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No commentsSunday, March 29, 2026System EngineerTech CENTRALNo commentsSaturday, March 28, 2026LiveStream These Are the Best Laptop Deals I've Seen During Amazon's Big Spring Sale, LifehackerNo commentsWe may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication.
Amazon's Big Spring Sale is in full swing this week. If you take a look at the "Laptops" section of Amazon's Big Spring Sale page, you'll find seemingly endless options available at a discount. That doesn't mean these are all deals worth considering, however. There are a lot of laptops out there, and not all of them going to be right for you (or most people). As such, I've looked at Amazon's wares, and found some deals that really seem worth considering.
A rule of thumb with deals like these: If you've never heard of the company before, be extremely cautious. There are laptop manufacturers that have been in the game for years, and know how to ship a product that works. If you see a huge discount on a laptop from a no-name company, that should be a red flag. That's not to say all start-ups and new companies should be avoided; just do your research before buying a computer.
If you're in the market for a large yet portable laptop, the MacBook Air is a great buy. While Apple's newest model has the M5 chip, the M4 version is more than capable to buy instead—especially when you can save some money.
During Amazon's Big Spring Sale, you can pick up the 15-inch M4 MacBook Air for $1,149. That's $150 cheaper than the M5 version. You still get the same 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage, and a chip that Apple will likely support for years to come. (The company still supports M1, which came out in 2020.) If you're set on the M5 MacBook Air, consider saving a bit by going through Apple's education store.
If you need a large, thin and light laptop that runs Windows 11, this Copilot+ PC from Samsung might suit you. The 16-inch Galaxy Book 5 Pro 360 has an Intel Core 7 Ultra processor with 16GB of RAM and 1TB of storage—double that of the MacBook Air above. It also has a touchscreen 3K AMOLED display with a refresh rate of 120Hz. The integrated graphics won't get you far for gaming, but if you need a capable machine for school, work, or personal use, this is a great all-around machine.
Let's up the ante a bit. This HP EliteBook comes with a whopping 64GB of RAM. That's potentially overkill for most students and workers, but it does mean that this machine is a multitasker's dream. (You'll likely never run out of Chrome tabs.) It comes with an Intel Core Ultra 7 255U processor with a 1TB PCIe SSD for storage. The 16-inch IPS display is lower-res than the other laptops I've noted so far, as its only a 1200p panel. That's just a bit more pixels than you'd find in a 1080p display: Not bad, but not 3K or 4K. That said, if you can live with the compromises on the screen, this machine will handle most things you throw at it—at 32% off its original list price.
If you're looking for something to game on that won't break the bank, this ASUS TUF laptop might be a solid choice. This machine comes with 16GB of RAM, a 512GB SSD, a 4.6GHz Intel Core i5 13450HX processor, and a dedicated NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5050 graphics card. It also comes with a 16-inch LED display with a refresh rate of 165 Hz, so you'll be able to boost the frame rates of your games. This isn't the most powerful gaming laptop out there by any means, but at 23% off ($999.99), it's worth considering.
If you want to push your games a bit further, take a look at the ASUS ROG Strix G18. This 18-inch laptop has an AMD Ryzen 9 8940HX chip, a dedicated GeForce RTX 5050 GPU, 16GB of RAM, and a 1TB SSD. That 18-inch display has a 1080p resolution, and refresh rate of 144Hz—plenty for high refresh rate gaming. This one will cost nearly $400 more than the TUF, but you're getting a bit more for your money—and you're saving 18% off the list price.
Let's take a look at one more gaming laptop—this time, with a more powerful Intel chip. Lenovo's Legion 5i comes with an Intel Core i7 17000HX chip, a dedicated GeForce RTX 5070 GPU, 16GB of RAM, and a 1TB SSD. It comes with a 1600p 15-inch OLED, which is the sharpest and highest contrast of any of the gaming laptops listed here. That's excellent for both games, as well for watching shows and movies. Like the TUF F16, this has a 165 Hz refresh rate. That's why this machine is typically listed at $1,699.99, but is currently $230 off.
Friday, March 27, 2026System EngineerTech CENTRALNo commentsWe may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication.
If you're eyeing a new pair of over the ear headphones, you have no shortage of options. But if you're looking for something that fits neatly into the Apple ecosystem without costing the same as a MacBook Neo (looking at you, AirPods Max), your best bet might just be the Beats Studio Pro. Right now, they're up to 35% off for Amazon's Big Spring Sale—so long as you don't mind the color grey.
Beats Studio Pro come with features you'd expect from headphones with "Pro" in the name. That includes Active Noise Cancelling, of course, a must for over-the-ear headphones, but also Transparency mode, which pumps in external sounds so you don't need to take off your headphones to hear what people are saying to you. Beats says the Studio Pro have up to 40 hours of battery life, and reduce distortion by up to 80% when compared to Beats Studio. The headphones have a built in DAC, which makes them a great for listening to lossless music when connected via USB-C.
While all Beats are designed to work with both iOS and Android, Apple users will find the experience more ideal. Apple owns Beats, and, as such, integrates the headphones into their ecosystem just as they do with their own AirPods. When you turn on Beats Studio Pro, it will automatically pair with the first Apple device you have open—say, your iPhone. Once paired, it'll be able to automatically connect to any other Apple device you have under that iCloud account. You can switch to your Mac, play something in Apple Music, and hear it in your Beats, without having to manually pair them first. They even work with Find My, so you can locate your Beats with your Apple device if you misplace them.
As of now, the only color that gets Amazon's Big Spring Sale deal is Sand Gray. Amazon has discounts on the other colors as well, but they'll run you $199.95. If you aren't married to a particular color, Sand Gray is the best value as of this writing.
Thursday, March 26, 2026LiveStream My Favorite JBL Over-Ear Headphones Are $100 Off During Amazon's Big Spring Sale, LifehackerNo commentsWe may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication.
If you're a music aficionado looking for a deal during Amazon's Big Spring Sale, these JBL Tour One M3 headphones might change your relationship with sound like they changed mine. And!—they're on sale for the lowest price Amazon has ever offered, a neat $100 off off the full retail price of $449.95.
Here are only some of the ways these JBL cans are better than my previous pair of over-ear headphones:
Excellent sound quality: That's the point, right? JBL's high-res audio is top-notch, especially for bluetooth headphones.
JBL Smart Tx: A separate unit that lets you connect to just about any audio source, including analog sources and non-bluetooth sources, and listen. It's also a touch screen controller so you can access all the controls without pulling out your phone.
8-Mic True Adaptive Noise Cancelling 2.0: These things do a great job cancelling noise of all kinds, whether you want to fully focus on music or just have blessed silence at will. I had no idea how much ambient sound I'd been swimming in all day—the fridge running, the cars on the road, the wind—all gone in an instant.
Head-tracking spatial audio: JBL's spatial audio is just excellent, whether you use it for music, movies, or gaming.
High quality microphone: If you take calls with these, your voice will sound like a face-to-face conversation.
Battery life: They stay charged forever—up to 70 hours of music on a single charge.
It's not just me who thinks so: PCMag gave these four stars. Amazon's reviewers give them 4.4 stars. They're a great buy, especially right now.
Thursday, March 26, 2026LiveStreamTechnical storiesNo commentsFor as long as we've known that soil bacteria manufacture molecular weapons to fight each other, we've been swiping their battle plans. In clinics and hospitals, those turf-war weapons have become miraculous drugs of modern medicine—antibiotics—that blow away otherwise deadly infections.
But, of course, there's a dark side of mimicking microbial munitions—bacteria have defenses, too, namely antibiotic resistance. You're probably aware that we're facing a rising threat of drug resistance among disease-causing bacteria, one that is rendering much of our stolen weaponry obsolete and making infections harder to defeat.
Often, this growing crisis is framed as a clinical failure: We're overusing and misusing antibiotics, hastening our bacterial foes' natural ability to develop and spread resistance. While this is certainly true, a new study in Nature Microbiology this week identifies a potentially new driver of rising antibiotic resistance—and we're at least partly to blame for this one, too.
Wednesday, March 25, 2026System EngineerregisterNo commentsAI isn't killing jobs wholesale – it's quietly chipping away at them, one task at a time.…
Wednesday, March 25, 2026LiveStream and More New Features Apple Just Released in iOS 26.4, Apple Music Upgrades, Keyboard Fixes, LifehackerNo commentsWe may earn a commission from links on this page.
iOS 26.3 was a decidedly small update. It introduced a new tool to transfer data to Android, and gave some iPhones the ability to hide precise location data from cellular networks. But beyond some other small changes and security patches, that's all there was to write home about. iOS 26.4 is a different story. The update, which Apple dropped on Tuesday, adds a number of interesting new features to compatible iPhones, especially if you're an Apple Music user. Here's what's new:
While this isn't a "major feature," new emojis are always fun when we can get them. In this case, Apple is taking iOS 26.4 as an opportunity to roll out its take on the Unicode 17 standard, which includes eight new emoji. That includes "Distorted Face," "Fight Cloud," "Ballet Dancer," "Orca," "Hairy Creature," "Trombone," "Landslide," and "Treasure Chest."
The latest trend in streaming services seems to be AI-generated playlists. YouTube Music recently rolled out the option, while Spotify offers a couple different takes on the feature. The idea is to tell the AI what type of music you want to listen to, whether that be a specific artist or genre, or just a concept or mood (e.g., "Make me a playlist for drinking coffee on a lazy Sunday morning").
Now Apple Music is the latest service to introduce such a feature. iOS 26.4 comes with "Playlist Playground," which works about how you'd expect. You tell Apple Music's AI what you want to hear, and it generates a playlist with 25 different songs. You can adjust the playlist if you don't like the result, as well as edit the title, cover image, and description.
In addition to Playlist Playground, Apple Music's UI is also changing in iOS 26.4. You'll see new full-page artwork when listening to music, as well as redesigned albums and playlists that adjust their colors based on the artwork. Plus, there's now a "Concerts Near You" feature that helps you find shows in your area, based on the music you like to listen to.
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You can now use Offline Music Recognition in Control Center to identify songs you hear out and about, even when you don't have an internet connection. You'll get the results when your iPhone connects back to cellular or wifi. You'll have to wait for your answer, but at least you'll get one.
Once you update your iPhone to iOS 26.4, you can add the new Ambient Music widget to your Home Screen. It comes with options for Sleep, Chill, Productivity, and Wellbeing playlists you can launch without opening the Music app.
If you've been having trouble typing on your iPhone's keyboard recently, you're not alone. Many users have been complaining online about inaccurate typing since iOS 26 dropped in the fall. Apple's latest update might just fix that: In the release notes for iOS 26.4, Apple says it has "improved keyboard accuracy when typing quickly." Hopefully, that's the end of everyone’s issues with the iPhone’s keyboard, though somehow I doubt it—users have been complaining about it for years at this point.
With iOS 26.4, Apple changed the Wallpapers settings menu. Before, you could select from pre-downloaded wallpaper packs on your iPhone; now, you can choose which packs you want to download instead. It's a small change, but an interesting one. It seems Apple doesn't want to assume you're interested in all of its wallpaper options anymore, and instead would rather pick and choose the ones you want to try. Apple also made similar changes to picking watch faces in the Apple Watch app.
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If you ever label reminders as "urgent" on your iPhone, you'll find them in a new location. Now, when you open Reminders, you'll find an Urgent section, alongside other options like Today, All, and Scheduled.
Apple changed the name of its "Reduce Highlight Effects Accessibility" setting to "Reduce Bright Effects." Now, it comes with a description: "Minimize highlighting and flashing when interacting with onscreen elements, such as buttons or the keyboard." The is particularly an "issue" with iOS 26, which includes more lighting effects with its Liquid Glass design.
iOS 26.4 also gives "Reduce Motion" an update: Now, the Accessibility feature "more reliably" reduces Liquid Glass animations, according to Apple. This builds on some of the other ways Apple has allowed users to tone-down iOS 26's visual overhaul, while stopping short of letting users turn it off entirely.
Here's a small but meaningful change for families: All adults in a Family Sharing group can now choose their own payment method for Purchase Sharing. Previously, you needed to go through the payment option set up by the family organizer. This frees up members to make their own purchases to share with the group, without only going through one card.
Freeform, Apple's "whiteboard" app, is getting an Apple Creator Studio upgrade with iOS 26.4. The app is still free for all users, but if you subscribe to Apple Creator Studio, you get "advanced image creation and editing tools," as well as access to Apple's "premium content library."
This is a small but necessary addition to iOS: The latest update supports Apple's AirPods Max 2, which will be available to preorder starting Wednesday, March 25. The newest AirPods Max look the same as always, but come with some key features that Apple's earbuds have had for years. They still cost $549 though, which means if you want a pair of AirPods Max for less than the cost of a MacBook Neo, consider picking up the previous generation at a discount.
Tuesday, March 24, 2026LiveStreamTechnical storiesNo commentsGenerally, when you hear “water use” and “sustainability,” you expect those words to be followed by some bad news. Humanity’s enduring ability to ignore the math of declining water supplies is almost impressive. But there are cases where actions have successfully reversed our loss of water resources. A new paper in Science by Scott Jasechko of the University of California, Santa Barbara, examines documented cases of groundwater recovery around the world to identify which strategies have worked.
Groundwater is invaluable for many reasons. For one, it’s (usually) cleaner than surface water. It’s also right under your feet and often close enough to the surface that it doesn’t take much energy to pump it up. And there’s loads of it down there, no matter the season. Because of this, humans use a lot of it for drinking water, agriculture, and every other use you can think of.
Unfortunately, in many places, the rate of groundwater use has grown to exceed the rate at which precipitation soaks into the ground to replenish it.
Monday, March 23, 2026LiveStream but Only for These Devices, Samsung Now Officially Supports AirDrop, LifehackerNo commentsWe may earn a commission from links on this page.
Back in November, Google made a stunning announcement: Quick Share was suddenly compatible with Apple's AirDrop. At the time, the compatibility was limited to the Pixel 10, but no matter: Google had just made history, transforming the sharing features from platform-specific to cross-platform.
While AirDrop and Quick Share have long been the most convenient ways to share large files between devices, it only worked if you and your friend were on the same OS. That limitation introduces some inconvenient friction, but, as support cross-platform expands, that friction is easing up. Google first announced plans for greater AirDrop compatibility in Quick Share last month, when Android Vice President of Engineering Eric Kay noted, "[i]n 2026, we're going to be expanding [Airdrop support] to a lot more devices."
While there's no official timeline on which devices will gain support and when, Nothing has said it is "exploring" adding it, while Qualcomm "can't wait" to add the feature to its Snapdragon chips. However, we do now know one Android device that will support AirDrop very soon: the Samsung Galaxy S26.
Samsung made the news official on March 22 (technically Monday, March 23 in Korea). At launch, AirDrop support will only work on the Galaxy S26 series, including the Galaxy S26, Galaxy S26 Plus, and Galaxy S26 Ultra. That's a bummer for Galaxy S25 users and earlier, but it is possible Samsung will expand support in time. After all, Google started rolling out AirDrop support for Pixel 9 devices late last month.
If you do have a Galaxy S26 device, this feature is live right now—if you live in Korea. Samsung says the feature will be rolling out to the U.S. later this week, but as of this writing, the update is only available to Galaxy users in Korea. (I'll update this piece when Samsung releases the update for those of us in the U.S.)
If you have an S26, and the update has rolled out to you, you just need to head to Settings > Software update (or System updates), then hit "Download and install," "Check for system updates," or "Check for software updates," depending on your device.
Then, once your phone has the update, you'll need to manually enable AirDrop support for Quick Share—it won't just appear on your phone. To do so, head to Settings > Connected devices > Quick Share, then toggle on the new "Share with Apple devices" option.
If you tap the option itself, you'll find a full description of the feature, which you may or may not already know: The recipient needs to have their iPhone's AirDrop settings set to "Everyone," and when you want to receive a file, you need to open Quick Share on your end. Samsung says your phone may temporarily disconnect from wifi when looking for or sharing to other iPhones.
