • The Ring

  • The Ring Two

  • The Ring Two (Unrated)

  • The Score

  • The Secret Garden

  • The Station Agent

  • The Transporter Refueled*

  • The Uninvited

  • TMNT

  • Total Recall

  • Transformers

  • Up in Smoke

  • Vacancy

  • Varsity Blues

  • Whip It

  • Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

  • Wild Card*

  • Wuthering Heights*

Arriving April 11

  • School For Scoundrels*

Arriving April 12

  • Deliver Us from Evil

Arriving April 25

  • The Painter

Xbox Cloud Gaming Now Supports Mouse and Keyboard for Beta Users

Mouse and keyboard fans, rejoice: Microsoft is finally rolling out support for these peripherals for Xbox Cloud Gaming, so long as you're a selected Xbox Insider.

The company is rolling out mouse and keyboard support as part of its latest Xbox Update Preview for Alpha Skip-Ahead testers. That means general Xbox Insiders will still need to wait, but for those in the "invite only" testing program, you should be able to hook up your favorite mouse and keyboard to play games that previously required a controller.

Microsoft says mouse and keyboard support works in cloud gaming on Microsoft Edge and Chrome, as well as the Xbox App on PCs (for those enrolled in the PC Gaming Preview). If you're playing in a browser, you'll need to enable Preview features first. You'll find the option on xbox.com/play by clicking your profile picture, choosing Settings, and enabling Preview features.

The program currently supports 14 titles at this time. Not a ton, but enough to get you started with experiencing mouse and keyboard controls on Xbox Cloud Gaming:

  • Fortnite (browsers only)

  • ARK Survival Evolved

  • Sea of Thieves

  • Grounded

  • Halo Infinite

  • Atomic Heart

  • Sniper Elite 5

  • Deep Rock Galactic

  • High on Life

  • Zombie Army 4 Dead War

  • Gears Tactics

  • Pentiment

  • Doom 64

  • Age of Empires 2

Microsoft has acknowledged a known issue with Atomic Heart, as there can be issues when swapping from your controller to mouse and keyboard while streaming the game.

You'll also notice that games display controller UI elements until you start to use your mouse and keyboard to interact with the game. If you see "press A to start," for example, trying clicking or moving with WASD to adjust the UI.

Browser users should take note that the stream needs to be in full screen for your mouse and keyboard to work. If you want to exit full screen, hit the Escape key. You also need to click on a game stream element in order for the game to recognize your mouse input. You can also press F9 to exit out of mouse and keyboard controls for the game.

You Can Get OneAir Elite on Sale for $80 Right Now

You can get a lifetime subscription to OneAir Elite on sale for $79.97 right now (reg. $790) until April 2. OneAir is a deal-alert service that lets you know when great flight deals are available—it tracks millions of fares in real time, lets you set destination-specific alerts, and lets you book destinations based on your budget. You just select your preferred departure airports (up to ten of them) and wait for OneAir notifications via email and mobile notifications. A lifetime Elite Plan offers access to Business, First, Premium, and Economy flights, and the membership can easily pay for itself with one great trip deal. OneAir Elite also offers discounts for hotels, ground transportation, entertainment, and activities.

The OneAir app is available on iOS and Android, and a lifetime subscription to a OneAir Elite Plan is on sale for $79.97 right now (reg. $790) until April 2 at 11:59 p.m. PT, though prices can change at any time.

Don't Trust These 'Reset Password' Pop-ups on Your Apple Devices

If you're minding your business on your iPhone, iPad, or Mac, and all of a sudden are spammed by pop-ups requesting that you reset your Apple ID password, you would understandably be a bit freaked out. The thing is, this is actually happening, and you should exercise caution—but not panic—if it happens to you.

What's behind the Apple ID password reset attack

As explained by Krebs on Security, bad actors are attacking Apple users by spamming their devices with password reset requests. These pop-ups do not go away unless you dismiss or engage with them via the Allow or Don't Allow options, which means in order to continue using your device, you need to constantly tap Don't Allow.

The pop-ups themselves aren't necessarily nefarious: This is how Apple allows you to change your Apple ID password on a non-trusted device, or on the web. Let's say you forget your Apple ID password and go through Apple's password reset website to reset it: Once you enter the appropriate amount of information, Apple will send a pop-up to your trusted, connected devices to approve the reset process. Once you approve, you can enter a new password.

What bad actors are doing, however, is exploiting some vulnerability in Apple's MFA (multi-factor authentication) process to not only send these reset pop-ups to your devices, but to truly spam you with them. You may dismiss the pop-up only to receive another almost immediately. One victim had to dismiss over 100 of these pop-ups before they finally stopped.

While we don't know exactly how attackers are spamming users with pop-ups, it's not difficult to imagine how they're targeting their victims. When you go to Apple's password reset site, you need to present your Apple ID and your phone number. If an attacker knows these two credentials of yours, they're free to trigger a reset pop-up.

Of course, you don't want to hit Allow. When you do, whoever is initializing this password request will be able to change your password on your behalf. When they do, they'll be able to log into your account on their devices and lock you out. While it's scary enough with how easy it would be to accidentally tap Allow after being spammed so many times, it's even more concerning that the pop-up appears on your Apple Watch as well. Krebs on Security reports on one victim who received the pop-up on their watch while they were sleeping: I could imagine myself accidentally tapping Allow if half-asleep, just trying to dismiss the notification.

It's not over if you hit "Don't Allow"

Even if you're able to wait out attackers and dismiss these notifications over and over again, they have another tactic at play. Since they have your phone number, they'll call you directly, spoofing their number as Apple Support. (It will literally show Apple Support's official number as the incoming caller.)

If you were to answer this call, attackers would try their best to convince you they were Apple Support, perhaps presenting certain information of yours that they have as "proof." Once they trick you, they'll trigger an SMS-based OTP (one-time password) code, which Apple uses to prove your identity when logging in somewhere unfamiliar. Don't share this code with anyone. Apple even includes that warning in the text it sends to you. While ideally, you wouldn't be talking to the attackers in the first place, if you're already in this situation, know that Apple Support would never ask for this code themselves.

Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like there's any way to protect yourself from these spam pop-ups if attackers already have your Apple ID and phone number. The only thing to do is to change your phone number, which is probably more of a hassle than it's worth in this case. (But if you have other reasons to do it, it might be worth it.) We'll just need to wait for Apple to fix whatever vulnerability these bad actors are exploiting to protect us. In the meantime, trust no one, and never tap Allow or OK on unsolicited pop-ups.

Your PS5 Will Soon Be Able to Capture Game Clips to Help Other Players

If you're playing a game on your PS5 and can't defeat a particularly challenging boss or figure out how to solve a certain puzzle, you'll soon be able to get help from an anonymous stranger. Sony has announced that later this year, your PS5 will be able to automatically capture game clips from your play sessions and upload them as hints for other players—and clips taken by other players will be available for your reference, too. This addition is called Community Game Help, and it's something you'll have to opt into, offering an interesting way to get help with a game without looking up an online walkthrough.

How you can contribute to PS5's Community Game Help

A screenshot of the upcoming Community Game Help settings page.
Credit: Sony

In the coming months, you will be able to opt in to Community Game Help, which means that videos from your gameplay will help others. Once this feature is rolled out to your PS5, you can go to PS5 settings > Captures & Broadcasts > Captures > Auto Captures > Community Game Help > Participate. This will allow you to opt in to the program.

This settings page, according to Sony, will also let you select how many videos you want to let the console capture every month. When you do certain things in supported games, your PS5 will automatically capture these videos and upload them to Sony's servers. When videos are uploaded, a moderator will review your content and decide if it can be published under Community Game Help. If your video is published, you'll get a notification on your PS5 and it'll appear under the Your Published Videos option on the Community Game Help settings page.

Sony says that your PS5 will automatically delete these clips once they're uploaded, which means that you don't have to worry about running out of storage. The company has also addressed other privacy concerns by confirming that only raw gameplay footage will be uploaded. Sony won't access your webcam feeds, party chat audio, or audio from your mic. According to Sony, this feature will be available "in select games later this year, and [its] goal is to expand it to as many titles as possible in the future."

How to use Community Game Help on your PS5

A screenshot of the upcoming Community Game Help feature from Sony's PS app.
Credit: Sony

At the moment, Community Game Help is being rolled out slowly, so it could be a while before it shows up on your PS5. To check if you've got it, you can hit the PS button when you're playing a game, select a card labelled Hints Inside, and select any of the videos under Community Game Help. This will also be available on the PS app.

These Monitors Are on Sale for as Low as $80

Dell's TechFest sale lasts for a few more days, so if you've been looking for a laptop, monitor, or other Dell product, take a quick look. If the 34-inch Ultra-wide LG monitor going for 50% off or the comically wide Samsung Odyssey G9 gaming monitor don't tickle your fancy, then perhaps one of these Dell monitors will. Here are my favorite three deals from the sale.

The 24-inch Dell SE2422H monitor is $79.99

You're not going to find anything fancy on the Dell SE2422H monitor, but if you're looking for a decent budget monitor that will get the job done, this monitor for $79.99 is a good option. The Dell SE2422H launched in 2021 and usually hovers around the $120 price point, according to my price tracking tools. It is a VA panel with 1920 by 1080 resolution, which is Full HD. What is surprising is the 75Hz refresh rate, which is more than the standard 60 Hz that you'll find in most monitors. You can do much worse for $79.99 than this monitor.

The 32-inch Dell S3222DGM curved gaming monitor for $249.99

For a budget gaming monitor, the Dell S3222DGM offers great value for the money. The 32-inch LED screen display features 2560 by 1440 Quad High Definition resolution (between FHD and 4K), 165Hz refresh rate, which is more than the 144 Hz you'll find on most monitors at this price, and HDMI DisplayPort connectivity. It has a curved display and a 2 ms response time. For $249.99, you're getting a respectable gaming monitor for a great price.

The Dell 32-inch G3223Q 4K gaming monitor with a $150 e-gift card

The Dell 32-inch G3223Q 4K UHD gaming monitor is not discounted per se, but it does come with a $150 Dell e-gift card that essentially makes the monitor $549.99 (if you were looking to spend at least $150 more on other products). The lowest I've seen this monitor go for is $599, so this is a solid deal. This 32-inch 4K gaming monitor offers HDR, has HDMI 2.1 port support, solid color accuracy, and is light at 13.29 lbs. But as our friends at PCMag will tell you, this monitor has a low contrast ratio, dims when viewing Standard Dynamic Range (SDR) content, and has high input lag. If most of your gaming is High Dynamic Range (HDR) instead of SDR, then that con will not matter much.

These Dell and Alienware Laptops Are up to $700 Off

Dell's ongoing sale ends March 31, but there are still plenty of deals on laptops to take advantage of. If you're looking for a new laptop, I have pulled my top three choices from the sale that you should consider.

The Dell XPS 13 for $599

This Dell XPS 13 came out in 2022 as a light and slim portable laptop starting at $999. The XPS line from Dell has been trying to perfect the affordable portable laptop, and when the new XPS 13 came out in 2023, it forced the 2022 version to lower its price to $799, but you can get it now for $599. The 2022 version is a good laptop for most people looking to do everyday computing tasks and stream media, but it's not for heavy media editing or gaming. It's a 13.4-inch laptop with 1920 by 1200 resolution, the standard 60Hz refresh rate, a Core i5-1230U processor, 8GB of RAM, and a 256GB SSD.

The Inspiron 16 Laptop for $599

If you'll take a bit more power over portability, consider the Inspiron 16 laptop. As the name implies, this is a bigger 16-inch laptop, which means less portability, but it still has a solid battery life with up to 13 hours of juice (the XPS gets up to 12). The Inspiron 16 also has twice as much storage and RAM, with 512 GB and 16 GB, respectively. Most of the other specs are about the same, with 1920 by 1200 resolution, 60Hz refresh rate, and a Core i5-1335U processor.

The Alienware x16 gaming laptop for $1,599.99

If you're looking for a deal on a gaming laptop, consider the 2023 Alienware x16, which is $700 off. Like the other laptops on this list, this model is cheaper because it was superseded by the newer Alienware x16 R2 gaming laptop. But as our friends at PCMag will tell you, this is still an "excellent" gaming laptop. The x16 has a 16-inch screen with 1920 by 1200 resolution, a 480Hz refresh rate, a Core i7-13700H processor, 16GB of RAM, 2TB SSD, and an RTX 4060 GPU.

The Ring Battery Doorbell Pro Is Better (and Pricier) Than Other Brands

Video doorbells have become quite common since their arrival on the market 10 years ago: 20% of American households currently use one. The cost of owning and operating a video doorbell has plummeted, so how does Ring, which offers relatively expensive video doorbells and an almost required subscription plan, remain on top of the market? After testing the new Ring Battery Doorbell Pro ($229.99 plus subscription), I think the answer is that Ring continues to solve some of the most common problems with video security.

Ring's software is the least buggy of any doorbell or security camera I’ve tried. It connects quickly when notified; allows you to interact with whoever is at the doorbell; and grabs clips that respect the zones you’ve set up. Ring has added new functionality to the Doorbell Pro, and features exceptional video quality—but I believe it’s Ring’s ability to deliver on the most basic needs of a video doorbell that keep it so popular. 

Traditional details and lots of accessories

Over the last year, I’ve tested doorbells from Google, Aqara, and Blink; while each had pros and cons, they helped prime me to appreciate the new Ring. In the 10 years of Ring’s market presence the design of the doorbells has barely shifted, and the Ring design is the most stately and substantial of the video doorbells out there. Ring wraps their doorbells in brushed metal with black plastic and metal accents—they tend to look and feel more substantial. The Doorbell Pro continues that tradition: The top half of the doorbell is shiny black plastic and metal, and the bottom half is wrapped in brushed silver metal (that you can swap for another metallic finish). The large circular button with blue light that Ring is known for is present, and the Ring ships with a wedge mount for your door, but there are tons of mounts available online if you need a different kind. There's also a solar charger available now as well as indoor chimes.

A more labor-intensive installation results in a more secure doorbell

While Rings aren’t hard to install, they are harder to install than many of the brands I’ve mentioned above. In all of those cases, the doorbells mount very simply, but also insecurely. The Ring has always had a mounting system that is supposed to provide security for the doorbell itself, and ships with its own specialty screwdriver. The doorbell itself has to catch onto the mounting plate and is then secured with a number of small screws to the mounting plate. Physical installation took about 10 minutes, and setup took another 15. Once the Ring app is installed and the doorbell was plugged in via USB, the app easily found and added the doorbell. You can spend a lot of time configuring the Ring, but I advise you to live with the doorbell for a few days to see what settings you need. 

Ring continues to conquer response lag time

Once up and running, Ring will begin sending you a raft of notifications. There are two types—notifications of activity in front of the doorbell and of the doorbell actually being rung. In both cases, you’re likely to decide to click on the notification and see what the activity is. This is where Ring differentiates itself from other doorbells: With all the other brands, I experienced connection errors, delays, and time outs. Ring, on the other hand, connects quickly and painlessly to show you the clip of what happened—or the live view, so you can monitor or interact in real time. While there's always a slight delay based on your wifi signal, Ring’s response time is far and away the best of all I’ve tried. 

This means that the other feature people buy video doorbells for—interacting with someone at your door—works better on a Ring than other models. That response time is important—your UPS driver isn’t waiting around for a 30-second response delay.

Subscriptions are pricey and essential to using the doorbell

Seeing those clips (not the live view) is dependent on having a Ring subscription. While the subscription is optional, not being able to watch those clips renders the Ring almost worthless, in my opinion. The doorbell ships with a free 30-day trial, but once that expires, it’s on you to re-up. Plans start at $4.99 a month for one device and quickly go up from there. Generally, I prefer products that do not require these subscriptions and allow you to store clips locally, like Eufy.

Great video clarity with an assist from new features

The clarity on the new Ring is top notch, and it’s not just the resolution, which clocks in at a reasonable HD 1536p. Ring has designed the lens to get a complete head-to-toe view of whoever is at your door, which means you can also see packages waiting at your door. I was surprised how useful this was. That clarity extends to far-view video—you get remarkably clear details about the delivery person even as they get out of the car. I was impressed at how much better the Ring had gotten at respecting the zones I set up in the app to ignore or pay attention to. I was easily able to set it so I wasn’t bombarded with notifications of people walking by the house—a previous issue I’d had with doorbells. This is likely due to Ring's 3D mapping—a new feature—and Bird’s Eye View, which uses motion detection to determine if the action in front of it is relevant to you or not. I was also impressed by the night vision, which provided clear, color images even once I turned off the porch light—without the graininess you usually see. Some of the other doorbells I’ve tested provide higher resolution, but I hardly noticed the difference. 

Ring has worked hard to layer on new features. The most useful is that Ring can now use AI to help tell if there’s a package at your door. If you tend to leave things at your door, this feature works less efficiently, but it did correctly identify packages most of the time if they were left directly in front of the door, and only twice misidentified a neighborhood cat as a package. Additionally, the doorbell will work with your other Ring devices to track someone’s movement over your property. 

Batteries are now more accessible and more powerful

A real upgrade, in my opinion, was the battery. While you can, of course, buy a wired version of the doorbell, an awful lot of people buy the stick-up battery version, and previous incarnations have required unmounting the whole doorbell to recharge the battery. The process was arduous enough that I was apt to leave the doorbell uncharged often. Now you simply remove the metal faceplate and remove the battery, leaving the doorbell behind. This has two benefits, it’s a lot less work, and you can purchase a backup battery and swap them, so you’re never out a doorbell. The battery life has gotten much better, too. Over a month, the battery only lost one bar, remaining at 75% charge. For comparison, I used to charge my Ring once every eight weeks. 

Bottom line: an expensive but superior video doorbell

There is simply no denying that the cost difference between Ring and competitors is substantial. This Ring model is $229 before the subscription, compared to a Blink doorbell, at $41.99 or Aqara at $119.99. There are lesser Ring models, like the Video Doorbell at $59.99 and Doorbell Plus for $119.99; you can get most of the benefits of the Pro at a lesser cost. Despite my hesitation on cost, there is just no denying that Ring delivers on the original premise of a video doorbell better than other brands—good-quality video of what is happening at the door, in real time. 

How to Stop Instagram From Automatically Hiding Political Content

Instagram and Threads will now hide political content by default, making it harder to follow current affairs, important updates about government policies, voting rights, protests, and much more. If you're the kind of person who prefers not to view political content on social media, you can stop reading right here. However, if you want to view posts on issues such as healthcare, your government's stance on global conflicts, or the bills your local politicians are backing, then you should review Instagram's settings. (Note: Instagram says that it's only going to limit recommending political content from accounts that you don't follow.)

How to stop Instagram from removing political content

The bigger issue is that algorithms created by corporations are controlling what you see on social media. You can, however, take the power back (mostly). On Instagram, that could mean preventing the service from limiting political content. To do this, open the Instagram app on your phone and tap the Profile icon in the bottom-right corner. Now, tap the three-lines button in the top-right corner and go to Content preferences. On this page, you should select Political content and pick Don't limit on the next page. This setting impacts both Instagram and Threads (it's not available in the Threads app).

The wording on this settings page is unclear about what Instagram defines as "political content." The company says that political content is "potentially related to things like laws, elections, or social topics," which is a vague definition at best. It adds that you won't see political posts from public accounts in its Explore page, Instagram Reels, and suggested posts that show up in your feed.

How this change affects you

Instagram has been talking about distancing itself from news and political content for some time now, and this change cements its stance on the subject. The company says that if you follow political accounts on the service, you'll be able to view their content on your feed, but that it won't recommend these posts if you don't follow the accounts.

This will affect certain accounts much more than others. If someone has been providing valuable information from a conflict zone, that could be hidden from a large number of people who'd benefit from seeing it. Over time, algorithms could easily hamper disaster-relief efforts in situations where there are funding requests for humanitarian aid, or for rescue operations. 

At the moment, it's also unclear if this move will reduce the spread of politically motivated disinformation such as propaganda, anti-vaccine messages, or other types of unscientific rage-bait. 

How to Block JavaScript on Specific Websites (and Why You Should)

JavaScript is a double-edged sword: It adds lots of useful features to your favorite websites, such as interactive maps, loading images in the background, refreshing content on a site without reloading the page, and more. At the same time, it's exploited by advertisers and tracking companies to deliver ads, pop-ups, and malware, and mine your data. Blocking JavaScript helps improve your privacy, but it risks breaking many websites. Luckily, there is a workaround—disable JavaScript on some sites, but not all of them.

What happens when you disable JavaScript

Disabling JavaScript has a few big advantages. It often loads pages faster, blocks invasive tracking, and sometimes even lets you bypass paywalls. Unfortunately, it will also make some modern websites look like they were designed in the 1990s; in the absence of JavaScript, they might revert to a basic HTML layout. Additionally, forms may not work, you may not be able to sign in to sites, and interactive webpages may not function at all. You'll also notice that your favorite websites look different when JavaScript is blocked. This is because many sites use it to render fonts as well.

It's clear that disabling JavaScript globally is a bit of an extreme option for most people.

The solution: disable JavaScript on specific websites

By disabling JavaScript on some sites, you still get to use JavaScript on sites that break without it, while benefiting from improved privacy, ad blocking, and cleaner layouts on other sites.

Disable JavaScript on a per-site basis in Chrome, Edge, Vivaldi, Opera, and other Chromium browsers

The JavaScript settings page in Brave, a Chromium-based browser.
Credit: Pranay Parab

You can use a built-in feature to disable JavaScript for specific websites in Chrome and other Chromium browsers such as Microsoft Edge, Vivaldi, Opera, Arc Browser, etc. To get started, open this URL: chrome://settings/content/javascript. Although this is the way to open Chrome's JavaScript settings page, it works in all Chromium-based browsers. 

On that page, select Don't allow sites to use JavaScript. This will disable JavaScript by default, but you can add exceptions to the rule. Under Allowed to use JavaScript, click Add to select the sites where you want to enable it. Alternatively, you can stay with the default option of Allow sites to use JavaScript and blacklist the sites where you want to block it. You can do that by clicking Add under Not allowed to use JavaScript.

If that sounds like too much work, you can use the excellent NoScript extension with your browser. It blocks JavaScript by default, but you can easily ask the extension to trust certain domains.

For Chrome on Android, follow our in-depth guide to disabling JavaScript on specific webpages.

Block JavaScript on specific sites in Safari

The Safari preferences page for StopTheScript
Credit: StopTheScript

Safari allows you to block JavaScript everywhere or not at all. To block Javascript on all sites in Safari on your Mac, you can go to the Safari menu > Settings > Security and uncheck Enable JavaScript. On your iPhone, this setting is available under Settings > Safari > Advanced. You can uncheck JavaScript

That option is a bit extreme for most people, but you can adopt a more moderate approach by installing the StopTheScript extension. It costs $6 and works with Safari on your Mac, iPhone, and iPad. This extension allows you to block JavaScript on the sites you choose. The developer has created a nice tutorial explaining how to use StopTheScript and you can follow the steps to set it up quickly.

Disable JavaScript for some sites in Firefox

A screenshot of NoScript's settings page in Firefox
Credit: NoScript

When you're using Firefox, NoScript is the extension you need. The extension will stop JavaScript on every site by default; you can click its toolbar icon to enable JavaScript on any site temporarily or permanently.

Stop JavaScript for specific sites in Orion Browser

Orion browser's JavaScript settings page.
Credit: Pranay Parab/Screenshot

The Orion browser, which lets you install both Chrome and Firefox extensions, lets you easily enable or disable JavaScript for specific websites. You can go to Orion Settings > Websites > JavaScript to set this up. At the top, you'll see an option to select if you want to enable or disable JavaScript by default. Select Off to disable it by default or On to allow it. Then, click the + button to add sites where the default global setting does not apply.

À partir d’avant-hierLifehacker

How to Start a 'Backdoor' Roth IRA (and When You Should)

If your income exceeds the limits for contributing directly to a Roth IRA, there's still a way to fund one through a strategy known as the "backdoor Roth IRA." This technique allows high-income earners to take advantage of the tax-free growth and tax-free withdrawals offered by Roth IRAs.

What is a "backdoor" Roth IRA?

A backdoor Roth IRA is not an official type of account: It's simply a strategic maneuver that involves making contributions to a traditional IRA and then converting those funds into a Roth IRA. This bypasses the income limits that normally restrict high-earners from contributing directly to a Roth.

If you file taxes as a single person, your Modified Adjusted Gross Income (MAGI) must be under $153,000 for tax year 2023 and $161,000 for tax year 2024 to contribute to a Roth IRA, and if you're married and filing jointly, your MAGI must be under $228,000 for tax year 2023 and $240,000 for tax year 2024.

How the backdoor Roth IRA works

Here are the basics of taking advantage of this backdoor strategy:

  • Make a non-deductible contribution to a traditional IRA. Since your income exceeds the Roth IRA limits, you can contribute to a traditional IRA without taking a tax deduction.

  • Convert the traditional IRA to a Roth IRA. After contributing to the traditional IRA, you can then convert those funds to a Roth IRA. This conversion is a taxable event, but since you didn't get a tax deduction on the contribution, you'll only pay taxes on any earnings.

  • Pay taxes on the conversion. When converting, you'll owe income tax on any earnings in the traditional IRA account. If the conversion happens quickly after the contribution, there likely won't be significant earnings to tax.

IRA eligibility and limitations

There are no income limits for contributing to a traditional IRA or converting to a Roth IRA. The limit on annual contributions to an IRA are $7,000 in 2024 (up from $6,500 in 2023). Remember these contribution limits apply to the grand total contributions you make each year to all your traditional and Roth IRAs. As always, you can and should max out these limits, if possible.

It's important to note that if you have existing pre-tax funds in other traditional IRAs, the conversion will be partially taxable based on the pro-rata rule.

Getting started with your backdoor Roth IRA

To set up a backdoor Roth IRA, you'll need to open a traditional IRA account if you don't already have one. Then, make your non-deductible contribution and initiate the Roth conversion process according to your provider's requirements.

Consulting a tax professional is recommended, especially if you have existing IRA funds, to ensure you understand the tax implications. While the backdoor Roth strategy involves some extra steps, it can be a valuable way for high-income individuals to enjoy the benefits of a Roth IRA.

TikTok's 'Golden Retriever' and 'Black Cat' Relationship Theory Is Toxic

There are a whole bunch of TikTok trends that are more hurtful than helpful. Another one to add to the list: the "golden retriever boyfriend/black cat girlfriend" theory. The trend, which was coined a few years ago and has since continued to rack up a ton of videos on the subject, describes a relationship between “golden retriever” boyfriend who is easygoing, extroverted, and loves his girlfriend, a "black cat," who appears to have an attitude of indifference, low responsiveness, and is introverted. According to TikTok, this dynamic is one that couples ought to look for if they want a successful relationship and marriage.

One TikTok video lists examples of celebrity marriages and relationships that exemplify the "golden retriever" boyfriend and "black cat" girlfriend dynamic, and why they worked. In another video, a user talks about how, whenever she was the "golden retriever" girlfriend, her relationships never worked out—and only did when she was the "black cat."

This typology, according to Sarah Melancon, a sociologist and sexologist, tends to reflect negative stereotypes about men and women in relationships, only reversed from cultural norms. "Stereotypically, we expect the woman to be more relationship-focused and eager to please, while we expect men to be more detached and less ready to commit or connect.  Either way, when there is an imbalance of interest and effort in a relationship, it won’t be very satisfying," she says.

As for why this dynamic doesn't tend to be the healthiest, Melancon points out that a "golden retriever" boyfriend might be someone who's actually clingy, people-pleasing, or has an anxious attachment style, while the behavior and actions of a "black cat" girlfriend could indicate lack of interest, standoffishness, or an avoidant attachment style.

"Ideally, we want our relationships to be a two-way street," Melancon says. "While things will not be perfectly equal on a day-to-day basis, we want a reasonable balance of love and support flowing between both partners."

And, sure, opposites can attract, and sometimes we tend to be attracted to qualities in others that we lack in ourselves, but the risk involved in a golden retriever/black cat typology, says Melancon, is that "one partner puts in more effort, while the other may not even appear to appreciate it. Any relationship can have those moments, but as a general pattern, both partners will become increasingly dissatisfied with the relationship over time."

Red flags about the "golden retriever" boyfriend

A “golden retriever” boyfriend isn't just about being friendly and generous. Sometimes what looks like an attractive quality is actually hiding a deeper issue that could spell trouble for your relationship down the line.

  • He identifies as a “good boyfriend." He always initiates every text message and date, always apologizes and never takes any blame, surprises you with gifts for no reason at all, and seemingly does everything "right" by you. The problem? "Wanting to be a good partner is great, but wanting to be seen as a good partner turns the relationship into an achievement or source of approval rather than an opportunity to be present," Melancon explains.

  • He's codependent. He texts you all day every day and he wants to see you every day. The issue? "A healthy relationship allows each partner to express themselves and pursue their interests with adequate personal space," Melancon says. "Enmeshment collapses the space between “you and I,” resulting in feelings of pressure, being stifled, or smothered."

  • He's highly extroverted. While this is not a red flag in itself, Melancon says that if there is a major difference in social interest compared to a partner— he likes to be the life of the party and loves having people around him, and you don't—the relationship may not be sustainable.

Red flags about the "black cat" girlfriend

A "black cat" girlfriend might at first appear to be demure and a prize worth chasing, but her qualities might not actually be well-suited for a healthy relationship.

  • She appears disinterested. She takes days to respond to your text message, doesn't insert herself into your life, and generally appears she's not that into you. The problem? "While we don’t need to be our partner’s literal cheerleader, we all need to know that we’re loved and cared for," Melancon says. "A 'black cat' may unintentionally communicate a lack of interest or love," which won't feel good if you're not receiving the attention and affection you deserve.

  • She struggles with communication. She will leave you on read without having a discussion about something that bothered her; she won't ever tell you how she's feeling, good or bad, and doesn't initiate heartfelt conversations. The issue? "No one is a mind reader, so when one partner often shuts down, it can put a major strain on the relationship," Melancon explains.

  • She's highly introverted/anti-social. Again, while this isn't necessarily a red flag, says Melancon, if she is someone who prefers to be alone and doesn't like to engage socially but you do, that will be an issue for your relationship.

The potential challenges that this relationship could face

The “golden retriever” boyfriend may wind up feeling unappreciated, unloved, or even used, says Melancon. Meanwhile, the “black cat” girlfriend may feel overwhelmed or smothered. "Both partners may struggle to attune to one another’s needs and learn to share love in a way that resonates most with their partner," she explains. "Over time, issues like this can degrade the sense of closeness and intimacy between partners."

Melancon says a relationship between a “golden retriever” boyfriend and a “black cat” girlfriend could work out if both are willing to make adjustments and grow together.

"What matters most in a relationship is how both partners feel—whether their needs are met, if they feel safe communicating and setting boundaries, and how much they respect one another," she says. "All of us have shortcomings when it comes to relationships, but as long as partners are willing to grow, unhealthy relationships can transform over time. We all feel anxious at the uncertainty of life and especially love, so utilizing tests and typologies is a common way of trying to control the future. But please don’t end or start a relationship just because of something you see on TikTok."

The Most Important Steps to Making an Effective To-do List

The key to a productive day is, for many, a solid to-do list, which is why there are so many elements that go into making one. To be clear, even jotting down all the things you need to get done haphazardly is still better than not doing it, but if you really want to excel, why not put in a little extra time and make one that will help you get everything done for real?

Before making your list, prioritize your tasks

The first step to making a great to-do list is figuring out what actually needs to be on it. You have a few options when you do this, but the first thing you need to do is brain-dump every single thing you want or need to do.

Now, you can use one of three methods to sort and prioritize those tasks. The first is pretty easy: Grade each one using the ABCDE method. Assign each task a grade from A, the most important things that will have consequences if they don’t get done; B, the tasks that won’t have major ramifications right away if undone, but do need to get handled; C, tasks with no real consequences for not being done, but it would be good to get taken care of; D, tasks you can delegate to someone else with confidence they’ll get them done; and E, tasks you can just toss out altogether because they have no purpose or no consequences associated with them.

That’s a pretty subjective approach that asks you to figure out those grades on your own and go with them, so if you need something a little more concrete, consider using the Eisenhower matrix or this handy mathematical approach. If you opt for Eisenhower, you’ll create a graph where the X axis represents urgency and the Y represents importance, so you’ll end up with a top-left quadrant full of tasks that are urgent and important, while the top right will show you tasks that are not urgent and not important, and so on. When doing this, it’s helpful to jot down some context, like deadlines and potential consequences, next to each task, so you can more easily identify if they’re timely (or “urgent”) and consequential (or “important”). If you choose the mathematical route for maximum objectivity, look back at that list of tasks and assign each one two numbers between 1 and 10: The first is how much effort the task will take and the second is how much impact it will ultimately have. Then, divide each tasks “results” number by its “effort” number for a final score, which will also be between 1 and 10, then rank all the tasks from lowest to highest number so you prioritize those that are important but require the least effort, meaning you’ll be able to get more done without expending all your energy and resources. 

Making the to-do list itself

Once you’ve weeded out the important and urgent tasks, you need to make the to-do list itself. Don’t be afraid to embrace multiple types of to-do lists, like long-term ones and daily ones. The important but not urgent tasks, for instance, could be better off getting placed on a list of weekly goals than day-of ones, so you can save the bulk of your time for what is most immediately pressing. 

The gold standard of to-do lists is the 1-3-5 list, so consider sticking to this formula when making your list, whether it’s for the day, the week, the month, or the whole year. With this kind of list, you’ll choose one big task, three medium-sized ones, and five small ones to knock out in the timeframe—and only do those. Your time and resources are finite, so this prevents you from getting overwhelmed or wasting your time on unworthy tasks. A big task should be one that is going to take time and effort, plus have consequences for not getting done. In your personal life, that could be filing your taxes or attending a parent-teacher conference. At work, it could be analyzing data you have to present at a big meeting. Medium tasks are those that require some time and have some consequences, but don’t demand a big chunk of your time or resources. Small tasks are those that are nice to get done but won’t devastate you if they don’t get handled, like sorting through your emails or organizing your notes. Getting these done is going to motivate you and give you a feeling of accomplishment just as much as it’s going to contribute anything concrete to your work. 

Choose your to-do list method

Finally, you have to make a real list, but there are different ways to do that. Don’t try to keep it all in the old noggin; it’s easy to forget things or get off-task. Instead, you can use an app designed for to-do lists, like these, or even hand-write your to-dos. Writing by hand helps you connect to and retain whatever you’re jotting down, so it can be a great way to kick off the day and get your pressing tasks lodged in your brain. If you’re going to be on the move a lot, try writing in a smart notebook, like the Rocketbook Core, so you can scan the pages and have them available on your phone or other devices right away. Otherwise, an old-school planner works really well here. (Here’s a list of great planners for a variety of needs.)

The goal is to get the list down somewhere accessible, but also to spend some time actually creating it, so you connect with the importance of the tasks at hand and commit to them. It takes a little extra time every morning, but can really pay off. 

This 128GB 4-in-1 Smart Flash Drive Is on Sale for $31 Right Now

This 128GB 4-in-1 smart flash drive is on sale for $30.99 right now (reg. $39.99). It’s not an ordinary thumb drive; it supports standard USB 3.0 along with lightning, micro-USB, and USB-C connections, so you can plug it directly into your iPhone, Android, Mac, PC, or any other compatible device. It can move files between devices with up to 25Mbps transfer speeds, and it can also be used as an external memory expansion for any compatible devices. It measures less than two inches wide and weighs less than an ounce, so it’s both more versatile and convenient than other flash drives.

You can get the 128GB 4-in-1 smart flash drive on sale for $30.99 right now (reg. $39.99), though prices can change at any time.

Why I Still Choose Android Over iOS

The first iPhone was unveiled on Jan. 9, 2007, the first Android handset (the HTC Dream) showed up on September 23, 2008—and though it's impossible to know for sure, I assume the very first Android vs. iOS article ran very soon after that.

It's a debate that's spanned the decades, like Windows vs. macOS or Coca-Cola vs. Pepsi, and it tends to attract a lot of interest. Both of these mobile operating systems get refreshes every year too, which means there are always new talking points to discuss.

As a tech journalist writing guides, news, and reviews, I'm not a normal phone user: I spend a lot of time using both Android (specifically at the moment, a Google Pixel 8) and iOS (an iPhone 15 Pro Max right now). I'm not switching from one to the other—I'm using both regularly, and extensively.

That means I know the ins and outs of both platforms when it comes to day-to-day operations, and the phone I make use of the most—for personal messaging, social media, web browsing, music, podcasts, and everything else not to do with work—is the Pixel 8. So I thought I'd add to the Android vs. iOS discussion by trying to explain why.

Bear in mind that I don't hate iOS or the iPhone—I'm actually quite a fan of the slick combination of hardware and software that Apple has put together. The iPhone 15 Pro Max is a great smartphone, no doubt. However, I'd rather use Android for my regular device, and these are the reasons why.

Android offers more customization

Android vs iOS
Rotating Home Screens is one feature Android has that iOS doesn't. Credit: Lifehacker

You'll see this mentioned in every Android vs iOS comparison out there, and it's still true. You can still do more with the Home Screen, the Lock Screen, and the app icons on Android—you can even reskin the entire interface with a tool like Nova Launcher. To a certain extent, iOS has caught up, but the customization options on the iPhone still aren't as comprehensive or as easy to use.

Get this: The Home Screens on Android actually rotate and work in landscape mode too. I like having pixel-by-pixel control over how my phone looks, whether it's having one single app on a Home Screen or stretching widgets in all directions. The rumor is we'll see more Home screen customization once iOS 18 rolls around, so Apple clearly agrees with me that it's lagging behind Google in this area.

I find the current iOS home screen and app library set up rather clumsy. Why can't I just see a simple list of all the apps I've installed? To find an app that's not pinned to the Home Screen, I have to swipe all the way to the last of these screens, and then figure out which category Apple has decided to drop the app into.

Google apps work everywhere

Android vs iOS
Google TV works fine in iOS. Apple TV on Android? Not even available. Credit: Lifehacker

To each their own, but I find Google's suite of apps much more appealing than Apple's, with a couple of exceptions. When it comes to Gmail vs. Apple Mail, Google Docs vs. Pages, Google Maps vs. Apple Maps, and Google Photos vs. Apple Photos, I'm choosing Google every time (though I do love Apple Music).

There's no space here to go into all of the individual reasons why, but Google's apps are speedy, reliable, and—crucially—available everywhere. If I rent a movie from Google, I know it'll play on just about every device out there, pretty effortlessly—but have you tried getting Apple TV running on Android? It's a bit of a mess.

Admittedly, this is more about the apps and services that Google and Apple offer, rather than Android and iOS. But if you split your time between Apple and non-Apple devices like I do, your life is clearly going to be easier if you pick Google—and if you're picking Google's apps, then it follows that they work best and are updated quicker on Android.

Apps get more control on Android

Android vs iOS
You can change more of the default apps on Android. Credit: Lifehacker

Speaking of apps, Android lets developers get their hooks deeper into the operating system than iOS does—which Apple would say makes Android less secure. As an app like Tasker, which lets you create all kinds of automations and routines, shows, Android is the better pick for tinkerers and hackers (and I'd include myself in that group).

As a result of this, there are entire app categories you can find on Android that don't exist on iOS—apps to check battery health and usage, apps to run wifi network diagnostics, apps for managing files on your phone (beyond Apple's own options). As with the customization options, it's fair to say a lot of users might not want these extras, but I do.

Beyond the individual apps themselves, on Android you're able to do much more with them: You can install multiple instances of the same app, you can run two apps side by side on the screen, and you can change more of the default apps. You can even install a different app to manage your text messages—something I wouldn't expect to see on iOS for quite a while (if ever).

Android feels more intuitive

Android vs iOS
Two things you won't see on iOS: Notifications in the status bar, and gaps on the Home Screen. Credit: Lifehacker

This might be partly because I'm more used to Android at this point, but some of the key ways for getting around the software work better for me on Google phones than they do on Apple phones. The universal back gesture is a case in point: one swipe, go to the previous screen. This works in some apps in iOS, but not every app, and it's not consistent across the whole system—on my iPhone, I'm often reaching for the little back button or the app switcher (or just staring at the screen, confused).

Then there's notifications. This is partly personal preference, but I much prefer the Android system—including the way unread notifications stick around in the status bar and on the Lock Screen on Android, rather than disappearing away to the Notification Center in iOS. Expanding and dismissing notifications feels quicker on Android too, though there's not much to choose between the platforms here.

Of course, if you've used every iPhone since the first one and never tried Android, switching would probably disorientate you, and leave you pining for the ways of iOS. However, having used both, I'd say Android makes more sense in quite a few ways—such as actually being able to see that you've set an alarm on the Lock Screen, which you need to add a widget for on iOS.

What People Are Getting Wrong This Week: Political Half-Truths

It’s an election year, so naturally there are virtual firehoses of misinformation pointed at potential voters. While there are encouraging signs that people are getting better at spotting misinformation, there’s a kind of “fake news” that seems particularly pernicious on both sides of the political aisle: drawing a conclusion based on omitted information or missing context. It’s a favorite tactic of politicians that explodes during an election year, so let’s dig into a couple of widely spread examples—one from the right and one from the left.

Gas Price Meme
Credit: Snopes

The picture above, from Snopes, who culled it from my aunt's Facebook page, is not Photoshopped and it's not a lie. The national average price of a gallon of gas really did dip to $1.77 in April of 2020. But the meme text suggests that this had somehow had to do with decisions Donald Trump made while in office.

The answer is always "supply and demand"

People like to discuss the reasons gas prices fluctuate, probably because we are confronted with it every time we go to the pumps, but whether you blame high gas prices on corporate greed, or credit low gas prices to Donald Trump being awesome, you're equally wrong. The main driver of gas prices is basic supply and demand. The real reason gas was so cheap in 2021 was a global drop in demand for petroleum caused by economic activity due to COVID-19 lockdown. It would not have mattered who was president; it's not like there's a lever in the Oval Office that sets commodity prices.

This isn’t to say that governmental policy has no effect on prices. The inflation spike of 2022 was caused in part by the $2 trillion American Rescue Plan signed in 2021. It’s complex and there are a lot of other factors at work, but as a general rule, supplying more money to the economy to prevent or reverse a recession results in inflation, but i it also causes the economy to grow and stay out of recession (a much worse result than higher inflation.) Again, it's supply and demand.

Politicians on both sides lie

It’s not just right-wing people who fall victim to the allure of jumping to conclusion fallacy though, though. Check out this chart posted on Twitter by Kamala Harris:

Biden job growth chart
Credit: Kamala Harris - Twitter/X

Like the right-wing meme, this chart isn't inaccurate or Photoshopped, but it leaves off the same thing the gas price photo omits: COVID. Most of the jobs “created” during the Biden administration were the result of people returning to work following lay-offs during the pandemic. Adjusted for COVID, the net job-gain from Biden’s first day until February 2024 was 5.5 million jobs. Nice work, but a lot less sexy-looking on a chart. 

During his State of the Union address, Biden said, "The only president other than Donald Trump that lost jobs during an administration was Herbert Hoover," which is half-true (maybe), but only if you ignore the economic devastation that COVID wrought, and also ignore that we don't really know the number of jobs lost during Hoover's administration—the Bureau of Labor Statistics didn't exist until after Hoover was out of office.

How the same numbers tell a different story

While Biden put an overly positive spin on his job numbers and bagged on Trump's, it’s possible to look at the same basic information and draw the opposite conclusion. At a speech on August 5th, Donald Trump said: “During Biden’s first 30 months in office, just 2.1 million new jobs were created, and by contrast, during my first 30 months in office we created 4.9 million new jobs.”

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, when Trump took office, there were 145.6 million non-farm jobs in the U.S. Thirty months later, there were 150.8 million (in a first, Trump gave himself slightly less credit than he deserved during this speech). When Biden took office, there were 143 million nonfarm jobs. By his 30th month in office, the number of nonfarm jobs had risen to 156.2 million. 

Trump isn't totally lying (this time)—he's trying to eat his cake and have it too. He gives Biden no credit for jobs that returned after the coronavirus pandemic, and assigns himself no blame for jobs that were lost due to COVID, limiting his assessment to the 30-month window of the Trump administration before COVID shook up the economy. As Dean Baker, co-founder of the Center for Economic and Policy Research told Politifact, Trump is saying "everything that was bad is Biden's fault, whereas everything that is good would have happened anyhow.”

Spinning numbers to make yourself look better is nothing new, but what if you really want to know the truth? You probably can't.

Which administration has the stronger economy?

Despite polls showing Trump with an 11- to 20-point lead over Biden on the question of which candidate would better handle the economy, the economy did well under Trump, if you don’t take the shocks of COVID into account, and the economy is doing well under Biden, if you don’t assign blame for the COVID shock on Biden. (It also depends on what you mean by the economy "doing well.")

Even if you wanted to base your vote solely on which administration would be “best for the economy,” (instead of, say, which candidate is being tried for nearly 100 felonies) it’s probably not possible, even though we have recent data on how each handled it. The effects of public policy on the economy is such a complex subject, and there are so many people pushing so many agendas—weirdos sharing gas price memes on Facebook, vice presidents sharing slanted job charts on twitter—that it’s probably not possible to understand with any degree of certainty. Even if you devote your life to studying macroeconomics, other economists will have diametrically opposed views to yours.

This leaves us with tribalism and vibes, two factors that have probably always decided U.S. elections. If you're thinking "that's true of most politicians, but not my favorite one! They're a straight-shooter!" the wool has been pulled over your eyes. A political candidate who was really honest, who refused to engage in deception and self-puffery, would be dead in the water in any election larger than the local school board. Imagine a presidential candidate running on a platform of "There's not much I can do about the economy; it's supply and demand."

What's New on Prime Video and Freevee in April 2024

Par : Emily Long

Like last month, Prime Video has one anticipated original title coming in April. Fallout (April 11)—executive produced and with a few episodes directed by Westworld co-creator Jonathan Nolan—is a post-apocalyptic drama series adapted from the video game of the same name. The show stars Ella Purnell, Aaron Moten, and Walton Goggins.

Also on the list of Amazon originals coming in April is How to Date Billy Walsh (April 5), a teen romance/coming-of-age film starring Sebastian Croft (Heartstopper), Charithra Chandran (Bridgerton), and Tanner Buchanan (Cobra Kai) as well as rom-com Música (April 4) starring Camila Mendes and Friday night streams of the National Women's Soccer League (NSWL) starting April 12.

Here’s everything else coming to Prime Video and Amazon-owned, ad-supported Freevee in April, including every season of House and Eureka (April 1).

What’s coming to Prime Video in April 2024

Arriving April 1

  • Age of Adaline (2015)

  • Airplane II: The Sequel (1982)

  • Batman & Robin (1997)

  • Batman Forever (1995)

  • Blaze and the Monster Machines Vol2 S1-S2 (2014)

  • Blockers (2018)

  • Boomerang (1992)

  • Chaplin (1993)

  • Cheech & Chong Get Out of My Room (1985)

  • Chinatown (1974)

  • Cloverfield (2008)

  • Disturbia (2007)

  • El Dorado (1967)

  • Eureka S1-S5 (2006)

  • Fighting with My Family (2019)

  • Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957)

  • Heist (2015)

  • Henry Fool (1998)

  • Hotel for Dogs (2009)

  • House S1-S8 (2004)

  • Inside Job (2010)

  • It's Complicated (2009)

  • Jarhead (2005)

  • Jesus Christ Superstar (1973)

  • Jiro Dreams of Sushi (2011)

  • Lone Survivor (2013)

  • Lords Of Dogtown (2005)

  • Macgruber (2010)

  • Memoirs of a Geisha (2005)

  • Mimic (1997)

  • Money Monster (2016)

  • Monster Trucks (2017)

  • Nebraska (2014)

  • Neighbors (2014)

  • Ong Bak - The Thai Warrior (2005)

  • Out of Sight (1998)

  • Red Eye (2005)

  • Richard Jewell (2019)

  • Rosemary's Baby (1968)

  • Saturday Night Fever (1977)

  • Snatch (2001)

  • The Adventures of Tintin (2011)

  • The Aviator (2004)

  • The Big Short (2015)

  • The Front Page (1931)

  • The Heartbreak Kid (2007)

  • The House Bunny (2008)

  • The Last Temptation of Christ (1998)

  • The Notebook (2004)

  • The Ring Two (2005)

  • The Station Agent (2003)

  • The Stepford Wives (2004)

  • The Sweetest Thing (2002)

  • The Truth About Charlie (2002)

  • The Way Back (2020)

  • The Young Messiah (2016)

  • Titanic (1997)

  • To Catch a Thief (1955)

  • To Write Love on Her Arms (2015)

  • Top Gun (1986)

  • Total Recall (1990)

  • Wayne's World (1992)

  • We Own The Night (2007)

  • We Were Soldiers (2002)

  • When The Game Stands Tall (2014)

  • White Noise (2005)

Arriving April 2

  • Pet Sematary: Bloodlines (2023)

  • Please Don't Destroy: The Treasure of Foggy Mountain (2023)

Arriving April 4

  • Música (2024)

Arriving April 5

  • Hit S3 (2020)

  • How To Date Billy Walsh (2024)

Arriving April 8

  • Unforgotten S5 (2023)

Arriving April 9

  • The Exorcist: Believer (2023)

Arriving April 11

  • Fallout (2024)

Arriving April 12

  • NWSL (2024)

Arriving April 18

  • Going Home with Tyler Cameron (2024)

Arriving April 22

  • Spectre (2015)

Arriving April 25

  • THEM: The Scare (2024)

Arriving April 29

  • The Holdovers (2023)

What’s coming to Freevee in April 2024

Arriving April 1

  • Cruel Intentions (1999)

  • Grown Ups (2010)

  • Grown Ups 2 (2013)

  • Jumping the Broom (2011)

  • Never Rarely Sometimes Always (2020)

  • Peter Rabbit (2018)

  • The Croods (2013)

  • The Equalizer (2014)

  • The Karate Kid (2010)

  • The Matrix Resurrections (2021)

  • The Photograph (2020)

Arriving April 4

  • Monster Family 2 (2021)

Arriving April 5

  • Alex Rider S3 (2024)

Arriving April 18

  • Dinner with the Parents (2024)

You Really Shouldn’t Buy a 'Cheap' Smart Ring

Smart rings are becoming more and more popular, and with the Galaxy Ring set to debut in late 2024, they are likely only going to get more so. Unfortunately, as tech becomes popular with the masses, cheaper versions often become available. Sometimes, this can be a boon—competition is a good thing in the tech industry, after all, and not everyone can afford to drop several hundred dollars on a piece of tech. The downside, though, is that it also opens the door for shady companies to get involved in the tech space, and that’s exactly what seems to be happening with smart rings right now.

If you look up lists of the best smart rings on the market right now, you’re going to see a few good options, like the Oura ring 3 and the Ultrahuman Ring Air. You’ll also likely see a ton of other lesser-known brand names, especially if you start looking at places like Amazon. The downside here is that these cheaper rings can open the door for companies to seriously mishandle your private health data.

Of course, smart rings aren’t the only wearable device with some concerns over the ethics of data collection and storage. Fitness trackers and smart watches all carry some of the same concerns, though on a much larger scale. This wasn’t as big of a deal with smart rings previously because there just wasn't as many options out there. However, because we’re seeing an uptick in the number of smart rings on the market, there are bound to be more companies pushing devices that don’t fully respect your data. Many of them appear to be building off the potential that companies like Oura have showcased, but underneath, they’re more like a cheap fitness tracker or smartwatch—not overly accurate, and riddled with a lack of information about what they do with your health data.

In short, purchasing a cheap smart ring might save you money, but it could also be putting your health data in danger. That’s because many of these smart rings are based on license deals, which allow the brand company to purchase the ring from someone else, then add their brand to it and ship it as their own product. This happens a lot with other parts of the industry, too—most notably the phone case industry (in case you’ve ever wondered why all those random brands on Amazon all look the same).

This is something that TechRadar covers really well in a report by author Becca Caddy, who details her investigation into the cheaper side of smart rings. Caddy notes that when talking to different smart ring providers and trying to get to the bottom of whether or not their products are licensed, many of them like to play coy and never really answer the question. That creates a lot of room for the company to abuse your trust in their systems, which is a good reason to steer clear of anything they are offering.

It’s because of these license deals that you really need to be careful about what kind of smart ring you’re purchasing. See, when you choose to buy something like the Oura Ring 3, you’re signing up to the Privacy Policy that Oura supports, which says that Oura can collect your data, but that it won’t share or sell that information to third parties or data aggregators. Other companies, like Samsung, also take a strict approach to data, and when the Galaxy Ring releases, it’s likely we’ll see some strict protection plans in place for your health data there.

Additionally, there’s also the question of accuracy and just how well the sensors included in the cheap smart ring you are buying will work. Many of the cheaper smart rings boast about their multitude of features, but they never really break down how accurate they are. This is a problem, as one of the biggest reasons to buy a smart ring right now has to do with its ability to act as a health and fitness tracker. If you aren’t getting accurate readings, it doesn’t really do you any good. 

If you do want to buy a smart ring, there are still some really great options out there right now. The Oura Ring 3, as I noted above, is one of the top smart rings. Oura does a great job of protecting your privacy, and the accuracy of the ring’s various reports are great, too. The Ultrahuman Ring is also another solid option for those who want more of a fitness-focused smart ring, so make sure to check out both of those and compare any cheaper smart rings you might be eyeing to the features, accuracy, and privacy policies those more expensive rings offer.

Now, this isn't to say that there aren't going to be good smart rings that fall into a cheaper price range. Inevitably, we're going to end up with some quality and more affordable smart rings. But if you’re going to buy something that gets access to your data, make sure you’re always aware of the risks that come with it.

How to Make Sure Your Solar Eclipse Glasses Will Actually Block the Sun

Par : Jason Keil

Despite what Bruce Springsteen says in his hit song "Blinded By the Light," it's no fun looking into the "eyes of the sun." According to Prevent Blindness, exposing your peepers to the sun's rays during a solar eclipse without proper eye protection can cause "eclipse blindness" or retinal burns, also known as solar retinopathy, and the damage to your sight can be permanent.

With the next occurrence of the Moon passing between the Earth and the sun not expected for another 20 years after the upcoming solar eclipse on April 8, you might be tempted to gaze at the heavens without proper eye protection. However, even a brief glimpse of the sun during a solar eclipse can cause irreversible damage to your eyes. I'm not your parent, but I strongly advise you to take charge of your eye safety by investing in a pair of solar eclipse glasses. 

However, some unscrupulous third-party sellers sell fake pairs of glasses through Amazon and other online vendors, which can put your vision at risk. (Just ask the man in California who suffered significant vision loss thanks to a pair of counterfeit glasses, according to the Indianapolis Star.) To help keep your eyes safe to see another day, here are some tips to help you know that the pair you picked up will do their one job. 

Check the ISO number

To determine whether your solar eclipse glasses will block ultraviolet and infrared radiation, check the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) number on the frames. According to the American Astronomical Society (AAS), compliant glasses will bear the label ISO 12312-2 (sometimes written as ISO 12312-2:2015) to show they reduce sunlight to safe levels.

Wait, counterfeiters put that number on there too, right?

They sure can! To ensure you are buying solar eclipse glasses from a reputable source, the AAS has created a list of manufacturers, vendors, dealers, and importers they have vetted to help you with your purchase. 

While the AAS points out they are unable to investigate all sellers, they do offer this sage piece of advice:

We do not recommend searching for eclipse glasses on Amazon, eBay, Temu, or any other online marketplace and buying from whichever vendor offers the lowest price. Before you buy a solar viewer or filter online, we recommend that you make sure that (1) the seller is identified on the site and (2) the seller is listed on this page.

Can I just test them myself?

According to the AAS, you can use sunlight reflected off a mirror or a metal object to test if your solar eclipse glasses work. If the light reflected seems very dim through the lenses, you should be safe. However, if you can see any light through a lamp, light bulb, or other household light fixture, you may have a pair of counterfeit glasses.

Additionally, check your glasses to see if the lenses are torn, scratched, punctured, or coming loose from their frames. If so, discard them.

Nine Foods (and Drinks) Made Better by Pickles

It’s time to celebrate the pickle. No, it’s not quite National Pickle Day (and yet, every day is), but here at Lifehacker, the pickle is indeed precious. It’s a cucumber’s victory dance. It brings bright acidity, crunchy contrast, and a saline slap wherever it goes. It can save a sandwich or switch up a cocktail, and it’s even a pretty fun time on its own. Pickles come in all sorts of shapes, sizes, and flavors. No matter which kind you have at the moment, here are some of the best things you can do with your tangy cukes. 

Pickle dip 

A small bowl of pickle dip on a bed of chips.
Credit: Claire Lower

Kicking off the list in the best way possible is a dip composed of pulverized, caramelized pickles. This caramelized pickle dip is creamy, tangy, salty, and irresistible. It’s so good, legend has it that it’s impossible to have leftovers. Browning the pickles properly takes a bit of time in a frying pan, but after that the dip comes together quickly in a food processor.

Pickle pizza 

It’s expected to bedazzle your slice with some salty meats or a few veggies, but why stop there? A cheesy, salty pizza could use a few briny bites to balance things out, if you ask me. Throw some sour dills onto your pie. The pickle’s acidity mellows out slightly in the oven as the excess water evaporates, and you’re rewarded with slightly crunchy, briefly tangy morsels to look forward to. 

Pickles in blankets 

Sorry, pigs, but pickles need to stay warm too. While mini weenies have ruled crescent dough for quite some time, small, spritely gherkins work wonders as a replacement. In fact, switching out the cured meat for the brined veg makes pickles in blankets a vegan iteration of the party classic. (Always check the ingredient list to make sure.) For the ultimate party snack, I suggest pairing both pickles and cocktail weenies in one cozy pastry blanket. 

Pickle in cheese

It’s still not feasible to wrap myself in frico, but I can absolutely do this to a pickle with nearly as much satisfaction. There’s nothing difficult or time consuming about cooking a pile of cheese in a pan and then folding it over a pickle. Which is great because that means you can do it right now if you have those two ingredients. Read here for more details on making the “chickle.”

Pickle salad

A bowl of pickle salad on a table.
Credit: Claire Lower

Pickles are just cucumbers that spent a little extra time in a vinaigrette, sort of. So there’s no reason to get weird about eating a pickle salad, right? Glad you agree. This pickle salad is simple to make and easy to gobble up. It’s crunchy, tart, creamy, and freshened up with a dash of chopped herbs. It makes a fantastic companion for any rich, smoky meats you might be serving up at a summer barbecue, or piled high on top of your mid-winter turkey burger. 

Pickle spaghetti 

With just four ingredients, you can make the pickle pasta of your dreams. (You dream about pickles too, right?) Already imbued with garlic, salt, and vinegar, pickles pack plenty of flavor. Which means you can get busy chopping them up and sautéing them with butter instead of rummaging around in your spice cabinet. Get the full pickle spaghetti recipe here.

Pickle sandwich 

If you think a good sandwich needs meat, you’re mistaken. Like any meal, what keeps you coming back again is flavor—and pickles have no shortage of that. Take this pickle sandwich for example. The complimentary flavor profile of a salty, crunchy pickle and sharp, fatty cheese is certain to win a place in your sandwich rotation. With its ease of assembly and budget friendly ingredient list, I recommend keeping pickles and cheese around as a permanent fixture for whenever the mood strikes.

Iced pickles

A bowl of ice with pickles on top.
Credit: Claire Lower

It may not be summer yet, but in anticipation of the event you should definitely have a plan for your pickles. Serving them chilled out of the fridge is good, but there’s a way to make them even better. Battle sweltering summer days with crisp iced pickles. They can serve as a welcome break from hot grilled foods, or as a luxurious briny treat on their own. Furthermore, if you’re dunking pickles in your beer anyway, you might as well keep the brew cold. 

The Pickletini

True pickle lovers don’t just eat them, they drink pickles too. Truly, the cucumber is only half the story. The brine makes the pickle. It’s what imbues the vegetable and it’s worth saving for other uses, like picklebacks or making a dirty, briny martini. With just three ingredients, you can make your own pickletini to sip on. Garnish it with a wee cornichon (maybe an iced one?) and serve. It’s the perfect companion to sit with while you ponder which pickle-centric meal off of this list you’ll make next. 

How to Oust Your Condo Board or HOA

Close to 30% of Americans live in a property governed by a condo board, homeowners association (HOA), or other community association—more than 70 million people. These associations are generally responsible for property upkeep, enforcement of community rules, and acting as a go-between for residents when disputes arise. Most people have a good or at least neutral experience with their condo board or HOA, but not everyone does.

If you find yourself in serious conflict with a condo board or HOA and get to the point where the normal channels (discussion, showing up at meetings, or even running for a position yourself) can’t solve the problem, you might contemplate a lawsuit. If common areas aren’t being maintained, or repairs aren’t being done, that might seem like your only option—but suing your condo board or HOA is often not your most effective option, and there might be better avenues to explore.

Why you should probably skip the suit

Thanks to pop culture depictions of attorneys and a constant stream of headlines, there’s a tendency to think you can (and should) solve every problem with a lawsuit. Lawsuits can certainly be an effective way to get relief of various kinds—but they're also an expensive, slow, and totally not guaranteed way to seek change or redress.

This is especially true when it comes to suing your HOA or condo board, because of something called the business judgment rule. This rule requires judges hearing a suit to favor the condo board or HOA as long as they believe they are acting in good faith and with a reasonable belief that their actions are for the good of the community—and proving otherwise can be tough. The specific laws governing your community association will vary, but in general this guideline makes winning a lawsuit against your community association very challenging.

Vote them out instead

Instead of spending a lot of time and money on a lawsuit you may very well lose, the better way to deal with a condo board or HOA that is either derelict in their duties or actively harming your property is to remove problematic board members—or replace the entire board altogether. This is usually a less challenging option because there will be language in the governing documents of the association (the Declaration of Covenants, Conditions, and Restrictions or CC&Rs) that outline exactly how to do this. Most states require that these governing documents include mechanisms for calling a special meeting (usually via petition signed by a majority of property owners). This can be done even if your condo board is dodging accountability by claiming to lack a quorum every time a regular meeting is called, a tactic bad condo boards sometimes use to maintain their control.

Here’s the basic steps you’ll need to take:

  • Read bylaws. Review those governing documents so you know how your association is set up. Pay particular attention to two things: Automatic removal criteria and how to force a vote. Most bylaws include certain requirements for board members, including a minimum number of meetings they have to attend and their ownership status at the property. These can potentially provide a straightforward way to remove board members without the need for a lengthy process—but first you have to know what those criteria are.

  • Contact your neighbors. If you can’t see any easy way to push bad board members out the door, you’ll need to bone up on the removal procedures outlined in your bylaws. These will vary from state to state and association to association, but in general, removing a board member (or an entire board) requires a vote involving all the property owners. That means your first step is to meet with everyone and make sure you have the necessary support.

    Next, you’ll need to call a special meeting of the condo board or HOA to hold a vote. If your board is being cagey about calling meetings because they know the residents are up in arms, you can usually force a meeting by getting a majority of owners to sign a petition.

  • Be ready. If you’re planning to remove the entire board, it’s a very good idea to have candidates lined up to replace them. This will minimize the chaos and delays, as well as the chance that the board members you just worked hard to remove don’t simply resume their seat when no one runs against them.

Keep in mind that if your association overtly works to prevent organizing your fellow owners like this (by imposing fines on distributing flyers, for example, to try to stop owners from organizing), it’s pretty clear evidence of bad faith, which would probably negate the business judgment rule protections and make a lawsuit a slightly better risk.

Working to remove a community association takes a lot of time and effort no matter what route you take—but if your property is being adversely affected by mismanagement or malfeasance, you really don’t have a choice. If that’s where you are, break out those bylaws before you call an attorney.

OnePlus Now Supports Backups to Google Photos

I was really impressed with the OnePlus 12 when I tested it out earlier this year, and it looks like OnePlus is continuing to improve upon the solid foundation it has built. The latest version of OxygenOS 14, OnePlus’ Android 14 update, has added the option to integrate the OnePlus Photos app with Google Photos.

This allows photos to be more easily backed up to the cloud, though OnePlus hasn’t mentioned whether or not it will offer support for the ProXDR quality option available on higher-end OnePlus devices. OnePlus owners could already download the Google Photos app and complete a backup, but this will do it without requiring any additional apps to be downloaded. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem like there is any kind of two-way sync for albums, which would be nice.

To enable the new setting on OnePlus devices, you’ll first need to update to OxygenOS 14. That operating system is available on OnePlus 12 and OnePlus 11 devices, as well as on the OnePlus 10T and OnePlus 9. OxygenOS 14 is also available on some mid-range devices, like the OnePlus Nord 2T and Nord 3.

Once upgraded to the latest version, you can find the setting in the OnePlus Photos app. Open the built-in Photos app and select Settings > Backup with Google Photos, and then tap it to activate it. 9to5Google did report some issues with getting the backups working, most notably that they had to force quit the app an then reload it to make things work correctly after enabling the setting.

Philips Hue Lights Can Now Sync With Your Samsung TV

SmartThings, Samsung's brand for controlling smart home tech, has announced a new partnership with smart light brand Philips Hue. In essence, if you buy into the Hue line of smart lights, specifically color-capable lights, they will sync with Samsung televisions (models from 2022 and newer) via the Philips Hue Sync TV App, without the need for any kind of external hub.

Hue lights are exceptional, but they’re not the cheapest—the light strip you’d use behind your TV is $94.99. Govee’s and Nanoleaf’s are comparative, but Hue requires you also pay for the Sync app. Previously, this was only offered via a one-time $130 charge. Today it announced a monthly subscription for $2.99, but that still means you’re paying for a service on top of the cost of lights, which neither Govee or Nanoleaf require. 

Samsung and Philips have specifically called out that the television is the center of many homes—it is, in effect, the “hub,” whether you mean it to be or not, and this integration seems to double down on that narrative. I have and love a similar system by Nanoleaf called 4D, and Govee and other producers also have these systems. They give your TV an “aura” that backlights against the wall based on the colors on the TV at any time, and can react in real time to sound. From what I can tell, Philips is going to be able to do this without the camera that both Govee and Nanoleaf require, and will instead rely on cooperation from other apps present on the TV.

In addition to the Hue integration, the SmartThings app now has a 3D spatial mapping feature, which was first announced at CES 2024. I was already impressed with MapView (the whole home 2D layout of my home with all my devices) that appeared in my SmartThings app back in January. This morning, a 3D option appeared and it, too, is pretty impressive.

That said, it's not super accurate right out of the box: If you don’t have a Samsung mapping device like the Bespoke Jet AI Bot, the Samsung robot vacuum, it requires some input from you in the app to get the rooms and items lined up just right. This is not such a big deal, but given that I play with LiDAR mapping robots and motion sensing lights that can just figure this stuff out without my input, it’s not super exciting, either.

I’m also not entirely sure the benefit of taking the time to customize the map, unlike the benefits you might get from spending the time to nail down your robot vacuum map. But if you enjoy Minecraft, I expect you might enjoy laying out your smart home in the app. Samsung envisions benefits beyond the home to apartments and office spaces where real estate partners might create specific user experiences based on the space. 

This 3-Inch Body Camera Is on Sale for $38 Right Now

You can get this mini body camera and video recorder on sale for $37.99 right now (reg. $45.99). It measures just over three inches long and has a clip for attachment to a shirt pocket or lanyard for hands-free recording. You can choose between recording video with 1080p resolution and a 180º wide-angle lens or just capture audio. There’s also a night-vision mode for high-definition images in low-light conditions. It can record up to 10 hours of audio or 3.5 hours of video at a time with a 400mAh USB-rechargeable battery, and all content will be saved to a TF card (not included, but up to 64GB is supported). 

You can get this mini body camera and video recorder on sale for $37.99 right now (reg. $45.99), though prices can change at any time.

These External Hard Drives, Memory Cards, and Flash Drives Are up to 75% Off

When I'm looking to buy a computer, I don't consider the storage capacity to be as important as I once did. These days, it's pretty easy to find good deals on external storage, especially if you keep an eye out for price cuts. Amazon's current sale on WD and SanDisk storage devices is a prime example.

Western Digital 18 TB External Hard Drive

I don't know if any one person can fill up 18 terabytes of storage, but if you can, more power to you. If you're up for the challenge, Amazon currently has a WD 18 TB Elements Desktop External Hard Drive on sale for $299.99 (originally $529.99) after a 43% discount. With USB 3.0, it offers fast data transfer and it is compatible with Windows and Mac—but for the latter, you'll need to follow some on-screen instructions to reformat it. This WD hard drive was launched in 2020, and it's at one of the lowest prices I've seen (but not the lowest) after looking at price tracking tools. If 18 TB seems like overkill, make sure to check out the other lower storage options below.

SanDisk 1.5 TB Ultra microSDXC Memory Card

For devices like Android smartphones, tablets, Chromebooks, Windows laptops, DSLR cameras, and even the Nintendo Switch, microSDXC memory cards can extend their memory space to fit more games, images, videos, photos, and files. Right now, you can get a 1.5TB SanDisk Ultra microSDXC Memory Card with an adapter for $109.99 (originally $149.99), which is the lowest price it has been.

SanDisk 256GB Ultra Luxe Flash Drive

For a more discrete and portable storage device than an external hard drive, consider a flash drive. Amazon has a SanDisk 256 GB flash drive for only $12.49 (originally $49.99) after a 75% discount. This flash drive can transfer up to 150 MB per second via USB 3.0.

Someone Got GPT2 Running Entirely in a Spreadsheet

Par : Justin Pot

AI companies present their products as magical, but it's all just code and math under the hood. Don't believe me? Someone got an AI model working in an Excel spreadsheet. Spreadsheets are all you need is a project by Ishan Anand that re-creates a GPT2, a precursor to the technology that powers ChatGPT, entirely in a single Excel spreadsheet. This is the AI equivalent to getting Doom running on an old smart fridge.

The file, predictably, is a massive 1.34 GB, and it won't load on the Mac or web version of Excel—you're going to need Windows to get this working, ideally with a decent processor. And you can't expect to use it the way you would chat-based large language models. This, obviously, isn't going to replace ChatGPT, and it's not supposed to. It's mostly just a great way to learn how large language models work.

You can get started by downloading the spreadsheet from Github. You add your prompt to the spreadsheet's second sheet. The prompt needs to be entered one word per cell, with any spaces added manually at the beginning of words and each bit of punctuation mark using up its own line.

The spreadsheet will produce a single word—the next word in your sentence. It's a good idea to stick to a simple sentence that you'd like the spreadsheet to add a word to. I went with "My cat is so—." After you've entered your prompt, you click Calculate Now in the Formulas tab to start the crunching. Eventually the spreadsheet will output the next word for you (in my case, "cute," which is accurate.)

The real fun, though, is that you can now explore all of the other sheets and see the exact math that was used to guess what the next word should be. I am not going to attempt to break this down—it's well outside my wheelhouse—but there are video lessons on the website that do a great job of explaining the math and how the spreadsheet does it all. It's hard to think of a more accessible way to see how large language models work.

The Rabbit R1's AI Assistant Could Someday Replace Your Smartphone

The Rabbit R1, a device that acts as an AI-powered assistant that seeks to replace all the apps on your smartphone, was one of the most exciting and quirky devices showcased during CES 2024. Now, Rabbit has confirmed that the (sold out) first batch of devices is set to ship next week.

Starting March 31, the initial batch of Rabbit R1s will ship out to the first 10,000 people who placed preorders in Canada and the U.S., though Rabbit says the devices may take up to three weeks to reach consumers. The next batch of Rabbit R1 devices is expected to start shipping in April and May, though Rabbit hasn’t yet specified a concrete timeframe. 

What is the Rabbit R1?

If this is the first time you’re hearing about the Rabbit R1, you’re not alone, and even explaining what it does is a little tricky. The Rabbit R1 functions a bit like a smartphone, offering an AI assistant that can handle asks like queuing up your music and taking photos. When you use your smartphone, you download different apps to accomplish different tasks, but the Rabbit R1's AI assistant is trained to perform those tasks for you itself. The Rabbit software is apparently even smart enough to work with some of your existing mobile apps, once you’ve shown it how to do so.

It’s an intriguing way to reimagine your mobile digital life. The Rabbit R1 is powered in part by Perplexity’s AI engine; Perplexity is yet another ChatGPT competitor, which means you’ll be able to chat with the device and ask it to do things the same way you might with ChatGPT or Google Gemini. According to The Verge, the Rabbit R1's "Large Action Model" (as opposed to ChatGPT's Large Language Model) was trained by real people interacting with various apps, "essentially showing the model how they work."

Exactly why you want to carry around another device in addition your smartphone is another question entirely. The company claims the Rabbit R1 has the potential to do just about anything, but only time will tell what kinds of things people actually do with it once they have it in hand.

If this all sounds intriguing to you, you can preorder the Rabbit R1 directly from Rabbit for $199, though you'll probably have to wait several months for delivery. You can also check out this demo from Rabbit founder Jesse Lyu to see the device in action.

You Should Update Your iPhone and Mac ASAP

Apple released some important software updates for your iPhone and Mac this week. You might not think so, based on the version numbers of each update, but iOS 17.4.1 and macOS 14.4.1 are both worth installing as soon as you can. Here's why.

What's new in iOS 17.4.1?

Apple's latest update for iPhone (and iPad) doesn't come with any new features or user-facing changes. The release notes don't mention any specific new changes at all, which might make you think you are safe to skip the update or put it off for later.

However, it's an important one nonetheless, as evidenced in Apple's security release notes. For some reason, the company packages the security notes separately from the release notes you see in the Software Update section of your device. In this case, the company delayed releasing even the security notes for 17.4.1 until they also released macOS 14.4.1, which arrived a few days later.

In any event, we now know that iOS 17.4.1 (as well as iOS 16.7.7) patches two security vulnerabilities: The first is an out-of-bounds write flaw in CoreMedia, the part of iOS that deals with time-based audio-visual assets. Bad actors can take advantage of this flaw to trick you into opening a malicious image, which could lead to arbitrary code execution—in other words, they could exploit the flaw to run their own code on your device and potentially take it over.

The second issue is another out-of-bounds write vulnerability, this time with WebRTC, a platform that enables audio and video communication to function inside a web browser. Again, if you process a malicious-crafted image with this flaw, someone could conceivably take over your device using arbitrary code execution.

At the time of publication, Apple was not aware of these vulnerabilities being exploited in the wild, which is good news. However, know that they have been more widely advertised, it's only a matter of time before someone tries to use them, so it's important to update as soon as possible.

What's new in macOS 14.4.1?

macOS 14.4.1 (and macOS 13.6.6 for that matter) also include these two patches, which is likely why Apple waited until it released these Mac updates before disclosing the specific vulnerabilities.

However, in addition to supplying important security patches, macOS 14.4.1 includes bug fixes for problems you may have experienced using macOS 14.4. According to Apple's release notes, this update fixes an issue where macOS wouldn't recognize USB hubs when connected to external displays, and one bug where copy protected Audio Unit plug-ins would not open or pass validation. Perhaps most importantly, the update fixes an issue where apps that use Java may quit unexpectedly.

These three patches fix some of the problems macOS users were reporting with version 14.4, so if you were holding off on updating to that version because of one of these three specific problems, macOS 14.4.1 should be a safer bet.

How to update your iPhone or Mac

Whether your iPhone is running iOS 17 or iOS 16, or your Mac is running macOS Sonoma or macOS Ventura, you should update ASAP to patch these issues.

To update your iPhone, head to Settings > General > Software Update. On your Mac, head to System Settings > General > Software Update.

You Can Get This Lenovo Touchscreen Chromebook on Sale for $88 Right Now

You can get this refurbished Lenovo 300E Chromebook on sale for $87.99 right now (reg. $284.99). It has a grade “B” refurbished rating, so it may have light cosmetic scuffing, but none on the screen, and it has minimum 70% battery health. It comes with an Intel N3450 quad-core processor with 1.1GHz speed and 4GB of RAM. The Chromebook also has an 11.6-inch touchscreen, 32GB of storage, Intel UHD Graphics 500, and a 30-day parts and labor warranty.

You can get this refurbished Lenovo 300E Chromebook on sale for $87.99 right now (reg. $284.99), though prices can change at any time.

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