Summary I don’t have air conditioning, so I have to rely on alternative ways to keep myself cool while working from home. Traditional pedestal fans are great, but one little accessory that nobody seems to talk about is USB desk fans. If you’ve never used one, now is the time. USB Fans Are Surprisingly Great at Keeping You Cool Fans are highly effective at keeping you cool in several ways. First, a fan dissipates the hot air around you, replacing it with cooler air....

It used to be that if you missed a call and wanted to check your voicemail, you’d have to call into an automated phone system, enter your PIN, and listen to your messages in order. Smartphones and visual voicemail (VVM) have revolutionized this process, but it’s not always perfect. Accessing VVM on your Android phonedepends on a number of factors. For example, I use Google Fi as my carrier, and it automatically incorporates VVM into my Pixel 7a’s native phone app....

Summary FromFortnitetoSuicide Squad, the number of “live service” games has exploded over the past decade, but what exactly is a “living” game and why do they draw the ire of so many gamers? What Is a Live Service Game? Also known as “living” games or “Games as a Service,” there are a few ways to define a live service game. These games are typically based upon some form of online multiplayer, built around the idea of constant evolution over time through the release of additional content and updates....

Summary Virtual reality is cheaper and easier to access than ever before, but the best VR experiences are on PC, and building a PC that can handle VR might seem a little daunting. The good news is that it’s no more difficult than building a regular gaming PC. Let VR Game Specs Guide You Like any computer built for a specific purpose, what really matters are the requirements for the software you want to run....

Summary Even the most careful people are eventually taken in by online scams. APP scams are when you are tricked into sending money to a scammer for a product or service that never arrives. Here’s how to spot and avoid them. What Is an APP Scam? APP (Authorize Push Payment) scams, or APP fraud, are any scam where you’re fooled into sending money to someone. It’s an umbrella term for a number of classic scam techniques that are enabled by the convenience of online payment systems....

Quick Links 4K is a bigger number than 1080p, but that doesn’t mean it’s better. This is especially true when it comes to 1080p Blu-ray video compared to4K streaming. There’s more to a video’s quality than resolution, and Blu-rays have it. The Elements of Picture Quality Terms like “4K UHD” or “1080p” refer to only one factor that makes up overall image quality. Specifically, it refers to the number of pixels or “picture elements” in each frame of video....

The Galaxy Z Fold 7 does away with the under-display camera found on previous generations of the phone. Many reviewers praise this as a positive change. Personally, I’m sad to see Samsung give up on this technology—I want to see it on more phones, not less. Form Is Its Primary Function An under-display camera is a front-facing camera that lies underneath the screen of your phone or tablet. Currently, the camera doesn’t actually go behind your main display and instead appears behind a tiny, transparent screen that lets in enough light for the camera....

Summary You may think that Android’s USB debugging feature, hidden within the developer options, is only for, well, developers. But it can be very useful for just about anyone and could very well save your back someday. To do that, you’ll need to have enabled the feature beforehand. USB Debugging Can Help Recover Data On-devicedeveloper optionsexist to help app developers debug (find and fix technical issues) and test apps. Typically, developers code apps in Android Studio on a PC....

Summary If you love the Multiview feature on YouTube TV but wish it worked on more channels and content other than sports, we have good news. Over the weekend, Google announced that it’s experimenting with more multiview combinations, expanding the feature beyond sports, and I couldn’t be more excited. In February, Google confirmed plans toimprove the multiview experiencewith additional features and mentioned that it could one day work on content other than sports....

Quick Links Better than any moisturizer or old pair of pants that suddenly fit is the moment when you don’t get the reference that a person a little older than you just made. Every generation does it to the generation that preceded them. “That must have been before my time,” we love to say, as if we’re wheeling the person into an old folks home. It’s always a disheartening experience. A poor guy is talking about some old television show or band with unbridled enthusiasm, lost in a nostalgic reverie about this thing he likes so much, and the younger person has no idea what he’s talking about....

Quick Links Want to start leveling up your terminal skills? The Linux command line has a wealth of flexible commands for file management. Learn how to use the most common ones for your everyday tasks. 1pwd When you’re using the command line, you’re always “in” a specific directory. Linux calls this the working directory. By default, your prompt—the text before your cursor on each line—will display the name of this directory....

Quick Links As someone who has always been loyal to the iPhone, I’ve recently decided to break the mold and switch to a different brand. This decision has led me to conclude that I’m ready to take an even bigger leap in my search for a new device—I want a foldable phone. 1Exciting and Future-Proofed Tech Foldable phones have come a long way sinceRoyole launched the first of its type in 2018....

Nowadays, when every graphics card is pushed to its limits out of the box, you should consider undervolting rather than overclocking. Undervolting the GPU allows you to retain the same or nearly the same level of performance as with the default settings while reducing power consumption, noise, and thermals. What Is Undervolting, and Why Should You Do It? YourGPUuses a certain amount of voltage (basically the measurement of the “pressure” with which electrons flow through the GPU’s circuits)....