Wouldn’t it be great to have a smart TV? Well, not really. Smart TVs have a lot of problems. If you do have a smart TV, you’d be better off combining it with a cheap set-top box rather than actually using its smart features. Smart TVs are actually a decent idea, in theory. The problem isn’t that the idea of a smart TV is stupid, the problem is that the smart TVs themselves are stupid — or, at least, not very smart....

Car Thing is an audio receiver and player intended for playing Spotify music in cars. It has a custom “Hey Spotify” voice control feature, along with a large touch screen and turning dial. Car Thing requires a connected smartphone, so it’s not an independent head unit with its own data connection, but it can be helpful for cars that don’t already have Android Auto or Apple CarPlay. However, Spotify revealed during today’s quarterly earnings report that it is no longer manufacturing Car Thing....

Many of us crave organization and productivity. If you already use Microsoft Office, then you already have the ultimate tool to sate that craving: Outlook 2013. Outlook is vital in many organizations, not simply for its obvious email skills, but it’s calendaring, tasks, and contacts talents as well. A typical company can connect Outlook to an Exchange server, and everyone can share the same address book and calendars, making it a great tool for enterprise level collaboration....

Adobe Photoshop is the professional image editor. It’s name is now a verb for image editing (which is something that Adobe absolutely hates). Photoshop though, isn’t the only editor in town. Over the last few years, new image editing apps have come along that are almost as good as Photoshop, for a fraction of the price. Let’s have a look at some of them. GIMP (Free on Windows, Mac, Linux) RELATED: The Downsides of Open Source Software...

If you’ve ever taken a look into your Android device’s battery settings screen, you’ve probably seen “Google Play Services” listed here. But what exactly is it, and why is it using so much battery? What Is Google Play Services? Google Play Services is a bit more confusing than most apps, as it includes all of Google’s services under one package. On older versions of Android (7.x Nougat or below) you can see exactly what Google Services includes by tapping it....

What Does High-Resolution Audio Mean? One of the most interesting things about hi-res audio as a term is that it doesn’t mean anything concrete. There are no standards defining what bit depth or sample rate an audio file must use to qualify as hi-res audio. That doesn’t mean that hi-res audio is a meaningless term. Most often, hi-res audio means anything higher quality than CD-quality audio. CD-quality audio means 16-bit, 44....

On every Windows drive—even external USB drives—you’ll find a “System Volume Information” folder. You’ll only see it if you have Windows set to show hidden files and folders, but it’s always there. So what is it for? Why Can’t I Open the Folder? RELATED: What’s the Difference Between FAT32, exFAT, and NTFS? On drives formatted with the NTFS file system, this folder’s permissions are set to prevent everyone from accessing the folder, even users with Administrator permissions....

You probably replace something when it breaks down and no longer works (or repair it if the costs aren’t too high). However, that’s usually not a good strategy for large, expensive appliances in your home that you rely on every single day. Here’s what you should know about the lifespan of most appliances and when they should be replaced. RELATED: How to Take Care of Your Home’s Appliances So They Last Longer...

The Origins of the Raspberry Pi While working in the computer science department at St. John’s College in Cambridge, U.K., circa 2006, Eben Upton noticed a drop-off in computer science student admissions. He noticed a general knowledge decline as well and suspected it was due to the lack of an easily accessible home computer like those in the 1980s that encouraged kids to jump in and learn computer programming. After getting a job working as a SoC architect at Broadcom in Cambridge, Upton dove into the project to create a low-cost computer that would encourage kids to program....

To use CarPlay, you connect your iPhone to your car or motorcycle via a wired (usually Lightning-to-USB) or wireless connection. Your iPhone then takes over the touch screen interface on your vehicle’s dashboard. From there, you can control apps that support the special CarPlay interface with touch, buttons, or knobs. You can also use voice control with Siri to perform other tasks. If you’re familiar with Google’s Android Auto, you’ll be right at home with CarPlay....

Most people probably already know how to move the cursor on their iPhone or iPad. It’s essential if you make a typo and want to go back to correct your mistake before you send a text or e-mail, but there is an easier way. Traditionally, on any iPhone preceding the 6S, the only way to move your cursor’s insertion point is to use the magnifying glass. This is accomplished by touching your finger to the screen and holding it there until the magnifying glass appears....

Here’s the main point: You’re placing an immense amount of trust in the VPN provider you use. Choose carefully! Do you trust your VPN provider more than your internet service provider? VPNs Can Track You, and They Might The main selling point of using Virtual Private Networks, or VPNs, is to protect your privacy. They prevent attacks from malicious hackers, stop your internet service provider (ISP) from peeking at your traffic, and mask your information to websites that may collect your personal data....

That’s a fair question to ask. Antivirus software has been recommended for Windows users for many years. Thankfully, Microsoft has built-in better tools to combat malware—Windows has come with a built-in antivirus since Windows 8—but what about Android? Let’s talk about some of the ways Android is protecting you. Google Play Protect Android’s biggest built-in defense against malware is Google Play Protect. There are a few different components to Play Protect—including the Find My Device tools—but a big part of it is malware scanning....

A VR counterweight sounds puzzling at first: If you feel the Quest or Quest 2 is too heavy and uncomfortable to wear for long periods of time, why would you add more weight to it? But the secret is that the discomfort mostly comes from having too much weight on one part of your head (the front, where the screen is) that isn’t balanced properly, which leads to increased pressure on your face....

If you’ve configured a server on your home network (like a media streaming server) so you can access your files away from home, you may have noticed a curious conundrum: when you want to use the server at home your traffic gets routed out to your ISPs servers and then back to your house because your network hardware doesn’t recognize that the server isn’t really out there on the Internet, it’s right at home....

If you have an iOS device and Chromecast, the big players all cast just fine (like Netflix) but when it comes to streaming the local content on your device to your Chromecast it’s a bit of a hassle. Tag along as we help a fellow reader throw their local iPad content onto the TV. What gives, as the more cynical of readers might have already guessed, is that Apple doesn’t offer any sort of native support for the Chromecast whatsoever....

If you have decided to make use of Windows 10’s file history capabilities, how long will a saved copy of a file remain in the backup folder if you decide to delete the original? Today’s SuperUser Q&A post has the answer to a curious reader’s question. Today’s Question & Answer session comes to us courtesy of SuperUser—a subdivision of Stack Exchange, a community-driven grouping of Q&A web sites. The Question SuperUser reader Lumo5 wants to know how long a saved copy of a file will remain in file history after the original one is deleted from Windows 10:...

Consider this a public service announcement: Scammers can forge email addresses. Your email program may say a message is from a certain email address, but it may be from another address entirely. Email protocols don’t verify addresses are legitimate — scammers, phishers, and other malicious individuals exploit this weakness in the system. You can examine a suspicious email’s headers to see if its address was forged. How Email Works Your email software displays who an email is from in the “From” field....

Unlike previous methods, this is a safe way to work with Linux files! Windows does some magic in the background, making it possible to edit your Linux files from Windows applications without causing file permission issues. You still shouldn’t modify the underlying files at their real location on your system. There are two ways to access your Linux files. First, the easy one. From within the Windows Subsystem for Linux environment you want to browse, run the following command:...

Modern versions of Windows defragment drives during regular maintenance schedules. But if you defragment manually—maybe you keep your PC turned off when not in use—you might appreciate a faster way to access the command. If you’re using Windows Vista up through Windows 10, you probably don’t need to manually defragment your drives anymore. This especially holds true if you’re using a solid state drive (SSD), which not only need to avoid the excessive wear and tear brought on by the process, but don’t need defragmentation anyway....