The videos began to circulate on social media in early November: Ukrainian soldiers appearing to weep and surrender on the front lines

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The Fighting Irish take a stand, McDonald’s launches a holiday hit, and the Golden Globes’ new category snubs a major player.

The Justice Department is weighing how to bring federal charges against Charlie Kirk's alleged assassin, Tyler Robinson.

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President Donald Trump’s heated rhetoric against his perceived political enemies has resulted in a blizzard of threats against at least 22 officials on both sides of the aisle in recent weeks, according to an NBC News tally

The Post calls the podcast an "AI-powered tool" that turns its articles into an audio news digest.

(Image credit: The Washington Post)

Sacks is the Trump administration's top advisor on tech and crypto policy. In recent weeks, he's faced questions about conflicts of interest and criticism over his drive to undo state AI laws.

(Image credit: Brendan Smialowski)

Longtime Slashdot reader AmiMoJo shares a report from Clean Energy Wire: Renewable energy sources covered nearly 56 percent of Germany's gross electricity consumption in 2025, according to preliminary figures by energy industry group BDEW and research institute ZSW. Despite a 'historically weak' first quarter of the year for wind power production and a significant drop in hydropower output, the share of renewables grew by 0.7 percentage points compared to the previous year thanks to an increase in installed solar power capacity. Solar power output increased by 18.7 percent over the whole year, while the strong growth in installed capacity from previous years could be sustained, with more than 17 gigawatts (GW) added to the system. With March being the least windy month in Germany since records began in 1950, wind power output, on the other hand, faced a drop of 5.2 percent compared to 2024. However, stronger winds in the second and third quarter compensated for much of the early-year decrease. Onshore turbines with a capacity of 5.2 GW were added to the grid, a marked increase from the 3.3 GW in the previous year. Due to significantly less precipitation this year compared to 2024, hydropower output dropped by nearly one quarter (24.1%), while remaining only a fraction (3.2%) of total renewable power output.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A former Chinese official who fled to the U.S. says Beijing has used advanced surveillance technology from U.S. companies to track, intimidate, and punish him and his family across borders. ABC News reports: Retired Chinese official Li Chuanliang was recuperating from cancer on a Korean resort island when he got an urgent call: Don't return to China, a friend warned. You're now a fugitive. Days later, a stranger snapped a photo of Li in a cafe. Terrified South Korea would send him back, Li fled, flew to the U.S. on a tourist visa and applied for asylum. But even there -- in New York, in California, deep in the Texas desert -- the Chinese government continued to hunt him down with the help of surveillance technology. Li's communications were monitored, his assets seized and his movements followed in police databases. More than 40 friends and relatives -- including his pregnant daughter -- were identified and detained, even by tracking down their cab drivers through facial recognition software. Three former associates died in detention, and for months shadowy men Li believed to be Chinese operatives stalked him across continents, interviews and documents seen by The Associated Press show. The Chinese government is using an increasingly powerful tool to cement its power at home and vastly amplify it abroad: Surveillance technology, much of it originating in the U.S., an AP investigation has found. Within China, this technology helped identify and punish almost 900,000 officials last year alone, nearly five times more than in 2012, according to state numbers. Beijing says it is cracking down on corruption, but critics charge that such technology is used in China and elsewhere to stifle dissent and exact retribution on perceived enemies. Outside China, the same technology is being used to threaten wayward officials, along with dissidents and alleged criminals, under what authorities call Operations "Fox Hunt" and "Sky Net." The U.S. has criticized these overseas operations as a "threat" and an "affront to national sovereignty." More than 14,000 people, including some 3,000 officials, have been brought back to China from more than 120 countries through coercion, arrests and pressure on relatives, according to state information.

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Peter Greene, the actor known for playing villains and criminals, including in his role as Zed in "Pulp Fiction," died at his New York City home Friday, his manager confirmed.

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Google is testing out its new AI tool called "Learn Your Way," which turns educational texts into an interactive experience. NBC News' Gadi Schwartz talks to Google's Dr. Courtney Heldreth and tests out how the tool works.  

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NBC News' Steven Romo looks at recent online complaints about Apple's autocorrect following the latest software update and what role artificial intelligence may have in the situation.

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Democrats on the House Oversight committee released new photos obtained from Jeffrey Epstein’s estate. The photos show Epstein with a number of powerful men including President Trump, President Clinton, Woody Allen and Steve Bannon. The photos do not appear to show any illegal activity. NBC News’ Ryan Nobles reports.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Dozens of Ukrainian civilians filed a series of lawsuits in Texas this week, accusing some of the biggest US chip firms of negligently failing to track chips that evaded export curbs. Those chips were ultimately used to power Russian and Iranian weapon systems, causing wrongful deaths last year. Their complaints alleged that for years, Texas Instruments (TI), AMD, and Intel have ignored public reporting, government warnings, and shareholder pressure to do more to track final destinations of chips and shut down shady distribution channels diverting chips to sanctioned actors in Russia and Iran. Putting profits over human lives, tech firms continued using "high-risk" channels, Ukrainian civilians' legal team alleged in a press statement, without ever strengthening controls. All that intermediaries who placed bulk online orders had to do to satisfy chip firms was check a box confirming that the shipment wouldn't be sent to sanctioned countries, lead attorney Mikal Watts told reporters at a press conference on Wednesday, according to the Kyiv Independent. "There are export lists," Watts said. "We know exactly what requires a license and what doesn't. And companies know who they're selling to. But instead, they rely on a checkbox that says, 'I'm not shipping to Putin.' That's it. No enforcement. No accountability." [...] Damages sought include funeral expenses and medical costs, as well as "exemplary damages" that are "intended to punish especially wrongful conduct and to deter similar conduct in the future." For plaintiffs, the latter is the point of the litigation, which they hope will cut off key supply chains to keep US tech out of weapon systems deployed against innocent civilians. "They want to send a clear message that American companies must take responsibility when their technologies are weaponized and used to commit harm across the globe," the press statement said. "Corporations must be held accountable when its unlawful decisions made in the name of profit directly cause the death of innocents and widespread human suffering." For chip firms, the litigation could get costly if more civilians join, with the threat of a loss potentially forcing changes that could squash supply chains currently working to evade sanctions. "We want to make this process so expensive and painful that companies are forced to act," Watts said. "That is our contribution to stopping the war against civilians."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Chandler, Arizona unanimously rejected a proposed AI data center despite heavy lobbying from Big Tech interests and former Sen. Kyrsten Sinema. Politico reports: The Chandler City Council last night voted down a request by a New York developer to rezone land to build a data center and business complex. The local battle escalated in October after Sinema showed up at a planning commission meeting to offer public comment warning officials in her home state that federal authority may soon stomp on local regulations. "Chandler right now has the opportunity to determine how and when these new, innovative AI data centers will be built," she told local officials. "When federal preemption comes, we'll no longer have that privilege." Explaining her no vote, Chandler Vice Mayor Christine Ellis said that she had long framed her decision about the local benefits rather than the national push to build AI. She recalled a meeting with Sinema where she asked point-blank, "what's in it for Chandler?" "If you can't show me what's in it for Chandler, then we are not having a conversation," Ellis said before voting against the project. [...] The project, along with Sinema's involvement, attracted significant community opposition, with speakers raising concerns about whether the project would use too much water or raise power prices. Residents packed the council chambers, with many holding up signs reading "No More Data Centers." According to the city's planning office, more than 200 comments were filed against the proposal compared to just eight in favor.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Framework Computer raised DDR5 memory prices for its Laptop DIY Editions by 50% due to industry-wide memory shortages. Phoronix reports: Framework Computer is keeping the prior prices for existing pre-orders and also is foregoing any price changes for their pre-built laptops or the Framework Desktop. Framework Computer also lets you order DIY laptops without any memory at all if so desired for re-using existing modules or should you score a deal elsewhere. Due to their memory pricing said to be more competitive below market rates, they also adjusted their return policy to prevent scalpers from purchasing DIY Edition laptops with memory while then returning just the laptops. The DDR5 must be returned now with DIY laptop order returns. Additional details can be found via the Framework Blog.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

id Software employees voted to form a wall-to-wall union with the CWA, covering all roles at the Doom studio. "The vote wasn't unanimous, though a majority did vote in favor of the union," notes Engadget. From the report: The union will work in conjunction with the Communications Workers of America (CWA), which is the same organization involved with parent company ZeniMax's recent unionization efforts. Microsoft, who owns ZeniMax, has already recognized this new effort, according to a statement by the CWA. It agreed to a labor neutrality agreement with the CWA and ZeniMax workers last year, paving the way for this sort of thing. From the onset, this union will look to protect remote work for id Software employees. "Remote work isn't a perk. It's a necessity for our health, our families, and our access needs. RTO policies should not be handed down from executives with no consideration for accessibility or our well-being," said id Software Lead Services Programmer Chris Hays. He also said he looks forward to getting worker protections regarding the "responsible use of AI."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: The U.S. government will require artificial intelligence vendors to measure political "bias" to sell their chatbots to federal agencies, according to a Trump administration statement (PDF) released on Thursday. The requirement will apply to all large language models bought by federal agencies, with the exception of national security systems, according to the statement. President Donald Trump ordered federal agencies in July to avoid buying large language models that he labeled as "woke." Thursday's statement gives more detail to that directive, saying that developers should not "intentionally encode partisan or ideological judgments" into a chatbot's outputs. Further reading: Trump Signs Executive Order For Single National AI Regulation Framework, Limiting Power of States

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The pro-Russian CyberVolk group resurfaced with a Telegram-based ransomware-as-a-service platform, but fatally undermined its own operation by hardcoding master encryption keys in plaintext. The Register reports: First, the bad news: the CyberVolk 2.x (aka VolkLocker) ransomware-as-a-service operation that launched in late summer. It's run entirely through Telegram, which makes it very easy for affiliates that aren't that tech savvy to lock files and demand a ransom payment. CyberVolk's soldiers can use the platform's built-in automation to generate payloads, coordinate ransomware attacks, and manage their illicit business operations, conducting everything through Telegram. But here's the good news: the ransomware slingers got sloppy when it came time to debug their code and hardcoded the master keys -- this same key encrypts all files on a victim's system -- into the executable files. This could allow victims to recover encrypted data without paying the extortion fee, according to SentinelOne senior threat researcher Jim Walter, who detailed the gang's resurgence and flawed code in a Thursday report.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

There’s a new Haiku monthly activity report, and this one’s a true doozy. Let’s start with the biggest news.

The most notable development in November was the introduction of a port of the Go programming language, version 1.18. This is still a few years old (from 2022; the current is Go 1.25), but it’s far newer than the previous Go port to Haiku (1.4 from 2014); and unlike the previous port which was never in the package repositories, this one is now already available there (for x86_64 at least) and can be installed via pkgman.

↫ Haiku activity report

As the project notes, they’re still a few versions behind, but at least it’s a lot more modern of an implementation than they had before. Now that it’s in the repositories for Haiku, it might also attract more people to work on the port, potentially bringing even newer versions to the BeOS-inspired operating system. Welcome as it may be, this new Go port isn’t the only big ticket item this month.

Haiku can now gracefully recover from an app_server crash, something it used to be able to do a long time ago, but which was broken for a long time. The app_server is Haiku’s display server and window manager, so the ability to restart it at runtime after a crash, and have it reconnect with still-running applications, is incredibly welcome. As far as I can tell, all modern operating systems can do this by now, so it’s great to have this functionality restored in Haiku.

Of course, aside from these two big improvements, there’s the usual load of fixes and changes in applications, drivers, and other components of the operating system.

Phoebe Gates, Bill Gates' youngest daughter, has raised $30 million for the AI shopping app she built in her Stanford dorm room with classmate Sophia Kianni. The app is called Phia and is pitched as a way to simplify price comparison and secondhand shopping. "Its AI-powered search engine -- available as an app and as a browser extension for Chrome and Safari -- pulls listings from more than 40,000 retail and resale sites so users can compare prices, surface real-time deals, and determine whether an item's cost is typical, high or fair," reports the San Francisco Chronicle. The app has reached 750,000 downloads in eight months and is valued at $180 million. From the report: Gates told Elle that when she first floated the idea to her parents, they urged her to keep it as a side project -- advice she followed by enrolling in Stanford's night program after moving to New York and finishing her degree in 2024. "They were like, 'Okay, you can do this as a side thing, but you need to stay in school.' I don't think people would expect that from my family, to be honest," she said. Her father dropped out of Harvard University in 1975 to launch Microsoft. Kianni even paused her degree temporarily "to learn, as quickly as possible, as much as we could about the industry that we would be operating in," she told Vogue. Bill Gates has not invested in the company, though he has publicly supported its mission.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Alpine Linux maintainer Ariadne Conill has published a very interesting blog post about the shortcomings of both sudo and doas, and offers a potential different way of achieving the same goals as those tools.

Systems built around identity-based access control tend to rely on ambient authority: policy is centralized and errors in the policy configuration or bugs in the policy engine can allow attackers to make full use of that ambient authority. In the case of a SUID binary like doas or sudo, that means an attacker can obtain root access in the event of a bug or misconfiguration.

What if there was a better way? Instead of thinking about privilege escalation as becoming root for a moment, what if it meant being handed a narrowly scoped capability, one with just enough authority to perform a specific action and nothing more? Enter the object-capability model.

↫ Ariadne Conill

To bring this approach to life, they created a tool called capsudo. Instead of temporarily changing your identity, capsudo can grant far more fine-grained capabilities that match the exact task you’re trying to accomplish. As an example, Conill details mounting and unmounting – with capsudo, you can not only grant the ability for a user to mount and unmount whatever device, but also allow the user to only mount or unmount just one specific device. Another example given is how capsudo can be used to give a service account user to only those resources the account needs to perform its tasks.

Of course, Conill explains all of this way better than I ever could, with actual example commands and more details. Conill happens to be the same person who created Wayback, illustrating that they have a tendency to look at problems in a unique and interesting way. I’m not smart enough to determine if this approach makes sense compared to sudo or doas, but the way it’s described it does feel like a superior, more secure solution.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Google has increasingly moved toward keeping features locked to its hardware products, but the Translate app is bucking that trend. The live translate feature is breaking out of the Google bubble with support for any earbuds you happen to have connected to your Android phone. The app is also getting improved translation quality across dozens of languages and some Duolingo-like learning features. The latest version of Google's live translation is built on Gemini and initially rolled out earlier this year. It supports smooth back-and-forth translations as both on-screen text and audio. Beginning a live translate session in Google Translate used to require Pixel Buds, but that won't be the case going forward. Google says a beta test of expanded headphone support is launching today in the US, Mexico, and India. The audio translation attempts to preserve the tone and cadence of the original speaker, but it's not as capable as the full AI-reproduced voice translations you can do on the latest Pixel phones. Google says this feature should work on any earbuds or headphones, but it's only for Android right now. The feature will expand to iOS in the coming months. [...] The new translation model, which is also available in the search-based translation interface, supports over 70 languages.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A deal to sell TikTok has remained elusive, despite earlier claims that a deal was done.

Some unexpected good news from the FDA: bemotrizinol, a sunscreen ingredient that has been used in Europe and Asia for decades, is finally being added to the allowable ingredients list for products sold in the U.S. Bemotrizinol is the active ingredient in sunscreens like Bioré Watery Essence, which has a cult following for being unlike anything we can get in the U.S.

I’ve tried Bioré UV Aqua Rich Watery Essence (that’s the full name of the product) in its original Japanese formulation. This sunscreen is a cult favorite on skincare and Asian beauty forums because of its non-greasy feel, and because it protects against both UVA and UVB rays without leaving a white cast. I got mine from a friend who had either picked it up while traveling or possibly ordered from overseas; you can’t buy it in U.S.-based stores. 

I’ll explain why this is below, but first: it truly is nothing like anything we have locally. Even our most “non-greasy” sunscreens tend to feel a little goopy or sticky. This one really feels like nothing after you rub it in. I instantly understood why it’s so sought-after. Remembering that experience, I’m looking forward to what we might see in American sunscreens once manufacturers are allowed to include this ingredient. 

What’s so special about bemotrizinol?

Bemotrizinol has a lot of things going for it. One is that it “plays well with other sunscreen ingredients,” as one dermatologist told Women’s Health. You can make lighter, nicer-feeling sunscreens with it, hence the popularity of the Bioré formulation I tried. To see what I mean, check out this video where a dermatologist shows off the differences between Bioré's Japanese formulation and the version it sells in the U.S. The ingredients are different, and the texture just isn't the same.

It’s also more effective at broad-spectrum protection. With our current sunscreen formulations, all active ingredients protect against UVB rays (the rays that cause sunburn) but only a few can also provide protection against UVA rays (which contribute to wrinkling and aging of skin). UVB is considered to be the bigger risk for skin cancer, but both probably contribute to cancer risk. Right now, most broad-spectrum U.S. sunscreens use mineral components like zinc oxide. Mineral sunscreens work pretty well, but can leave a white cast on your skin when applied as thickly as you’re supposed to. 

Bemotrizinol is a chemical UV filter, so it doesn’t leave that white cast. But it protects well against UVA rays in addition to UVB, and it’s more photostable than a lot of our existing chemical sunscreen ingredients so it can last longer on the skin. In other words, it’s a chemical sunscreen, but combines some of the best features of both chemical and mineral sunscreens. 

It’s also considered to be one of the safest sunscreens. All sunscreens on the market are much safer than going without sunscreen, but all of our chemical sunscreen ingredients are currently undergoing a safety evaluation because regulators determined they are probably fine but need more research to know for sure. Currently only our two mineral sunscreen ingredients (zinc oxide and titanium dioxide) are considered GRAS, or generally recognized as safe and effective. Bemotrizinol will be the third.

If you're looking at ingredient lists on Asian or European sunscreens, be aware that it goes by several names. Tinosorb S is bemotrizinol; so is bis-ethylhexyloxyphenol methoxyphenyl triazine.

Why it’s taken so long

Ask anyone in the skincare world what they think about U.S. sunscreens, and for decades now you’d get complaints that we’re missing out on the best sunscreens that the rest of the world uses. (Our last new sunscreen ingredient was approved in 1996.) In most countries, sunscreens are regulated as cosmetics, but in the U.S. they are regulated as drugs. That means the U.S. requires more rigorous testing and approval. 

The CARES act, passed in 2020 for pandemic relief, provided a way for over-the-counter drugs to be sold without going through the complete approval process, so long as the FDA was satisfied they were safe and effective. Bemotrizinol met the criteria, thanks in large part to the fact that it’s been used safely since 2000 in Europe, Asia, and Australia. The FDA’s rule on bemotrizinol still needs to be finalized, but it seems likely we’ll see new sunscreens on shelves before the end of 2026.

Once again, there is a new feature available on Google's NotebookLM, the AI tool that functions like a personal assistant and only references material you provide for it. This one is a slide deck generator, which can be useful if you need to make a presentation in a hurry, but I've been using it a little differently to help myself retain new information.

Generating a slide deck in NotebookLM

First, you should know how to generate a deck. In case you're unfamiliar with NotebookLM, it's basically just like ChatGPT, but instead of pulling answers from the big, wide Internet, it only relies on PDFs, links, videos, and text you input as resources. This makes it the perfect tool for working on a specific project or studying for a class, since you don't run the risk of inadvertently getting misled by some random, unrelated source.

You can use the chat bot feature the way you would ChatGPT, asking questions and getting summaries of your materials. You can also automatically generate flashcards, videos, infographics, mind maps, fake podcasts, and much more.

To generate slides, it's the same process you'd follow to make those: In the left-side panel, select all of the sources you want the tool to pull from. In the right-side panel, select Slide Deck from the menu. After a few minutes, you'll get slides you can download as a PDF, the same as you would if you were downloading a PowerPoint, and you can upload those to Google Slides or PowerPoint to create a simple presentation.

Why I like NotebookLM's slide deck feature

I've mentioned before that while I love NotebookLM and use it every day for both work and personal pursuits, I can't stand its app. It just doesn't work nearly as well as the browser version, which is a shame because the browser version works so well. I pretty much ignore the app and don't use NotebookLM on mobile or, when I do, I use my mobile browser to access it, which we all know is an annoying workaround that never quite translates right on the smaller screen.

With the slide PDF, however, I get a ready-made study guide complete with visuals, which I can send to myself via iMessage and study on the go. When I generate my own study materials without NotebookLM, I almost always do it in Google Slides, then download the full PDF and review the slides like a giant study guide, so this new feature is taking a bunch of the work out of doing that for me.

With the popularity of AI coding tools rising among some software developers, their adoption has begun to touch every aspect of the process, including the improvement of AI coding tools themselves.

In interviews with Ars Technica this week, OpenAI employees revealed the extent to which the company now relies on its own AI coding agent, Codex, to build and improve the development tool. “I think the vast majority of Codex is built by Codex, so it’s almost entirely just being used to improve itself,” said Alexander Embiricos, product lead for Codex at OpenAI, in a conversation on Tuesday.

Codex, which OpenAI launched in its modern incarnation as a research preview in May 2025, operates as a cloud-based software engineering agent that can handle tasks like writing features, fixing bugs, and proposing pull requests. The tool runs in sandboxed environments linked to a user’s code repository and can execute multiple tasks in parallel. OpenAI offers Codex through ChatGPT’s web interface, a command-line interface (CLI), and IDE extensions for VS Code, Cursor, and Windsurf.

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In August, Do Kwon pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud and wire fraud and apologised for his actions.

McDonald's said the moment served as "an important learning" as it explored "the effective use of AI".

A sale of insider shares at $421 a share would make Mr. Musk’s rocket company the most valuable private company in the world, as it readies for a possible initial public offering next year.

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NBC News Senior Homeland Security Correspondent Julia Ainsley reports on the turmoil within the Department of Homeland Security over implementing President Trump’s immigration agenda.

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INDIANAPOLIS — As the redistricting battle began to pick up steam in Indiana last month, state Sen.

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Judge Paula Xinis of the U.S. District Court in Maryland ordered Abrego be released immediately, citing a lack of a final order of removal for Abrego.

Independent video game Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 swept the Game Awards last night. The L.A. ceremony draws millions of views for its industry honors and exclusive previews of upcoming games.

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Whether you're a teacher, a parent, or just someone with a big family, you know how difficult it can be to keep a room full of kids quiet for any amount of time.

One trick I've used is offering to time how long kids can stay quiet. For reasons I don't understand, kids love it when something is being timed. But that only work a few times at the most, so it's good to have as many other tricks on hand as possible. That's why I was fascinated to learn there are multiple websites that use the microphone on your laptop to motivate kids to be quiet. Some put children's curiosity to work, having animated characters show up if the group is quiet for long enough. Others combine animation with good old-fashioned timers.

Here are a few you can check out—all of them are completely free and don't require anything more than your browser.

Silent Forest: Animals emerge if the room is quiet

Silent Forest shows a simple animated forest with a volume indicator. Stay silent for a bit and a cat shows up. A bit longer and a bear shows up. Who else might join? There's only one way to find out. Make too much noise, though, and you'll scare the animals, meaning you have to start over if you ever want to see everyone. The idea is that the kids will be curious to see which animals will show up next and keep quiet—and, ideally, pressure each other into staying quiet.

Bouncy Balls: Noise will disrupt the balls

Bouncy Balls fills your screen with balls—options include colored balls, emojis, numbered balls, eyeballs, and even bubbles. The balls are constantly vibrating, threatening to explode with a bit of noise—which they do. There's a risk of this backfiring—it's sincerely very fun to see the balls bounce—which you can mitigate by enabling a shushing or beeping sound after any violation.

Classroom Zen: Don't interrupt Ruby or Milo

Classroom Zen offers a few different tools for keeping the room quiet. Two feature Ruby, a cartoon who is meditating in either the mountains or the desert. If the room gets too loud, her eyes will start opening—keep going and she'll ask the room to be quiet. Another features Milo, a three-eyed monster who is trying to sleep.

The secret sauce here, though, is the timer at the top of the screen. This means you can tell the kids they need to be quiet for a certain amount of time and have a timer to enforce that.

Unix has been enormously successful over the past 55 years.

It started out as a small experiment to develop a time-sharing system (i.e., a multi-user operating system) at AT&T Bell Labs. The goal was to take a few core principles to their logical conclusion. The OS bundled many small tools that were easy to combine, as it was illustrated by a famous exchange between Donald Knuth and Douglas McIlroy in 1986. Today, Unix lives on mostly as a spiritual predecessor to Linux, Net/Free/OpenBSD, macOS, and arguably, ChromeOS and Android.

Usenet tells us about the height of its early popularity.

↫ Gábor Nyéki

There are so many amazing stories in this article, I honestly have no idea what to highlight. So first and foremost, I want you to read the whole thing yourself, as everyone’s bound to have their own personal favourite section that resonates the most. My personal favourite story from the article – which is just an aside, to illustrate that even the asides are great – is that when Australia joined Usenet in 1983, new posts to Usenet were delivered to the country by airmail. On magnetic tape. Once per week.

The overarching theme here is that the early days of UNIX, as documented on Usenet, were a fascinating wild west of implementations, hacks, and personalities, which, yes, clashed with each other, but also spread untold amounts of information, knowledge, and experience to every corner of the world. I hope Nyéki will write more of these articles.

Online retailer Coupang, often called South Korea's Amazon, is dealing with the fallout from a breach that exposed the personal information of more than 33 million accounts -- roughly two-thirds of the country's population -- after a former contractor allegedly used credentials that remained active months after his departure to access customer data through the company's overseas servers. The breach began in June but went undetected until November 18, according to Coupang and investigators. Police have called it South Korea's worst-ever data breach. The compromised information includes names, phone numbers, email addresses and shipping addresses, though the company says login credentials, credit card numbers, and payment details were not affected. Coupang's former CEO Park Dae-jun told a parliamentary hearing that the alleged perpetrator was a Chinese national who had worked on authentication tasks before his contract ended last December. Chief information security officer Brett Matthes testified that the individual had a "privileged role" giving him access to a private encryption key that allowed him to forge tokens to impersonate customers. Legislators say the key remained active after the employee left. The CEO of Coupang's South Korean subsidiary has resigned. Founder and chair Bom Kim has yet to personally apologize but has been summoned to a second parliamentary hearing.

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Recently, a few spots on the hardwood floors in my house have become mysteriously slippery—so slippery that they're kind of dangerous. I really feel like my feet might go out from under me when I walk there, and there were a few close calls before I started avoiding them (or at least bracing myself to walk over them more carefully).

This is no way to live, so I started looking into solutions, starting with the root cause.

Why your wood floors are suddenly slippery

Turns out it’s not uncommon for hardwood floors to become spontaneously slippery, and it can happen for a variety of reasons.

• Wax or polish: If you apply any kind of coating to give your floor extra shine, it can build up over time and turn the floor into an ice rink.

• Oil and silicone cleaning products: Some cleaning products that promise a shiny finish contain silicone or oil, which can also build up and turn your floors into a slip-n-slide.

• Dirt and humidity: Dirt, even the stuff you can’t see, can act as a dry lubricant, and high humidity can result in a moisture slick on the surface of the floors.

• Time: Finally, over time, all those feet walking over the floor can polish the finish, removing the microscopic imperfections that previously gave it some grip.

I don’t polish or wax my floors or use oil- or silicone-based cleaners, and I clean pretty regularly, so I discounted the first few causes and assumed that we’ve just polished the seal on our floors with regular foot traffic. This can happen to any sealed wood floor, but there are some pretty straightforward ways to deal with it.

Start with a thorough cleaning

The first step I took was a thorough cleaning. I clean my floors regularly, but it’s always possible that something spilled without being noticed—the spots where the slipperiness occurred are in the path from the kitchen to the dining room, and from my tool closet to everywhere else in the house. Cooking oils, WD40—there are a lot of things that could have dripped without being noticed. If you’re not sure about substance buildup on a slippery floor, a thorough cleaning might be the easy solution.

Always use a pH-neutral cleaner designed specifically for wood floors—and never use vinegar, even heavily diluted in water. Vinegar can eat away at the finish of your floor; while it might help with the slipperiness, it can also do some permanent damage. I used Bona Hardwood Floor Cleaner and cleaned the areas a few times, but my floors remained slippery.

Add some rugs

A simple solution, especially if you’re dealing with one or two isolated slippery spots, is to just throw down a rug or a runner with a non-slip backing. Your floors will still be slippery, but won’t pose any threat. If the slippery area is quite large (or encompasses your entire floor), this might not work because the rugs might just slide around with nothing to grip onto. But for a small slippery area, it might be a quick, easy solution.

Apply a temporary (or permanent) treatment

If cleaning and covering up your slippery floors won’t work, there are some more involved solutions to try:

• Anti-slip sprays. There are a variety of temporary anti-slip coating sprays you can apply to your floors, like Rustoleum AntiSlip or Slip Doctors Safety Spray. Although the Rustoleum spray is okay for indoor use and wood, it doesn’t specify hardwood floors, and in a quick test it looked slightly cloudy on a remnant plank I had lying around. The Safety Spray, on the other hand, dried very clear, and reduced the slip factor significantly, so I’d recommend it. It does change the sheen of the floor slightly (noticeable in the right light), but it’s also temporary and will need to be re-applied every year or so.

• Slip NoMor. This stuff is actually designed for stages and dance floors, but you can use it on any wood floor. I didn’t test this, but the procedure is pretty straightforward: Clean thoroughly first, and dilute it with one part Slip NoMor and 20 parts water. Then mop it on and let dry. The coating will only last a week or so (and you can remove it with hot water at any time), so it’s not a permanent solution unless you’re okay with re-applying every week or so.

• Coatings. A longer-lasting and more involved solution is to coat your floors with a clear anti-slip product like Floor Grip, Bona Anti-Slip, or Loba 2K Invisible. These are essentially new finish seals on your floors, and all require you to sand the floor before application and allow them to cure for several days. It’s a DIY solution if you’re comfortable doing the prep work, but it’s not a quick fix.

• Paint. If your wood floors are in good condition, this might not be a great idea—but if your floors are a bit worn down, painting them with an anti-slip additive can be a cheap, easy way to eliminate the problem.

As a last resort, refinish

If cleaning and temporary sprays don’t work and you’re considering a coating to fix your slippery floor, you might think about going all-in and having your floors professionally refinished with an anti-slip finish. This will ensure a consistent finish and refresh your floors in the process. It’s the most expensive and disruptive solution, but also the most permanent. Most professional refinishers can suggest an appropriate seal for your floors that will increase traction.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Amazon has quietly added a new AI feature to its Kindle iOS app -- a feature that "lets you ask questions about the book you're reading and receive spoiler-free answers," according to an Amazon announcement. The company says the feature, which is called Ask this Book, serves as "your expert reading assistant, instantly answering questions about plot details, character relationships, and thematic elements without disrupting your reading flow." Publishing industry resource Publishers Lunch noticed Ask this Book earlier this week, and asked Amazon about it. Amazon spokesperson Ale Iraheta told PubLunch, "The feature uses technology, including AI, to provide instant, spoiler-free answers to customers' questions about what they're reading. Ask this Book provides short answers based on factual information about the book which are accessible only to readers who have purchased or borrowed the book and are non-shareable and non-copyable." As PubLunch summed up: "In other words, speaking plainly, it's an in-book chatbot." [...] Perhaps most alarmingly, the Amazon spokesperson said, "To ensure a consistent reading experience, the feature is always on, and there is no option for authors or publishers to opt titles out."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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You've probably heard of Sonos smart speakers and soundbars, which offer some of the best audio quality in the market. What you may not know, however, is that Sonos also makes the excellent Sonos Ace headphones, which were released last summer. Right now, they're on sale for $279 (originally $449), the lowest price they've ever been, according to price-tracking tools.

The Sonos Ace are soft, comfortable, and adaptable to different head sizes, thanks to their plastic design. You get actual buttons to control the headphones (as opposed to touch controls), which I personally consider a huge plus. The battery life is impressive, with about 30 hours with either the Active Noise Cancellation (ANC) or Aware Mode settings active, or about 40 hours with both of those off. The Bluetooth multipoint connectivity means you can connect up to two devices at once and switch seamlessly between them.

The headphones perform well, according to PCMag's "excellent" review. The sound is balanced with an EQ adjuster in the app, and the ANC and Aware Mode are top-tier, competing with the best headphones on the market. Unfortunately, the Sonos Ace aren't wifi-enabled, meaning you can't stream media into them like you can with Sonos speakers, but then again, not many headphones are. However, you can connect to Sonos speakers through Bluetooth and listen to your media that way (if you own Sonos speakers).

At their current price, the Sonos Ace are competitive with the best headphones for Apple users, the AirPods Max, and the best headphones for Android users, Sony's WH-1000XM6, and arguably offer a better value since they're much cheaper. If you care about transparency mode or have Sonos speakers at home, the Sonos Ace headphones are your best choice.

On Friday, Apple dropped iOS 26.2. Despite being the third update in the iOS 26 era, 26.2 still adds some interesting and useful new features, like alarms for reminders and refinements to the Sleep Score on Apple Watch.

Updates aren't all about the features, however. Apple typically includes a number of security patches with its software releases as well, which makes each update important to install. You don't always need to install the latest version of iOS or macOS to benefit from these security patches, either: Apple usually releases important security patches for some older versions of its software. iPhones running iOS 18 can install the same security patches as those running iOS 26, as can Mac users running macOS Sequoia or Sonoma, rather than Tahoe.

All that to say, Apple's update today comes with a series of patches you'll want to install on your iPhone—no matter what software version you're currently running. This particular release ships with 25 patches, and while some of them seem only pertinent to software developers, others are plainly serious.

iOS 26.2 patches some serious security vulnerabilities

Perhaps most importantly from a security perspective, this release includes two patches for potential zero-day vulnerabilities. Zero-day flaws are especially dangerous as they are either publicly disclosed or actively exploited before a developer has a chance to issue a patch—leaving users vulnerable to attack.

Both flaws (CVE-2025-43529 and CVE-2025-14174) affect WebKit, Apple's platform for developing Safari and web browsers on iPhone. Before Apple patched these issues, bad actors could present users with malicious web content. Once the user processes it on their iPhone, it could lead to arbitrary code execution, which, essentially, allows the bad actor to run whatever code they want on your iPhone. Apple says it is aware of reports that these two flaws may have been exploited in "an extremely sophisticated attack against specific targeted individuals" in versions of iOS older than iOS 26.

This is not the first time Apple has patched flaws with this warning. Due to the iPhone's popularity, these flaws are valuable to governments and other large-scale actors that target high-profile individuals, like journalists and politicians. Apple will even send these users warnings when their iPhone has been identified in such an attack. While the risk is low that the average iPhone user will be targeted in one of these campaigns, it's not impossible, which means it's important to update as soon as a patch is available. These apply to other Apple devices too, like Macs, so update all devices as soon as possible.

While those two flaws are the most important of the bunch to fix, there are others here that you'll want to fix ASAP. One of the first to jump out at me was a "Calling Framework" flaw that allows bad actors to spoof their FaceTime caller ID. With the rise of AI scams, bad actors could create an AI voice that sounds like someone you know, and spoof their contact so it looks like they're calling you over FaceTime audio. This update patches that possibility—at least, as far as spoofing is concerned.

Speaking of FaceTime, this update also patches a flaw that sometimes reveals password fields when remotely controlling a device over FaceTime. If you were sharing your screen with someone over a video call, they might be able to see when you typed in your password and use that against you. There's also a patch for an issue that allowed an app to see other apps you had installed on your device—a major privacy and security vulnerability.

If you use the Photos' app Hidden feature to hide sensitive pictures you don't want others to see, you'll want to install this update ASAP, too: Previous versions of iOS contained a bug that made it possible to view these hidden photos without authentication.

iOS 26.2 security release notes

If you're interested in seeing all of Apple's security patches in this update, the full release notes are as follows:

App Store

• Available for: iPhone 11 and later, iPad Pro 12.9-inch 3rd generation and later, iPad Pro 11-inch 1st generation and later, iPad Air 3rd generation and later, iPad 8th generation and later, and iPad mini 5th generation and later

• Impact: An app may be able to access sensitive payment tokens

• Description: A permissions issue was addressed with additional restrictions.

• CVE-2025-46288: floeki, Zhongcheng Li from IES Red Team of ByteDance

AppleJPEG

• Available for: iPhone 11 and later, iPad Pro 12.9-inch 3rd generation and later, iPad Pro 11-inch 1st generation and later, iPad Air 3rd generation and later, iPad 8th generation and later, and iPad mini 5th generation and later

• Impact: Processing a file may lead to memory corruption

• Description: The issue was addressed with improved bounds checks.

• CVE-2025-43539: Michael Reeves (@IntegralPilot)

Calling Framework

• Available for: iPhone 11 and later, iPad Pro 12.9-inch 3rd generation and later, iPad Pro 11-inch 1st generation and later, iPad Air 3rd generation and later, iPad 8th generation and later, and iPad mini 5th generation and later

• Impact: An attacker may be able to spoof their FaceTime caller ID

• Description: An inconsistent user interface issue was addressed with improved state management.

• CVE-2025-46287: an anonymous researcher, Riley Walz

curl

• Available for: iPhone 11 and later, iPad Pro 12.9-inch 3rd generation and later, iPad Pro 11-inch 1st generation and later, iPad Air 3rd generation and later, iPad 8th generation and later, and iPad mini 5th generation and later

• Impact: Multiple issues in curl

• Description: This is a vulnerability in open source code and Apple Software is among the affected projects. The CVE-ID was assigned by a third party. Learn more about the issue and CVE-ID at cve.org.

• CVE-2024-7264, CVE-2025-9086

FaceTime

• Available for: iPhone 11 and later, iPad Pro 12.9-inch 3rd generation and later, iPad Pro 11-inch 1st generation and later, iPad Air 3rd generation and later, iPad 8th generation and later, and iPad mini 5th generation and later

• Impact: Password fields may be unintentionally revealed when remotely controlling a device over FaceTime

• Description: This issue was addressed with improved state management.

• CVE-2025-43542: Yiğit Ocak

Foundation

• Available for: iPhone 11 and later, iPad Pro 12.9-inch 3rd generation and later, iPad Pro 11-inch 1st generation and later, iPad Air 3rd generation and later, iPad 8th generation and later, and iPad mini 5th generation and later

• Impact: An app may be able to inappropriately access files through the spellcheck API

• Description: A logic issue was addressed with improved checks.

• CVE-2025-43518: Noah Gregory (wts.dev)

Foundation

• Available for: iPhone 11 and later, iPad Pro 12.9-inch 3rd generation and later, iPad Pro 11-inch 1st generation and later, iPad Air 3rd generation and later, iPad 8th generation and later, and iPad mini 5th generation and later

• Impact: Processing malicious data may lead to unexpected app termination

• Description: A memory corruption issue was addressed with improved bounds checking.

• CVE-2025-43532: Andrew Calvano and Lucas Pinheiro of Meta Product Security

Icons

• Available for: iPhone 11 and later, iPad Pro 12.9-inch 3rd generation and later, iPad Pro 11-inch 1st generation and later, iPad Air 3rd generation and later, iPad 8th generation and later, and iPad mini 5th generation and later

• Impact: An app may be able to identify what other apps a user has installed

• Description: A permissions issue was addressed with additional restrictions.

• CVE-2025-46279: Duy Trần (@khanhduytran0)

Kernel

• Available for: iPhone 11 and later, iPad Pro 12.9-inch 3rd generation and later, iPad Pro 11-inch 1st generation and later, iPad Air 3rd generation and later, iPad 8th generation and later, and iPad mini 5th generation and later

• Impact: An app may be able to gain root privileges

• Description: An integer overflow was addressed by adopting 64-bit timestamps.

• CVE-2025-46285: Kaitao Xie and Xiaolong Bai of Alibaba Group

libarchive

• Available for: iPhone 11 and later, iPad Pro 12.9-inch 3rd generation and later, iPad Pro 11-inch 1st generation and later, iPad Air 3rd generation and later, iPad 8th generation and later, and iPad mini 5th generation and later

• Impact: Processing a file may lead to memory corruption

• Description: This is a vulnerability in open source code and Apple Software is among the affected projects. The CVE-ID was assigned by a third party. Learn more about the issue and CVE-ID at cve.org.

• CVE-2025-5918

MediaExperience

• Available for: iPhone 11 and later, iPad Pro 12.9-inch 3rd generation and later, iPad Pro 11-inch 1st generation and later, iPad Air 3rd generation and later, iPad 8th generation and later, and iPad mini 5th generation and later

• Impact: An app may be able to access user-sensitive data

• Description: A logging issue was addressed with improved data redaction.

• CVE-2025-43475: Rosyna Keller of Totally Not Malicious Software

Messages

• Available for: iPhone 11 and later, iPad Pro 12.9-inch 3rd generation and later, iPad Pro 11-inch 1st generation and later, iPad Air 3rd generation and later, iPad 8th generation and later, and iPad mini 5th generation and later

• Impact: An app may be able to access sensitive user data

• Description: An information disclosure issue was addressed with improved privacy controls.

• CVE-2025-46276: Rosyna Keller of Totally Not Malicious Software

Multi-Touch

• Available for: iPhone 11 and later, iPad Pro 12.9-inch 3rd generation and later, iPad Pro 11-inch 1st generation and later, iPad Air 3rd generation and later, iPad 8th generation and later, and iPad mini 5th generation and later

• Impact: A malicious HID device may cause an unexpected process crash

• Description: Multiple memory corruption issues were addressed with improved input validation.

• CVE-2025-43533: Google Threat Analysis Group

Photos

• Available for: iPhone 11 and later, iPad Pro 12.9-inch 3rd generation and later, iPad Pro 11-inch 1st generation and later, iPad Air 3rd generation and later, iPad 8th generation and later, and iPad mini 5th generation and later

• Impact: Photos in the Hidden Photos Album may be viewed without authentication

• Description: A configuration issue was addressed with additional restrictions.

• CVE-2025-43428: an anonymous researcher, Michael Schmutzer of Technische Hochschule Ingolstadt

Screen Time

• Available for: iPhone 11 and later, iPad Pro 12.9-inch 3rd generation and later, iPad Pro 11-inch 1st generation and later, iPad Air 3rd generation and later, iPad 8th generation and later, and iPad mini 5th generation and later

• Impact: An app may be able to access a user’s Safari history

• Description: A logging issue was addressed with improved data redaction.

• CVE-2025-46277: Kirin (@Pwnrin)

Screen Time

• Available for: iPhone 11 and later, iPad Pro 12.9-inch 3rd generation and later, iPad Pro 11-inch 1st generation and later, iPad Air 3rd generation and later, iPad 8th generation and later, and iPad mini 5th generation and later

• Impact: An app may be able to access sensitive user data

• Description: A logging issue was addressed with improved data redaction.

• CVE-2025-43538: Iván Savransky

Telephony

• Available for: iPhone 11 and later, iPad Pro 12.9-inch 3rd generation and later, iPad Pro 11-inch 1st generation and later, iPad Air 3rd generation and later, iPad 8th generation and later, and iPad mini 5th generation and later

• Impact: An app may be able to access user-sensitive data

• Description: This issue was addressed with additional entitlement checks.

• CVE-2025-46292: Rosyna Keller of Totally Not Malicious Software

WebKit

• Available for: iPhone 11 and later, iPad Pro 12.9-inch 3rd generation and later, iPad Pro 11-inch 1st generation and later, iPad Air 3rd generation and later, iPad 8th generation and later, and iPad mini 5th generation and later

• Impact: Processing maliciously crafted web content may lead to an unexpected Safari crash

• Description: A type confusion issue was addressed with improved state handling.

• WebKit Bugzilla: 301257

• CVE-2025-43541: Hossein Lotfi (@hosselot) of Trend Micro Zero Day Initiative

WebKit

• Available for: iPhone 11 and later, iPad Pro 12.9-inch 3rd generation and later, iPad Pro 11-inch 1st generation and later, iPad Air 3rd generation and later, iPad 8th generation and later, and iPad mini 5th generation and later

• Impact: Processing maliciously crafted web content may lead to an unexpected process crash

• Description: A use-after-free issue was addressed with improved memory management.

• WebKit Bugzilla: 301726

• CVE-2025-43536: Nan Wang (@eternalsakura13)

WebKit

• Available for: iPhone 11 and later, iPad Pro 12.9-inch 3rd generation and later, iPad Pro 11-inch 1st generation and later, iPad Air 3rd generation and later, iPad 8th generation and later, and iPad mini 5th generation and later

• Impact: Processing maliciously crafted web content may lead to an unexpected process crash

• Description: The issue was addressed with improved memory handling.

• WebKit Bugzilla: 300774

• WebKit Bugzilla: 301338

• CVE-2025-43535: Google Big Sleep, Nan Wang (@eternalsakura13)

WebKit

• Available for: iPhone 11 and later, iPad Pro 12.9-inch 3rd generation and later, iPad Pro 11-inch 1st generation and later, iPad Air 3rd generation and later, iPad 8th generation and later, and iPad mini 5th generation and later

• Impact: Processing maliciously crafted web content may lead to an unexpected process crash

• Description: A buffer overflow issue was addressed with improved memory handling.

• WebKit Bugzilla: 301371

• CVE-2025-43501: Hossein Lotfi (@hosselot) of Trend Micro Zero Day Initiative

WebKit

• Available for: iPhone 11 and later, iPad Pro 12.9-inch 3rd generation and later, iPad Pro 11-inch 1st generation and later, iPad Air 3rd generation and later, iPad 8th generation and later, and iPad mini 5th generation and later

• Impact: Processing maliciously crafted web content may lead to an unexpected process crash

• Description: A race condition was addressed with improved state handling.

• WebKit Bugzilla: 301940

• CVE-2025-43531: Phil Pizlo of Epic Games

WebKit

• Available for: iPhone 11 and later, iPad Pro 12.9-inch 3rd generation and later, iPad Pro 11-inch 1st generation and later, iPad Air 3rd generation and later, iPad 8th generation and later, and iPad mini 5th generation and later

• Impact: Processing maliciously crafted web content may lead to arbitrary code execution. Apple is aware of a report that this issue may have been exploited in an extremely sophisticated attack against specific targeted individuals on versions of iOS before iOS 26. CVE-2025-14174 was also issued in response to this report.

• Description: A use-after-free issue was addressed with improved memory management.

• WebKit Bugzilla: 302502

• CVE-2025-43529: Google Threat Analysis Group

WebKit

• Available for: iPhone 11 and later, iPad Pro 12.9-inch 3rd generation and later, iPad Pro 11-inch 1st generation and later, iPad Air 3rd generation and later, iPad 8th generation and later, and iPad mini 5th generation and later

• Impact: Processing maliciously crafted web content may lead to memory corruption. Apple is aware of a report that this issue may have been exploited in an extremely sophisticated attack against specific targeted individuals on versions of iOS before iOS 26. CVE-2025-43529 was also issued in response to this report.

• Description: A memory corruption issue was addressed with improved validation.

• WebKit Bugzilla: 303614

• CVE-2025-14174: Apple and Google Threat Analysis Group

WebKit Web Inspector

• Available for: iPhone 11 and later, iPad Pro 12.9-inch 3rd generation and later, iPad Pro 11-inch 1st generation and later, iPad Air 3rd generation and later, iPad 8th generation and later, and iPad mini 5th generation and later

• Impact: Processing maliciously crafted web content may lead to an unexpected process crash

• Description: A use-after-free issue was addressed with improved memory management.

• WebKit Bugzilla: 300926

• CVE-2025-43511: 이동하 (Lee Dong Ha of BoB 14th)

joshuark writes: Arkansas is becoming the first state to officially end its public television affiliation with PBS. The Arkansas Educational Television Commission, whose members are all appointed by the governor, voted to disaffiliate from PBS effective July 1, 2026, citing the $2.5 million annual membership dues as "not feasible." The decision was also driven by the loss of a similar amount in federal funding after the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) was defunded by Congress. PBS Arkansas is rebranding itself as Arkansas TV and will provide more local content, the agency's Executive Director and CEO Carlton Wing said in a statement. Wing, a former Republican state representative, took the helm of the agency in September. "Public television in Arkansas is not going away," Wing said. "In fact, we invite you to join our vision for an increased focus on local programming, continuing to safeguard Arkansans in times of emergency and supporting our K-12 educators and students." "The commission's decision to drop PBS membership is a blow to Arkansans who will lose free, over the air access to quality PBS programming they know and love," a PBS spokesperson wrote in an email to The Associated Press. The demise of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, is a direct result of President Donald Trump's targeting of public media, which he has repeatedly said is spreading political and cultural views antithetical to those the United States should be espousing. Trump denied taking a big should on television viewers.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Your flexible spending account (FSA) funds expire soon, and if you don't use them, you lose them. In fact, roughly half of FSA holders in recent years have ended up forfeiting funds to their employers, according to the nonprofit Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI).

First, make sure to double-check with your employer about your FSA's Dec. 31 deadline, along with any potential rollover or grace period. After that, it's time to scan your medicine cabinet, make a list of anything you need to stock up on, and click "add to cart."

The FSA store is an obvious choice for making the most of your remaining funds, but you can also turn to your go-to retail giants. Amazon, Target, Walgreens, and more all offer a dedicated FSA/HSA Shop to help you find eligible items quickly.

How to shop FSA-eligible items on Amazon

Here's how you can take advantage of Amazon's FSA-eligible items before the end of the year.

1. Visit Amazon's FSA Store at amazon.com/fsa

2. Look for the "FSA/HSA Eligible" label on product listings

3. Use the FSA/HSA filter in search results

4. Pay with your FSA debit card at checkout

Similarly, Target has an FSA filter in their healthcare section, and pharmacies like CVS and Walgreens have dedicated online FSA shops.

What to buy with your remaining FSA funds

Many over-the-counter medications and health items are FSA-eligible, including pain relievers, cold medicine, bandages, dental care products, menstrual products, and more. But did you realize you can also snag these kinds of goodies:

• First aid supplies

• Contact lenses and solutions

• Reading glasses

• Fancy sunscreen

• Blood pressure monitors

• Epsom salt

• Massage guns

• Pimple patches

• An Oura ring

• A WHOOP band

• A $229.99 water dental flosser

Again, most FSA plans require you to spend funds by Dec. 31, though some offer grace periods. Check with your plan administrator for specific deadlines. Just make sure to save receipts for all FSA purchases in case you need to verify eligibility with your plan administrator after paying.

However you choose to spend your FSA funds, don’t let that money go to waste. After all, this money already came out of your paycheck.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Amazon Prime Video has pulled its AI-powered video recap of Fallout after viewers noticed that it got key parts of the story wrong. The streaming service began testing Video Recaps last month, and now they're missing from the shows included in the test, including Fallout, The Rig, Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan, Upload, and Bosch. The feature is supposed to use AI to analyze a show's key plot points and sum it all in a bite-sized video, complete with an AI voiceover and clips from the series. But in its season one recap of Fallout, Prime Video incorrectly stated that one of The Ghoul's (Walton Goggins) flashbacks is set in "1950s America" rather than the year 2077, as spotted earlier by Games Radar.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A good gift should say, "I see you. I know you. I've been paying attention." In other words, it's the thought that counts—so don't take "thought" out of the equation by turning to ChatGPT for any part of your gift-giving this holiday season.

Sure, ChatGPT can rapidly generate gift lists based on demographics, trending items, and surface-level interests. But a truly meaningful gift transcends data points—which, besides, can be far from foolproof. An AI chatbot can suggest a bestselling cookbook for someone who likes cooking, but we're at risk of losing something far more valuable than perfectly matched presents: genuine human connection. The art of gift-giving isn't about finding the most objectively impressive item, but about communicating love, understanding, and personal investment. Instead of using AI, let's tackle some practical strategies for thoughtful gift-giving.

How to give a thoughtful gift

The task of capturing a perfectly unique understanding of the gift recipient's inner world is daunting, to say the least. Luckily, that's not the task at hand. All you need is a human touch.

Do a memory dive

Reflect on conversations you've had with the recipient over the past year. What stories did they tell? What challenges did they overcome? What moments made them laugh or feel vulnerable?

Some more tips for researching your friend: Review old text messages and emails, or even look through social media posts. And of course, don't be afraid to ask their close friends or family for insights. When word gets back to them that you put in so much effort, they'll surely be moved—and, you know, not in the "AI psychosis" way.

Research their interests

Go beyond surface-level hobbies. If someone loves art, don't just buy art supplies. A good rule is to remember that people usually buy themselves whatever they need for their hobbies. So, it's important to find something they wouldn't get themselves. In this artist example, consider some accoutrements:

• A painting class they can take with a friend

• Museum tickets

• A book about an artist they like

Throw in a handwritten note explaining why you selected this specific item. Again: Since it's the thought that counts, it helps to always explain your thinking. Even if you can't find the perfect story or connection behind the gift, there are ways to express that you put thought into it.

Do a mind map

If you ever need to come up with any sort of idea for anything, a mind map is your best friend. Create a gift "mind map" that connects:

• Their interests

• Shared memories

• Inside jokes

• Aspirational goals

• Nostalgia

And just because I argue against feeding the AI beast, that doesn't mean you need to be all on your own. Check out gift guides written by real people, like, say, Lifehacker's own Stephen Johnson.

The bottom line

Gift-giving isn't about robotic perfection. A $10 item selected with a little heart will always outweigh a $100 item selected by an algorithm. Go for handmade items, curated experience gifts, or something that references specific shared memories. Like I mention above, a handwritten note goes a long way. Hey, make a note of the fact that you didn't use ChatGPT, and instead had a nice afternoon reflecting about this person! That sort of message is worth way more than whatever you end up gifting.

So if any of my loved ones are reading this, please: Put down the AI prompt. Pick up a notebook. Reflect. Remember. Connect. (New running sneakers, size 8.) Your imperfect, human-generated gift will always be more perfect than any robot-recommended present.

Android users are getting more tools to combat the seemingly endless stream of scam texts from bad actors looking to steal your data and your money. Circle to Search and Google Lens can now assess messages for scam red flags, and if possible fraud is detected, you'll get recommendations for what to do (or not do) next. Even if you think you know the telltale signs of a scam—a sense of urgency, a demand for money or personal information, a link to log in or pay—using these tools can confirm your suspicions, especially when you feel pressured to act.

Use Circle to Search to identify scams

To activate Circle to Search, long press the home button or navigation bar on your device and circle the text you want to scan. Alternatively, you can take a screenshot, open Lens in the Google app (also available on iOS), and tap the screenshot. The feature works for text messages as well as communication on messaging apps and social media sites. Google says the capability is available "when our systems have high confidence in the quality of the response."

This is just the latest in the Google's suite of security features meant to protect against fraud. Pixel users have real-time, AI-powered scam detection, which identifies and alerts you to suspicious conversational patterns in Google Messages and Phone by Google. In-call protections for Android prevent you from taking certain actions, such as sideloading new apps and changing accessibility permission, on your device while on the phone with anyone not saved in your contacts.

Earlier this month, Google also expanded its in-call scam detection feature, meant to combat bank impersonation schemes, to U.S. users. If you are on a call with a number that's not in your contacts and try to open a participating financial app, you'll get a notification reminding you not to share information and a one-click option to stop screen-sharing and end the call.

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We travel for a wide variety of reasons—vacations, business, family obligations—and in a variety of different ways, but there’s one constant: The actual traveling can be hectic, stressful, and expensive. Considering Americans took nearly 2 billion trips in 2025 alone, that stress can be pretty epic. From planning to de-boarding, travel can be a challenge—that is, unless you know and utilize these hacks.

There are a lot of travel hacks out there in the wild, many of them dubious, but when a hack actually works to lower your costs, increase your comfort, or simply solve an irritating problem, it’s kind of magical. Here are the essential travel hacks everyone should be implementing, whether you’re traveling for pleasure, business, or any other reason.

Get a vacuum-seal travel backpack

You may have been instructed at some point to roll your clothes to make your packing more efficient. It’s not that this doesn’t work—rolling clothes tightly can improve your packing and unpacking experience. But there’s an even better way: Vacuum-sealing. You can use vacuum-sealed storage bags to compress your clothes, allowing you to fit more into your bag (or to travel much lighter with a single carry-on), but there’s a downside: The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) may require you to uncompress your clothes for a special check as you pass through security, which can wreak havoc on your packing.

A better choice is a carry-on backpack with an included pump, like this. If you are flagged for a special inspection, you can quickly re-compress everything and be on your way.

Travel during off-peak times

If your main goal for travel is to see exotic places, have new experiences, or even see old friends, traveling off-peak is a powerful hack. Off-peak simply means going places when most tourists aren’t there. Most people travel for pleasure during the warmer months, for example, so deciding you’re going on a European tour in February nets you cheaper flights, cheaper hotel rooms, and less crowded everything.

Start using packing cubes

Raise your hand if this has ever happened to you: You realize you need something from a piece of luggage you spent six hours carefully organizing, compressing, and zipping closed. You dig through everything to find what you need, and then re-packing that bag is a sweaty, stressful fail. That’s where packing cubes come in.

Packing cubes don’t necessarily shrink your clothes and other possessions, but they make the whole experience of packing, unpacking, and actually finding stuff while you’re traveling much easier. They turn your chaotic piles of clothing and supplies into geometric cubes that can be organized individually and removed and replaced in your luggage easily. Because you’re dealing with uniform cubes, popping stuff in and out of your suitcase won’t result in a nervous breakdown, either.

Stash clothing in carry-on pillows

It’s truly a time to be alive: You can now purchase so-called “basic” economy airline seats that don’t allow a carry-on. And carry-on fees and restrictions are increasing as well. If you’re attempting to travel with just one small bag, you may find it a struggle—and that’s where the pillow hack comes into play. The basic idea is simple: Grab a neck pillow or pillowcase, remove the stuffing, and jam in some extra clothes instead. The pillow can still be used as a pillow (your clothes act as the cushion), but you get to smuggle extra stuff on the plane. It does work, though it works best with the neck pillow option—bringing an enormous pillowcase filled with jeans and T-shirts is going to be less successful fooling unamused flight crews.

Mount your phone horizontally

Entertaining yourself on long flights can be a challenge, especially if your whole survival plan involved sleeping for ten hours and you can’t seem to get comfortable. If your plane doesn’t offer convenient screens (I’m very fond of the “tiny screen up in the air four rows ahead of me” arrangement, myself), or the entertainment choices available aren’t appealing, you can always load up a device with movies, shows, and games.

If you find yourself stuck with just your phone for a screen, you can improv a phone holder from the barf bag typically supplied in the pocket of the seat in front of you, as demonstrated here. By clipping the bag between your phone and its case, then clipping the top of the bag under the fold-down tray, you can mount your phone horizontally at the right height for watching content. This could be a real sanity-saver (assuming you don't need to use that bag for, well, other purposes).

Pay for everyday expenses with a travel credit card

You’re spending money practically every day anyway—but by putting all those expenses on a credit card that awards you miles or points toward travel (and then paying that card off in full every month) you’re essentially getting free travel coupons. You’re going to buy groceries anyway, so why not get a hundred miles every time you do? Many travel credit cards offer large sign-up bonuses of anywhere from 20,000 to 100,000 points (or more) once you spend a certain amount on the account, so by paying your everyday bills for a few months using the card you can fund an entire trip for free.

Reverse-image-search your Airbnb before you book

Booking a place to stay on your trip can be a hassle, and you have to wonder if you’re getting the best deal. An Airbnb might look ideal but put a big dent in your budget—but it may be listed elsewhere, and possibly for less money. You can find out using Google’s “reverse image lookup.” Pick a photo from the Airbnb listing, search for the image on Google, and other rental platforms will probably show up—or a link to a hotel’s direct web page. If nothing else, the image search might identify the apartment building or hotel depicted, which can give you a leg up on the pricing. There are also tools like HiChee that will compare listings across several platforms for you, but where’s the fun in that?

Use a pants hanger to clip your curtains closed

You drag yourself, exhausted, into a hotel room at night and don’t notice that the curtains on the windows are hanging loose. You collapse into bed, and then you’re awakened at 6 a.m. by a vengeful sun, shining through the gaps in those curtains. This hack is so simple, but it can make a big difference in your sleep quality: Take a pants hanger from your hotel closet (the ones with the metal clips) and clip your room’s curtain shut. When the morning sunlight tries to infiltrate your room and wake you up first thing in the morning, the clips will keep it out.

Store one shoe in the hotel safe

If you use the safe supplied in your hotel room to store some valuables or your essential travel documents, the worst thing you can do is forget them when you check out. A quick hack to ensure that doesn’t happen is to put something you can’t possibly forget in there as well. Some folks suggest a shoe, figuring that when you’re getting dressed for the next leg of your journey, you’ll definitely notice if one shoe is missing. But this will work with anything, as long as you choose something you can’t possibly leave without.

Download offline maps before you leave

We once lived in a world where finding your way around a new area meant paper maps and confusing directions from friends that referenced a lot of fast food restaurants as landmarks. These days, we have access to military-grade GPS systems, and a pleasant computer voice will tell us to turn right in one hundred feet. That’s amazing when you’re traveling in an unfamiliar place—until you lose your internet connection.

A great hack is to download offline maps of your destinations before you leave on your trip. You can do this with Google Maps or using an app like HERE WeGo. This requires some planning, as you have to download the maps while you have a signal, but once you have them downloaded you can use them more or less as you normally would, getting directions and seeing distances clearly. Take a moment to do this before every trip, and you’ll never be lost again.

Berlin's regional parliament has passed a far-reaching overhaul of its "security" law, giving police new authority to conduct both digital and physical surveillance. From a report: The CDU-SPD coalition, supported by AfD votes, approved the reform of the General Security and Public Order Act (ASOG), changing the limits that once protected Berliners from intrusive policing. Interior Senator Iris Spranger (SPD) argued that the legislation modernizes police work for an era of encrypted communication, terrorism, and cybercrime. But it undermines core civil liberties and reshapes the relationship between citizens and the state. One of the most controversial elements is the expansion of police powers under paragraphs 26a and 26b. These allow investigators to hack into computers and smartphones under the banner of "source telecommunications surveillance" and "online searches." Police may now install state-developed spyware, known as trojans, on personal devices to intercept messages before or after encryption. If the software cannot be deployed remotely, the law authorizes officers to secretly enter a person's home to gain access. This enables police to install surveillance programs directly on hardware without the occupant's knowledge. Berlin had previously resisted such practices, but now joins other federal states that permit physical entry to install digital monitoring tools.

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More than 37 million Americans moved last year—and while that’s actually a historic low, one thing that hasn’t changed is the levels of hair-tearing stress the experience can inspire. Everything about moving, from packing to hiring movers to switching utilities, comes with a little spice of stress and anxiety. Even the most competent and careful planning can leave you with an ulcer and an incipient nervous breakdown as you try to pack your entire life into a truck and transport it to another location.

There are lots of little ways to reduce that stress and make moving a little easier. These hacks can help anyone, no matter how far you’re moving or what your housing situation might be, because they each reduce the friction a tiny bit without much effort. Whether the big day is tomorrow or next month, take a moment and employ a few of these moving hacks to make the day a little less nightmarish.

Get free boxes

Buying moving boxes can be pricey—U-Haul sells kits that range from about $150 to $460, depending on the size of your household, for example. That’s not a lot of money in the grand scheme of things, but after paying for everything else associated with a new home, saving a few hundred bucks is a worthy hack.

Luckily, there are several ways to get your mitts on some free boxes, from companies like U-Haul that connect its customers to platforms like Freecycle where people often post used boxes for free pickup. And there’s always the old standby of contacting local grocery stores and the like to see if you can dumpster dive for some old boxes. If you start collecting boxes early enough, you can save yourself stress and money.

Size your boxes

When collecting or buying moving boxes, most of us just grab what’s available and wind up with a Tetris-like assortment of sizes and shapes. If at all possible, make all of your moving boxes the same size. This will make packing them into a truck or van a lot easier and more efficient, and make stacking them onto a handtruck or cart a lot faster and more stable. There will be obvious exceptions to this rule of thumb—garment boxes, television boxes, etc.—but the more you can make your boxes uniform, the faster things will go.

Stretch wrap

Moving stuff like desks or dressers often means playing whack-a-mole with drawers and doors that keep popping open, or having to make multiple trips because nothing fits together snugly.

The answer is stretch wrap. You’ve seen professional movers use this stuff, but you can easily buy your own. And you should—it makes combining oddly-shaped things into one unit easy, it can be used to ensure drawers and doors stay closed, and protects your stuff from incidental damage caused by your enthusiastic but careless friends who are just in it for the free pizza.

Vacuum bags

Sometimes moving can feel positively Kafka-esque in its suffering. For example: You put in some effort to score a bunch of boxes only to discover that each box fits approximately one fluffy sweater. Sure, that’s an easy carry, but now you have to go find 100 more boxes—or start thrusting your clothes into garbage bags.

Or, get yourself some vacuum storage bags. The same physics that allows you to store an entire winter wardrobe in the space under your bed will make your move a lot more efficient, shrinking down those bulky items to a more manageable size. Once shrunk, you can then roll or fold the bags to fit efficiently into boxes. Bonus: The plastic bags will also protect your clothes during the move, ensuring they don’t arrive stained, dusty, or torn.

Rubber band doors

It’s a ritual of moving: Propping the door. You’re up and down, in and out, and the front door keeps swinging shut and latching, forcing you to constantly fish out your keys or fobs to open it up.

There’s an easy hack for this, though: Take some (relatively large) rubber bands (you might need more than one), loop them over both knobs, and lay it against the latch so it’s pushed in. Now the door won’t latch, so you can just push or pull it open as needed.

Have a "go bag"

Sometimes, when packing up stuff for a move, you can fall into a bit of a trance and become a packing machine, just madly shoving everything into boxes and bags. And then you arrive at your new home and you can’t brush your teeth, find the bandages, or find utensils to eat your victory Doordash.

A great hack is to set up a “go bag” with all the essentials you might need. Treat it like staying one night in a hotel and bring everything you need to be comfortable, like hygiene products, toilet paper, basic utensils, and cleaning products. Throw in anything you might need: dry socks, fresh underwear, pet food, baby supplies, a first aid kit. This way, when you’re exhausted from the move, you won’t have to search through a pile of boxes looking for your toothbrush.

Hangers and trash bags

Transporting your finery safely can be challenging, especially if you’re moving yourself. Wardrobe boxes can help protect your clothes during the move, but they’re also bulky and cost money, and you have to take the time to drag your clothes out of the closet and transfer them to the box.

There’s a hackier way: Separate your clothes into groups, then slide a trash bag up from the bottom to envelope the whole group of clothes and secure the plastic ties around the tops of the hangers. In a few minutes your whole closet is wrapped up and ready to go. You can combine this with a wardrobe box if you have one, but if not, your clothes are protected and your closet is instantly organized and ready to be emptied out.

Keep track of the contents of your boxes

Moving houses can descend into chaos so quickly we often make our future selves miserable. What starts off as a relatively organized effort becomes a mad dash to cram stuff into boxes and finish the project, which means future you is stuck with a load of boxes filled with random stuff, and there will always be at least one treasured item that just seems to have dropped through a portal into another dimension.

You can prevent this with a simple hack: Mark each box with a number and take a photo of the contents of every box before you tape it shut and stuff it into the van. Sure, you could be more meticulous and have a spreadsheet, color-coded system of stickers, or other more robust way of tracking each box’s contents, but the photo method blends well with the barely-held-together chaos of many house moves. Later, when you’re searching for something, a quick scan of your photos will tell you precisely which box you put it inside.

Take pics of wire hookups

It’s amazing how wires proliferate as if they’re an alien species infiltrating our world. Everything seems neat and tidy in your house, and then comes moving day and you realize that each television, desktop computer, and device has at least one—and sometimes several—cords associated with it. Keeping them all straight when moving to a new place can be a real pain. While cords like HDMI cables are usually interchangeable between devices, that won’t be the case if your laptop uses a USB-C-to-HDMI cable, and sometimes your cables are ideally sized—a short HDMI cable between a Roku and your TV, for example, won’t hang down and be an eyesore.

To ensure you put everything back the way it should be without tearing your hair out, take photos of the back of your devices before you disassemble them for transport. Being able to see exactly where every cord goes and how it was set up will save you a lot of time and trouble on the back end of your move.

Clean while you pack

Cleaning is a huge part of moving. If you’re renting, it’s a vital aspect of your plan to get your security deposit back. If you’ve sold a place, it’s just the right thing to do (and might even be stipulated in your sale contract).

A simple but powerful hack: Don’t wait until you’ve moved everything out to clean. While it might seem like a completely empty house would be ideal for cleaning, it’s also kind of overwhelming. An empty room is just as easy to clean, and tackling each space as you clear it out instead of leaving it all to the end will make cleaning seem like less of a chore. Plus, alternating between packing and cleaning will actually make both go a little more smoothly, because at least there will be some variation.

Whether you're an academically inclined student looking for study hacks, or a more creative person who's just looking to work smarter instead of harder, there are lots of little ways to make getting through school a little easier. Even as students deal with increased competition and rising costs, you can make life just a little bit easier with each of these hacks.

Make the most of student discounts

Everyone knows about student discounts on laptops, streaming platforms, and some productivity services. However, there are plenty of other great deals for students that aren't as widely known. For instance, you can get a Setapp subscription for 50% off as a student, which gives you a year of access to over 200 Mac apps. You can also get some great deals such as scoring a free year of Google's Gemini Pro if you're a U.S. college student (the offer expires on January 31, 2026).

If your college provides you with a .edu email address, that's an easy way to score student discounts with practically every digital service. Some institutions let you keep that email address even after you graduate, as long as you keep the account active. You can also keep your student ID after graduation to get a few more discounts. Although it's not always considered ethical to get student discounts when you're working, this method could help you tide over a difficult time financially, as rent and bills tend to hit a lot harder when you're working on a low wage at the start of your career.

3D printing is sometimes better than buying

I've visited a few universities that have 3D printers their students can use for free (my editor went to one). If that's the case with your college, then you can use it to save yourself a bit of money by 3D printing objects you'd otherwise end up buying. These can include desk lamps, phone stands, small desk organizers, and much more. If you're mechanically savvy, you can even print small car parts that are expensive or hard to find.

Even if your university doesn't have a 3D printer, it's not too hard to find stores or websites where you can upload a design and get the finished product shipped to you. Quite often, 3D printing is a lot cheaper than buying new or even used items. You can check out the FunctionalPrints community and Makerworld for great 3D printing ideas, and often, downloadable design models. This means that you can take the design to a 3D printer near you and get it printed easily.

Consider writing your notes by hand

I had a rough time studying in high school, as I got distracted immersing myself in novels, video games, and the internet. When I started college, I noticed that my focus time was lower when I was using computers to study. So, I switched to writing notes by hand ,and it was like a switch flipped in my brain. When I read those notes ahead of exams, I was able to recall the parts of the class I wrote them down in, which noticeably improved my scores.

I took the GMAT exam a few years ago and I got a pretty decent score all thanks to handwriting all of my notes, and solving all math problems by hand. I'm not a gifted math student, and in spite of that, I did pretty well in the math exam, only because I avoided using my iPad or Mac for studies. Of course, I used those devices to read textbooks, but I did all my note-taking and problem solving by hand.

While I prefer old-school methods like pen and paper to handwrite notes, you can also use modern technology to your advantage here. An iPad with an Apple Pencil, or something like the reMarkable tablet, can make a great study tool. The reMarkable uses an e-ink screen that mimics real paper, which makes it feel far more like an actual notebook than using an iPad.

Use meditation apps to reduce anxiety

While exercise is my number 1 recommendation to anyone who's looking to relieve anxiety, it's not always possible to make time for workouts during busy periods as a student. If you're in this boat, I highly recommend using a free meditation app to reduce anxiety and focus better on studies. During my GMAT prep, I was confronting multiple demons at once. I was quite scared of math, tests, and had a crippling fear of failure. I had a 40-minute train ride back from work and I used it to do a 20-minute guided meditation on Headspace's free tier.

Doing this for a few weeks helped me calm down immensely. On the day of the test, I remember being completely unfazed by the difficult questions, and I was able to follow all the exam strategies my tutor had suggested. My score was a lot higher than what I was expecting, and most of it was down to getting my anxiety out of the way. You can use any free meditation app to get started. Remember that you don't need to sit under a tree in the forest to meditate. You can start wherever you are.

Try a few different study methods

I must admit that I really didn't know about any study methods when I went to university, and I just did whatever helped me remember things. Working at Lifehacker has been an eye-opening experience in many ways, and one of those is learning that you can actually use more than one method to grasp difficult subjects. My colleague Lindsey Ellefson has written at length about the best study methods, and you should definitely give it a read to see if a different study method can help you.

I'm now a big fan of the Feynman method, which says that once you've finished studying a topic, you should explain it to someone who knows nothing about it. If you're able to do this and answer follow-up questions the person has, then it means you know the subject pretty well. If not, it's time to study again. I generally don't encourage using AI too much to study, but you can tell ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini that you're using the Feynman method to study a concept, and explain what you've learned. These tools will help you identify what you've explained correctly and ask decent follow-up questions to help you deepen your understanding of the subject.

Try flashcard apps for faster learning

Pretty much every student has used flashcards to study in school, but it's not easy to keep making flashcards for every subject when you have way too much to study. This is when it's a good idea to outsource the work to flashcard study apps. These are great tools to commit things to memory, and particularly useful when you're trying to learn a new language, memorize chess openings, or if you're studying for exams.

You can try Brainscape if you want pre-made flashcards, which eliminates the effort of generating the cards, too. It's great both for students prepping for a specific exam and for adults learning different skills. The variety of pre-made cards is vast, and you probably won't ever have to make any cards on the app. The free tier lets you use text, and the paid version lets you access audio, images, removes limits on studying, and many more useful features. It costs $20/month, $96/year, or $200 for a lifetime membership.

Don't forget the Pomodoro technique

At times, the simplest advice is the best. I only learned about the Pomodoro technique after I started working, and I still wish I'd known about it during my student days. The concept is simple: Follow a schedule where you study or work on a project for 25 minutes and then take a five-minute break. Rinse and repeat until your large task is done. The work and break time intervals should be changed based on what works best for you.

If you like the idea of using a dedicated app to follow this technique, you should consider FocusPomo, which has a solid 4.5/5 score in Lifehacker's review. The biggest downside of this app is that you still have to check your phone to use it, and if that's a no-go for you, then you can try alternatives such as following this 3-hour Pomodoro study video or using a Pomodoro app that works in your desktop browser, such as My Study Life.

Block distractions to focus better

You should definitely use a distraction blocker app to stop doomscrolling and focus on what you need to do. Be it studying, journaling, meditation, or any other hobby you're fond of, using distraction blocking tools can help you focus at a time when every major internet company is out to get your attention. You can try tools such as Cold Turkey or StayFocusd, both of which let you block distracting websites for free. Similarly, Steppin is a great distraction blocking tool for your smartphone.

Befriend the power nap

When you're focused on studies, don't neglect the importance of a healthy sleep cycle. Ideally, you want to use the wind down feature on your phone to remind you that it's time to stop using all apps and get to bed. On iPhones and Android phones, you can also quickly switch to grayscale mode at bedtime, which is another way to trick your brain into getting off the screen. I find that I sleep better when all my gadgets aren't right next to my bed.

But more than that, I highly recommend taking a power nap when you're tired. Sometimes, I get home from a long day and I feel too tired to do much. If I'm able to take a 30-minute nap, I often wake up refreshed and feeling a lot better. Adding a little bit of rest to your day can make a big difference to your ability to get things done, so you should consider adding power naps to your day.

In case you find it hard to relax and sleep, I've had good results with progressive muscle relaxation. It's a simple technique that requires you to tense and relax various muscles in your body, which in turn helps you relax enough to go to sleep. The Insight Timer app has a great guided relaxation exercise by Shinzen Young, which I've used more often than I can count.

Consider a change in location

Once again, this may sound like simple advice, but it's incredibly effective. Whenever I've found it hard to study or complete assignments at home, it's always helped to go sit at a library or a cafe to get work done. A lot depends on how good the public libraries are in your locality, but even if that's not an option for you, try to see if you can go to a friend's place or anywhere other than your usual place for assignments. Sometimes, a change in environment can help you get work done faster.

If that doesn't help break a pattern of procrastination, then you can consider gamifying the process. You can use Stickk as a motivational tool to stick to your goals. The app makes you commit to donating money or posting on social media if you don't meet your goals, which is one way to put something real on the line as a penalty for not honoring your commitment. There are plenty of tools to help you stay on track with your commitments to hobbies or academics, so there's bound to be one that works for you.

They say no one actually uses their phones for phone calls anymore. That's not really true, though maybe the "Phone" app does get underused. Instead, many of us have turned to chat apps for our calls. FaceTime, WhatsApp, Messenger—these apps are now our go-to choices for getting in immediate touch with friends and family. (Not that I'm complaining: The call quality is usually better, anyway.)

But one thing the Phone app—and traditional phone calls—have on these chat apps is voicemail. For decades, when you called someone and they didn't answer, you could "leave a message after the tone." That way, when the person saw they had a missed call, they didn't need to guess what you wanted to say. If it was important, they'd hear about it, and call you back. If it wasn't, they could choose to call back when it was convenient.

Voicemail isn't dead: You can still leave these messages if you call someone the old fashioned way. But since many of us choose to use our chat apps of choice, we've largely lost this practice. It's been wholly replaced with text messages and voice notes: If they don't answer the call, you can simply text them what you wanted to talk about, or record a voice note to achieve a similar end.

Some chat apps are trying to bring voicemails back, however. The first major player on my radar was FaceTime: Back in 2023, Apple made it possible to leave video and audio messages for people whenever they didn't pick up a FaceTime call. It's a small but logical feature: Sure, there are other ways to leave a message. But it just makes sense given the history of phone calls to present the option as soon as someone misses your call.

How WhatsApp voicemails work

Now, WhatsApp is getting in on the feature. The company first started testing missed call messages in August, before rolling out the option in full on Thursday. Now, when you try calling someone in WhatsApp and they miss it, you have the option to leave either a video or an audio message—depending on what type of call you started.

Again, these are functions you could initiate already in the app itself: You could simply record a video saying what you want to say, and send it to the recipient, or record an audio note letting them know to call you back. But this built-in option isn't only convenient, it establishes voice messages as a standard for missed WhatsApp calls.

Interestingly, WhatsApp says this new feature "will make voicemails a thing of the past." As it see it, it's actually keeping them alive.