How-To Geek

A Player Cameo In Which Nintendo Game Remained Largely Unknown For Over A Decade?

1. Final Fantasy VII
2. Contra
3. The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
4. Mario Kart

Think you know the answer?

Rawpixel.com/Shutterstock

You want to encourage your kids to be more inquisitive about the world, right? Of course, you do! Getting them interested in STEM subjects is one of the best ways of getting their gray matter ticking, while also teaching them some valuable skills for later life. Here are the best science-based subscription boxes for your offspring.

Each of these boxes is a fun collection of scientific projects that inspire your child to become creative problem solvers. They’ll educate them without them even realizing it. Plus, it’s an awesome gift to get in the mail on a regular basis. Here’s our pick of the bunch.

Best For Variety: KiwiCo ($16.95 per month to $19.95 per month) KiwiCo

KiwiCo is a great place for subscription boxes for all age groups. From the moment your child is born, the Tadpole crate provides them with plenty of fun with that being expanded upon as they grow up. While the Kiwi Crates and Eureka Crates are awesome for some scientific fun, it’s the Tinker Crate that stands out most here.

Aimed at 9 to 16 year olds, kids are given everything they need to complete a cool science project each month. The box contains all the materials, along with a blueprint step-by-step instruction guide, and a Tinker Zine that suggests additional experiments and activities to join in with.

Projects include fun with slime, making dioramas or light systems, and learning to make a small rocket. It’s really varied so your kid won’t get bored.

Month by month subscriptions cost $19.95 per month with a 12-month subscription working out at the equivalent of $16.95 per month.

Subscribe to KiwiCo Best For Independent Learning: Spangler Science Club ($19.99 to $29.99 per month) Spangler

Some science subscription boxes require input from you—the capable adult—to help your child get going with their project, no matter what the age of your child is. The Spangler Science Club subscription box promises that minimal adult supervision is required except for the very youngest age group, and that aligns well with parent experiences with the different boxes.

Aimed at 5 to 12 year olds, the box contains everything your child needs to complete up to 5 simple but cool projects. Your kid gets to experiment with lots of things to do with physics and chemistry, in a way that doesn’t even feel like learning. Alongside the projects however are details on the real science behind everything so, in no time, your child will appreciate the importance of science in everyday life.

For $19.99 per month, you can get the STEMLab box which includes up to 5 projects each month. Alternatively, for $29.99 per month, you can subscribe to the STEMDeluxe box which contains up to 10 experiments. Be warned though—these are more complex so typically require more adult assistance.

Subscribe to Spangler Science Club Best For Encouraging Critical Thinking: Groovy Lab in a Box ($24.95 per month to $29.95 per month) Groovy Lab in a Box

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Philips

When you think of a smarthome, you might envision the interior with color-changing lights, smart plugs, and voice assistants, but don’t forget about your yard and patio. You can bring your smarthome outdoors in some fun and useful ways.

The Great Outdoors Can Be Smarter Too

Once you have your home’s smart devices set up, voice assistants trained, and automation created there’s still more you can do. Your smarthome doesn’t have to stay outside—it can expand into your yard, whether you’re playing in the backyard, hosting a cookout, or putting up Christmas decorations. With plugs, lights, and battery add-ons, your outdoors can be just as smart as the inside of your home.

Outdoor Smart Plugs Are A Simple Way to Automate Many Things iClever

Whether you need to plug in Christmas and Halloween decorations or lights, a smart outdoor plug is a great way to add intelligence to anything you might plug in outside. Outdoor smart plugs come in several varieties, whether that means Z-wave, Homekit, or Wi-Fi.

The thing to pay attention to is whether the plug has one outlet or two. If it has two, you will always want to double check whether both are smart. With some outdoor outlets, the second port is passthrough only. It’s effectively the same as any other outlet in your home, and you can’t control or automate it.

If you have a fountain, pool filtration system, or landscape lighting to which you’d like to add automation, outdoor smart plugs are ideal as well, in part because they are water resistant. Just keep in mind that whatever you connect to a smart outlet has to be “on” at all times to work well. You’ll turn off the device by turning off the outlet.

Outdoor Lights Provide Color For All Your Nights Philips

You shouldn’t grab just any hue bulb and stick it in your porch light. But companies like Philips do make smart lights intended for outdoor use. The benefit is that you get automation (such as turning on at sunset and off at sunrise), and depending on the bulb you choose, colors that change. It’s handy to have lights that turn off or on depending on the time of day or change color with the weather.

Smart bulbs will liven up an outdoor party that winds into the night, providing your neighbors don’t mind the music and light show. An outdoor strip light, like the one offered by Philips, can light your walkway and be keyed to time and motion.

Take Your Assistant With You With a Battery Add-On Ninety7

Other than the Amazon Tap (which Amazon now only sells in refurbished form), Google and Alexa devices are designed for indoor use first, including tethering them to a plug. But if you don’t want to buy a Tap to supplement your existing devices, you could consider battery packs the speakers you do have. Battery packs exist for both Google and Alexa devices, and once you plug these them in and charge them, then you can take your Google Home or Echo outside with you.

If you bring two or three, you can take advantage of multi-room speaker capabilities to add overall volume. In addition to music, you’ll have all your usual voice commands to control your smart devices, including the smart plugs and lights you have outside.

Use Mesh to Strengthen Your Smarthome Network Outside Samsung

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Which Consumer Product Maintained An Unusually Stable Price For Almost A Century?

1. Razor Blades
2. Blank CDs
3. Coca-Cola
4. Automobiles

Think you know the answer?

Josh Henderickson

Microsoft stopped making fitness band products years ago, but it continued to support existing users. Now, that support is ending as Microsoft shuts down its online Dashboard and apps. But there’s a silver lining—refunds of up to $175 for active users.

If you thought the Microsoft Band was already dead, that’s more than understandable. Microsoft stopped making the fitness products and removed all traces of it from the Microsoft Store in 2016. But for existing users, the service and apps still worked great for workouts, exercise, and sleep tracking. And the Health Dashboard provided incredibly detailed insights into goals and progress.

The Dashboard even still provided planned workout sessions from Gold’s Gym, Men’s Fitness, and more. Despite the lack of new features, the Microsoft Band still worked very well for a fitness tracker, and it made a decent smartwatch with apps, text capabilities, and more.

Unfortunately for active Band users, that’s all coming to an end. Microsoft has announced it will shut down the Dashboard and remove the related Health apps from the iOS and Android store on 5/31/2019. After that point, it will be impossible to download your data, set up new workout routines, or even configure Microsoft Band if you factory reset it.

Users have until that date to download any data they would like to keep with the Dashboard’s export tools. More importantly—and, if we’re being honest, the real reason you’re still reading—if you’re an active Band user, there’s a chance for a refund.

Who’s eligible? Anyone who has performed a data sync between 12/1/2018 and 3/1/2019 is eligible for a refund. Additionally, if your limited warranty is still valid, you may qualify for a refund. If you have an original Microsoft Band, you can receive $79.00, and Band 2 owners will receive $175.

Microsoft says it will email eligible users, and you have to claim the refund by 8/30/2019 or you’ll lose out. So keep an eye on your inbox.

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If you’re sending an email on behalf of someone else, you might want people to reply to that person instead of you. Microsoft Outlook gives you the option to choose a different default Reply address to cover this situation.

Once you’ve created your mail, switch to the “Options” tab and then click the “Direct Replies To” button. (Depending on your version of Outlook, you might need to click File > Properties instead.)

Once the Properties window opens, change the address in the “Have replies sent to” box from your address to the address (or addresses, if there is more than one) to which you want replies sent.

Click the “Close” button and then send the mail as usual.

When the recipient receives the mail and clicks “Reply” or “Reply All,” Outlook will automatically fill in the address you’ve chosen. This won’t stop them changing it back to your address (or anyone else’s)—just like a normal email—but it will make it obvious tp whom they are supposed to reply.

If you use “OK Google” to invoke the Assistant on your phone, things are about to change. Google is removing the “Unlock with Voice Match” feature, so the Assistant is going to get a lot more secure.

Currently, if you use the “Unlock with Voice Match” feature, you can completely unlock your phone with Google Assistant just by saying “OK Google.” While convenient, this is also a pretty big security risk—your voice isn’t exactly the best way to verify that you are, well, you. If someone else’s voice is similar enough to your own, then they can easily use this to unlock your phone and gain full access to it.

But now, Google is removing that feature from all Android phones. It started with the Pixel 3 and 3 XL, but confirmed that this would also get canned on all other Android devices in the future—a future that has apparently arrived. The Moto X and Pixel XL are the first devices to lose this functionality, so it shouldn’t be too much longer before it’s removed on others, too.

Of course, with this increase in security, you’ll also get a loss in functionality. Anything that would require you to unlock your phone—like sending a text message, for example—will no longer be an option. It’s sort of a bummer, no doubt, but it’s a tradeoff that’s worthwhile.

Without the Voice Unlock feature, Assistant will be limited to “personal results” only. According to 9to5Google, This includes:

• Email, including personal results from Gmail, like flight reservations and bills
• Google Calendar
• Contacts
• Reminders
• Memory aids
• Shopping lists

Anything more will require the phone to be unlocked before proceeding. Similarly, you’ll no longer be able to tap the home button to go directly home after calling up the Assistant—you’ll have to unlock the phone with your PIN, pattern, passwords, or biometric verification first.

9to5Google via Engadget

Amazon

If you’re a fan of Amazon Dash Buttons, then prepare yourself for bad news. Amazon ordered a swift death to Dash Buttons, and it came with prime shipping—Amazon says Dash Buttons aren’t needed thanks to Alexa shopping.

Amazon Dash Buttons were always a curiosity. For $5, Amazon would send you a branded button (like Tide or Glad) to stick on your refrigerator, washing machine, or other convenient location. Pressing the button would automatically order a set product at today’s prices, and your first order was $5 off, making the button essentially free. If it were a Tide button, you’d get Tide Laundry detergent; a Glad Button ordered trash bags, and so on. The downside was if the cost of Tide increased without warning you wouldn’t know.

It didn’t take long for people to hack the buttons either; it wasn’t difficult to intercept the Dash Button signal and repurpose it. Enterprising users reconfigured Dash Buttons to send text messages, control smart devices, order pizza and more. Amazon even took notice and start selling an official IOT Button, albeit at a higher cost and with less capability.

Physical Dash Buttons are no more though. Amazon confirmed in a statement that it will no longer sell the buttons. Existing buttons will continue to be supported, and virtual buttons are still available through your Amazon account, but if your physical Dash Button dies that’s it.

IOT Buttons are still available to purchase, however. Amazon gave several reasons for the move, including the increasing use of Alexa Shopping.

In a statement, Amazon explains:

Since the introduction of the Dash program, we’ve continued to work on making the shopping experience convenient and easy, and in some cases, even disappear for customers. With Dash Replenishment, we’ve launched hundreds of devices globally that automatically reorder essentials so customers don’t have to think at all about restocking. And we introduced virtual Dash Buttons, which are available digitally — whether online, in the Amazon App, through screened devices like Echo Show or on third party devices. We’ve also seen customers increasingly using programs like Alexa Shopping, which provides a hands free shopping experience, and Subscribe & Save, which lets customers automatically receive their favorite items every month. With this in mind, we’ve decided to shift the Dash program focus — as of February 28, Dash Button devices are no longer available for purchase on Amazon globally. Existing Dash Button customers can continue to use their Dash Button devices. We look forward to continuing support for our customers’ shopping needs, including growing our Dash Replenishment product line-up

What Amazon isn’t mentioning is that Germany ruled the Dash Buttons illegal just last month. While Amazon had promised to fight the ruling, it would seem that’s unnecessary now.

via GeekWire

Amazon

Microsoft’s line of Surface devices has redefined the word “tablet.” These powerful tablets and their detachable keyboards can be expensive but now’s your chance to grab a setup for $260 off the regular price.

In the world of portable computers, the Surface tablet has been a catalyst for change. It’s a powerful machine that can be used for work or play, yet it’s a lot more portable than any traditional laptop or netbook. Apple users have the iPad Pro, but in the world of Windows, the Surface Pro tablet is the king.

Surface Pro tablets are known for their balance of power and portability. They have responsive touch-screens, long battery life, and premium detachable keyboards. Right now, you can buy a basic Surface Pro tablet with a soft detachable keyboard for just $799 from Amazon. That’s a fat $260 discount on a great little computer.

And this isn’t the basic model of the Surface Pro 6. No, this is the more powerful Intel Core i5 model, with 8GB of RAM and 128 GB of solid-state storage. It has a 12.3″ touch screen, and it’s bundled with the platinum “type cover—the soft keyboard that everybody loves. Seriously, it’s a luxurious keyboard.

It’s nice to get $260 off of any device, especially the Surface Pro tablet. The keyboard that’s bundled with it is just icing on the cake. Just keep in mind that good deals can’t last forever, so don’t wait too long to grab this deal.

Buy on Amazon

Best Buy

It may be time to ditch your grimy old earbuds; Best Buy is selling some stylish, wireless Beats Solo3 headphones in Matte Gold for $150—half of the normal price. This is the best price we’ve seen on these headcans yet.

Right now, you can buy a pair of Matte Gold Beats Solo3 headphones from Best Buy for just $150. As icing on the cake, Best Buy is throwing in 3 free months of Apple Music with every Beats Solo3 sale. This is the absolute best deal that we’ve seen for Beats headphones ($10 cheaper than last time), so if you’re trying to ditch a dirty old pair of cans, now might be the best time to make a move.

Let’s get you up to speed on these new Beats headphones: they’re completely wireless so you connect them to a phone or computer via Bluetooth. Since the Beats Solo3 headphones have a built-in microphone, they’re great for hands-free calls. The Solo3 headphones have 40 hours of battery life, so you can theoretically wear them for a normal person work week without charging them.

Of course, all of these features are secondary to the sound quality of Beats headphones and the famous flashy branding. A pair of Beats Solo3 headphones at half price—that’s a crazy deal, and it won’t last forever. Keep in mind that Best Buy is only discounting the matte gold color of these headphones. If you want a different color, you’re going to have to put down some extra cash.

Buy at BestBuy

Arlo

We like Arlo’s wireless camera system so much we included it in our 2018 gift guide. If you’re looking to add more power to your Arlo cameras, Best Buy has the Arlo Security Lights for $99. That’s a whopping $180 off.

If you’re not familiar with Arlo, it’s known for wireless cameras at a cost lower than Nest. One of Arlo’s advantages is the use of Z-Wave across cameras, security lights, and doorbells, which means the devices can be spread across your house and still communicate.

Z-Wave products can form a mesh network and then reach back to a bridge for communication with other compatible products. Z-Wave also generally use less battery power than Wi-Fi devices.

That gives Arlo’s security lights a distinct advantage, as they can run off rechargeable batteries, so you won’t need to run wiring. They’re also weather resistant, so they’re primed for outdoor use. Additionally, the lights can send mobile alerts if activated, and if you have Arlo cameras, the security lights will wake up your cameras and tell them to start recording. That said, you don’t need Arlo cameras these security lights.

One drawback is the cost of their security lights—usually, a two-pack of security lights with two batteries and a bridge goes for $230 on Amazon.

But Best Buy has that beat today with a pretty fantastic deal. You’ll get two lights, three batteries (one as a spare!) and the bridge for $99. That’s less than half the cost, and you get a spare battery.

If you’ve been thinking about adding security lights to your home, now’s the time to act.

Buy at BestBuy

Apple’s focus on health doesn’t end with the Apple Watch. The Health app on your iPhone is a treasure trove of information, but some of it can be hard to find. Why not set up favorites to make it more accessible?

Third-party apps and the Apple Watch itself feed data right into Health, so it’s probably been quietly collecting mountains of data without you really noticing. That’s great, but the Health app isn’t exactly Apple’s most user-friendly creation. Instead of digging around for details, you can add your favorite information to the app’s Today screen. Want to know how long you meditated? How high your blood pressure was? How far you walked? Add it all as a favorite and set up a custom health dashboard you’ll actually use.

Adding Health Data to the Health App Today Screen

Adding any type of data you wish to the Today screen is super easy. First, open the Health app and tap “Health Data” at the bottom of the screen.

Next, find the type of data that you want to add to the Today screen. In our example, we’re going to use Mindful Minutes by tapping “Mindfulness.”

Now, tap “Mindful Minutes.”

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Android gives users a whole lot of customization options, some of which are useful for everyone, while others are just for power users. One of these lower level settings is the Access Point Name—better known as the APN.

The APN is something most users won’t need to worry about. You pop your SIM card into your phone, maybe reboot it, and it connects to your carrier’s network. You’ll be able to make calls, send messages, browse dank memes, and other important things. But, if you still mess around with custom ROMs, or you’re using an MVNO, you may find that things don’t work automatically.

What is an Access Point Name (APN)?

The APN is all the information your phone uses to connect with your carrier’s network. It lists the address your phone uses to connect to the network, the ports used to handle Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) messages, the type of data that particular APN uses, and other pieces of information to make sure your phone works correctly.

Some of the settings—-like “APN Type”—could be optional, and your phone will still work without it being 100% correct. Others like “MMSC” and “APN” are much more important, and your phone won’t function if they aren’t entered correctly.

Thankfully, most phones have the APN for common carriers built-in, so all you need to do is put your SIM card in and let your phone work its magic. This extends to some prepaid carriers as well: I use Mint Mobile, which runs on T-Mobile’s network. When I pop my SIM into my Google Pixel 2 XL or my Samsung Galaxy S8, it just works. The phones already have the APN, and it knows which one to load to connect to a given network.

How To Add or Change Your APN

On the off chance that you do need to change your APN settings, it’s fairly easy to do. Start by opening the Settings app on your phone. The exact label of the menu will vary, but tap on whichever menu handles your network settings. On the Pixel 2 XL running Android 9.0, this is labeled as “Network & internet.” Then, tap “Mobile network.”

Tap “Advanced.” Scroll to the bottom of the menu, then select “Access Point Names.”

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Josh Hendrickson

Power bricks are often so big they partially cover adjoining outlets and make it difficult to plug all your gear onto a single power strip. Here are our favorite solutions for dealing with chunky plugs.

It almost seems like every company is a part of a secret competition to see who can make the biggest power brick, which leads to consumers trying to find creative ways to plug all of them in like you’re trying to put together a jigsaw puzzle. The jigsaw metaphor feels particularly appropriate when different plugs have different plug-prong orientations that result in long narrow plugs covering multiple outlets on the strip. Overall it’s a pretty frustrating experience just about anyone can relate to.

A Word of Caution

Before we dive deep into some awesome solutions for your power bricks, a word of caution is in order before you go plugging everything you own into your new power strip.

Just because you can plug a whole bunch of stuff into a single outlet, doesn’t mean that you should. An electrical circuit can only handle so much current, and if you end up plugging a bunch of power-hogging devices into the same outlet, there’s a good chance you’ll overload the circuit and trip the breaker. Or even worse, start a fire.

So before you go crazy parking everything on one power strip, take stock on what devices you have and whether any of them use a lot of electricity (what you care about here is the watts used by each device on the strip. Stuff like a space heater or a gaming PC use a lot of energy. Stuff like a cellphone charger (even a whole power strip worth of them) uses very little energy. The real benefit to using these strips isn’t the ability to run 20 high-watt items simultaneously, but to plug all your gear in at once so you’re not crawling under your desk to unplug your printer so you can use your paper shredder.

Now, let’s get into our top picks for the best power strips to handle all those dumb power bricks.

Bestten 24-Outlet Heavy Duty Metal Power Strip ($48) Bestten

If you want a power strip with the most outlets, this Bestten 24-outlet power strip is your best bet.

It has an aluminum body, so it’s great for a garage or workshop where it’ll be exposed to some rough conditions, but it’s also perfect for casual usage in a home office where you need to plug in a bunch of stuff.

The outlets aren’t spaced apart to leave room for power bricks, but the nice thing is that there’s still plenty of space to plug in plenty of devices. So even if a power brick covers up adjacent outlets, you still have plenty of other outlets at your disposal.

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Keith Muratori/Shutterstock

Wireless HDMI products have been around for almost a decade, but they haven’t gained a lot of popularity. But how does Wireless HDMI work, and should you buy Wireless HDMI products for your home?

Wireless HDMI is an Alternative to HDMI Cables

HDMI cables have been the standard medium for transferring high definition video for more than a decade. But HDMI cables have some obvious drawbacks. A couple of unruly HDMI cables can turn your entertainment center into a rat’s nest, and they can restrict your cable box or game consoles to a single room.

You’ve probably guessed this by now, but Wireless HDMI is a wireless high definition video solution that can solve some of the problems associated with HDMI cables. You can clean up your entertainment center, broadcast a single video source to TV’s all over your house, or mirror the display from your phone or computer to your TV.

There are a lot of Wireless HDMI products on the market, and they’re all pretty easy to set up. You plug a transmitter into the HDMI port of a video source and a receiver into the HDMI port of a TV, and that’s all there is to it.

RELATED: The Best Wireless HDMI Products for a Tidy Media Center and Multi-Room Video

It’s Like Bluetooth, but for Video

Unlike screen mirroring applications like Apple AirPlay, Wireless HDMI doesn’t require a Wi-Fi connection. The transmitter that you plug into your video source sends out a microwave frequency, and the receiver that’s plugged into your display decodes that frequency into high definition video. Think of it like Bluetooth, but for video.

Some (but not all) Wireless HDMI products have built-in IR transmitters. These transmitters allow you to use TV remotes to control devices from far away. These IR transmitters are necessary for a lot of Wireless HDMI setups. After all, running from one room to another to change TV channels would be a pain in the butt.

Like any form of wireless transmission, Wireless HDMI is prone to obstruction. Most Wireless HDMI products work around the 5 GHz microwave frequency, which can get congested by Wi-Fi and cellphone signals. Thankfully, most new Wireless HDMI products use dynamic frequency selection to adjust to the least congested frequency in your home automatically.

Alexander_Evgenyevich/Shutterstock

But when it comes to Wireless HDMI, latency is an unavoidable form of obstruction. A video signal has to be encoded, transmitted, received, and decoded before it’s displayed. As a result, most Wireless HDMI products have a bit of lag.

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Alienware

When you’re shopping for a new monitor, you’ll be inundated with a lot of technical specs. And while things like the screen size and resolution are fairly obvious, there’s another important factor that isn’t: response time. Here’s how it works.

Response time is the time it takes your monitor to shift from one color to another. Usually, this is measured in terms of going from black to white to black again, in terms of milliseconds. A typical LCD response time is under ten milliseconds (10 ms), with some being as fast as one millisecond.

The exact method of measuring this statistic isn’t agreed upon: some manufacturers express it in terms of an LCD’s panel going black to white, or black to white to black, or more commonly “gray to gray.” That means going through the same full spectrum, but starting and ending on finer, more difficult gray values. In all cases, lower response times are better, because they cut down on image issues like blurring or “ghosting.”

The spec sheet for a Dell monitor. Note the difference between refresh rate and response time. Dell

Response time shouldn’t be confused with a monitor’s refresh rate. They sound similar, but the refresh rate is the number of times a screen displays a new image every second, expressed in Hertz. Most monitors use a 60 Hertz refresh rate, though some go higher—and higher is better. In contrast, for response time lower is better.

Why Do You Want a Low Response Time?

Most computer users won’t even be aware of the response time for their monitor or screen, because most of the time it doesn’t matter. For web surfing, writing an email or Word document, or editing photos, the delay between your screen shifting colors is so fast that you won’t even notice it. Even video, on modern computer monitors and televisions, usually doesn’t have a delay significant enough for the viewer to notice.

Fast-paced multiplayer games like Street Fighter benefit from low response times. Steam

The exception is gaming. For gamers, every single millisecond counts—the difference between winning and losing a fighting match, landing a long-range sniper shot, or even getting that perfect line in a racing game can indeed be a single millisecond. So for gamers who are looking for every possible competitive edge, a low refresh rate between 1 and 5 milliseconds is worth the expense of a more pricey, gaming-focused monitor.

What Kinds of Monitors Are the Fastest?

For your laptop or phone, you typically don’t have a choice for a low response time on the screen, though there are exceptions. But if you’re buying a new monitor for your gaming desktop, you’ll want the fastest panel you can afford.

At the time of writing, there are three different kinds of LCD panel that cover 99% of the monitors sold today.

• TN (Twisted Nematic) screen panels: Inexpensive, but generally have a poor color range. These are among the fastest on the market in terms of response time, and gaming monitors often choose less colorful TN panels to be faster.
• IPS (In-Plane Switching) screen panels: More expensive and with more accurate colors, IPS monitors are valued by graphic designers, photographers, video editors, and anyone for whom accurate colors are important. They have higher response times than TN panels, so are rarely marketed as “gaming” monitors.
• VA (Vertical Alignment) screen panels: A newer design that attempts to pair the fast response time of TN and the more accurate, vivid color of IPS. It’s something of a middle ground, but many gaming monitors are now made with VA panels that have refresh rates as low as one millisecond.

If you want a monitor that can keep up with even the fastest of games, get one with a TN or VA screen panel. IPS gaming monitors exist, but they’re rare and expensive, and still not as fast as the alternatives. You can usually find the panel type in the monitor’s specifications on the online listing, or on the box at a retail store.

What Are the Downsides of a Fast Response Time?

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The Jedi Archives Are Modeled After Which Earth-Based Library?

1. Boston Copley Public Library
2. The Library of Congress
3. Trinity College Library
4. Strahov Philosophical Hall

Think you know the answer?

Wyze

Wyze, the company behind some of the cheapest Wi-Fi cameras you can get, released a Q&A video recently with updates. While company employees meant to talk about new features, a few upcoming goodies from the company were hiding in plain sight.

Wyze cameras are an incredibly inexpensive way to purchase a host of Wi-Fi cameras. The basic Wyze Cam runs for $25, while the Wyze Cam Pan runs for $35. (While you can order direct from Wyze, you’ll pay the same after shipping.) They have Alexa integration, microSD capabilities and work off your existing Wi-Fi.

But Wyze knows it can’t solely exist off cameras forever, so while it’s already announced an outdoor camera, it turns out the company is already expanding into other areas of your smarthome.

In a video posted to YouTube, employees from Wyze answered several questions about upcoming features, and products (like Google Assistant integration and the aforementioned outdoor cam). They filmed the video as a walk and talk, giving ample view of the office, but apparently, they forgot to put away all the goodies first. (Or maybe they did it on purpose?)

If you pause at 2:15 to 2:18 you’ll see a box off to the left.

Wyze Youtube

With a closer look, it’s easy to see that this box is for a light bulb, and the Wyze logo is on the lid.

Wyze YouTube

There are no details to be had yet, but it seems likely that the Wyze bulb will run off Wi-Fi, in order to keep costs low. Low costs are their bread and butter, so it will be interesting to see what pricing point the Wyze bulb comes in at.

If you continue in the video, Wyze talks about another previously unannounced product, Wyze Sense. You’ve actually seen a component, the motion sensor, as it’s sitting right next to the Wyze light bulb in the above shot.

Wyze didn’t reveal any real details, but the FCC has already been testing components. According to a User Manual on file, Wyze Sense will use a bridge that connects to the USB port of existing Wyze Cams. The set seems to include a motion sensor and a contact sensor that would be suitable for windows or doors.

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The Phone app on your iPhone has a convenient “Favorites” section where you can find your most important contacts. Here’s how to choose which contacts appear here.

You can also set Do Not Disturb so that your favorite contacts can always reach you—even if other incoming phone calls won’t ring your iPhone. This can be vital in an emergency.

Favorites have been around since the very early days of the iPhone, but that likely means that you’ve forgotten that they exist. And that’s a real shame because this feature is so useful.

How to Add a Contact to Favorites

To add a contact to favorites, open the Phone app—the one with the green phone icon—and tap the “Favorites” button before tapping the “+” button in the top-left corner.

Next, find the contact that you want to add and tap their name.

You will now be shown all of the types of entries you can create for the contact you selected. Those include “Message,” “Call,” “Video,” and “Mail.” Tap the type of favorite you want to create. When tapped, that is the action that will be performed when the favorite is activated. For this how-to, let’s select “Message.”

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If you’ve been thinking about jumping on the Apple Watch train, you can do it today for a cheaper than ever before. Amazon is selling the white Watch Series 3 for just $220, which is $60 off the normal price.

This deal is only for a specific model, though: the white 38mm version of the Series 3. If you go for the Space Gray model, the price jumps to $250. Similarly, if you have a meaty wrist and ant the 42mm version, expect a price bump—by almost $100, in fact. That’s nuts.

The Series 3 Apple Watch has all of the features that you’d expect from a premium smartwatch. It mirrors notifications from your phone, monitors your heart rate, and helps you keep track of your fitness goals. You can also make calls or control Siri from the Apple watch, and of course, you can use it to check the time.

Keep in mind that Series 3 is the previous generation Apple Watch. If you want to perform ECGs, then you’ll need to wait for the Series 4 Apple Watch to go on sale.

As with any deal, you’ll want to buy this while you can. There are a lot of Apple fans out there, and they’re probably beating you to the deal at this very moment.

Buy on Amazon