Digital assistant apps of all kinds are on the rise, but you don’t necessarily need to invest in a smart speaker to start chatting to one: with a little know-how you can get Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant up and running on your computer. Here’s what you need to do.
You might have noticed we’re in a crazy news cycle right now, and in these times of political and civil uncertainty, staying on top of breaking news is more important than ever. If you want the most relevant stories delivered to your phone in the shortest possible time, we’ve got the apps for you.
Had enough of Google meddling in your affairs? Rather impressed by what Microsoft is doing with Outlook on the web? A little bit spooked by how much data Mountain View has on you? Whatever your reasons for splitting up with Google, here’s how to make sure it’s a clean and uncomplicated break.
With an eye towards the developing world where people are more likely to own cheap phones and have spottier wireless data access, the big names in tech are developing simpler versions of their apps. These apps are lightweight, use little data, and don’t burn through battery life. Sound good? It does to us too, and…
There are some fantastic bargains to be had if you can live without the shiniest, newest gadgets—but diving into the second-hand market comes with its own set of potential pitfalls and problems.
Computer specs can be a baffling mix of acronyms and numbers at the best of times, but it’s worth learning something about them: It’ll help you choose a new computer, troubleshoot your old computer, and generally understand more about the relationship between the specs on the page and the experience you’re getting.
It’s incredibly tempting to reach out and respond to a text you get while you’re driving, but maybe less so when you realize that distracted driving is causing thousands of deaths and hundreds of thousands of injuries every year in the US. Take away the temptation by having your phone reply to messages for you, so you…
You’ve spotted an app, site, or service you like the look of, it’s completely free to use, and so you’re ready to sign up—but how can you tell the service is above-board and legit? That you’re not going to be subject to nefarious dark pattern tactics or see you or your teens sensitive data shared with advertisers.…
Maybe you like the curves of the iPhone 7, maybe you just don’t trust Google with your data any more, or maybe someone just gave you an iPhone as a birthday present. Whatever the reason, here’s how to get your entire digital life from Android to iOS with as little head-scratching as possible.
Open up a web browser or power up a smartphone—pretty much essential for modern-day living—and you’re walking straight into a privacy minefield. That much you know. Especially after the news earlier this week that Unroll.me, a popular service that lets you unsubscribe from multiple email lists with a single click, was…
The smart speakers are coming! Wandering into our living rooms, listening for our voice commands, pulling random bits of trivia from the web, spitting out weather forecasts, and controlling a growing number of home appliances. But they’re always listening and currently there isn’t an easy to way to know when they…
If you use Gmail and your office uses Google Apps or you like to maintain multiple Facebook accounts, than operating on a phone can be a nightmare. Multiple logins means constant logging out of apps and then logging back in—a process that only gets more excruciating when you have two-factor authentication (and you…
Somewhere along the way your mobile phone went from being a way for your friends and family to reach you, to becoming a portal through which marketers and spammers can bombard you with calls you’re not interested in. It’s sort of like the landline, only much, much more irritating. Here’s what you can do to reclaim…
If you haven’t heard, a lot of Chromebooks can run Android apps now, but not everything in the Google Play Store is going to make sense for your lightweight laptop—we’re looking at you, Snapchat.Here are seven Android apps that are actually well suited to running on top of Chrome OS.
If your device, your carrier, and your data plan allows it, you can turn your mobile phone into a Wi-Fi hotspot to get your laptop online. But just because it’s a hotspot doesn’t mean the rules of data uses don’t apply. You’ll still want to keep data usage down to a minimum. Here’s how you can enjoy all the perks of a…
Even as our tech gets increasingly sophisticated and intelligent, sometimes it’s falling for the oldest tricks in the book that breach the security walls we’ve put in place—like clicking on dodgy links or shady attachments that we shouldn’t. You don’t have to get tripped up by these simplest of scams though, if you…
Once upon a time in the not-too-distant past, getting an email or a weather forecast popping up on a smartphone felt like magic—but now the technological novelty of these alerts has worn off. We’re growing sick of the constant interruptions. Mobile notifications are undoubtedly useful, but you need to make them smart.
Touring around the pages of the web isn’t always the one-way street you might think it is: most sites are eager to leave a calling card or two on your local machine in the form of cookies. Here we’ll lay out what’s being saved in your browser, why it makes a difference, and what you can do about it.
Not all applications and browser add-ons come in peace. So you need to know a few warning signs to look out for if you want to make sure that only legit software makes it onto your machine. Here’s how to avoid bad actors and weed out any shady apps that have already taken root.
You may have noticed in your travels around the internet that your browser’s address bar occasionally turns green and displays a padlock—that’s HTTPS, or a secure version of the Hypertext Transfer Protocol, swinging into action. This little green padlock is becoming vitally important as more and more of your online…
