Generative AI has advanced to the stage where you can ask bots such as ChatGPT or Gemini questions about almost anything, and get reasonable-sounding responses—and now renowned gadget repair site iFixit has joined the party with an AI assistant of its own, ready and willing to solve any of your hardware problems.

While you can already ask general-purpose chatbots for advice on how to repair a phone screen or diagnose a problem with a car engine, there's always the question of how accurate the AI replies will be. With FixBot, iFixit is trying to minimize mistakes by drawing on its vast library of verified repair guides, written by experts and users.

That's certainly reassuring: I don't want to waste time and money replacing a broken phone screen with a new display that's the wrong size or shape. And using a conversational AI bot to fix gadget problems is often going to feel like a more natural and intuitive experience than a Google search. As iFixit puts it, the bot "does what a good expert does" in guiding you to the right solutions.

How FixBot improves accuracy

The iFixit website has been around since 2003—practically ancient times, considering the rapid evolution of modern technology. The iFixit team has always prided itself on detailed, thorough, tested guides to repairing devices, and all of that information can now be tapped into by the FixBot tool.

iFixit says the bot is trained on more than 125,000 repair guides written by humans who have worked through the steps involved, as well as the question and answer forums attached to the site, and the "huge cache" of PDF manuals that iFixit has accumulated over the years that it's been business.

FixBot uses an intuitive chatbot interface. Credit: Lifehacker

That gives me a lot more confidence that FixBot will get its answers right, compared to whatever ChatGPT or Gemini might tell me. iFixit hasn't said what AI models are powering the bot—only that they've been "hand-picked"—and there's also a custom-built search engine included to select data sources from the repair archives on the site.

"Every answer starts with a search for guides, parts, and repairs that worked," according to the iFixit team, and that conversational approach you'll recognize from other AI bots is here too: If you need clarification on something, then you can ask a follow-up question. In the same way, if the AI bot needs more information or specifics, it will ask you.

It's designed to be fast—responses should be returned in seconds—and the iFixit team also talks about an "evaluation harness" that tests the FixBot responses against thousands of real repair questions posed and answered by humans. That extra level of fact-checking should reduce the number of false answers you get.

However, it's not perfect, as iFixit admits: "FixBot is an AI, and AI sometimes gets things wrong." Whether or not those mistakes will be easy to spot remains to be seen, but users of the chatbot are being encouraged to upload their own documents and repair solutions to fix gaps in the knowledge that FixBot is drawing on.

Using FixBot to diagnose problems

iFixit says the FixBot is going to be free for everyone to use, for a limited time. At some point, there will be a free version with limitations, and paid tiers with the full set of features—including support for voice input and document uploads. You can give it a try for yourself now on the iFixit website.

I was reluctant to deliberately break one of my devices just so FixBot could help me repair it, but I did test it with a few issues I've had (and sorted out) in the past. One was a completely dead SSD drive stopping my Windows PC from booting: I started off with a vague description about the computer not starting up properly, and the bot did a good job at narrowing down what the problem was, and suggesting fixes.

FixBot will refer back to articles and forum posts. Credit: Lifehacker

It went through everything I had already tried when the problem happened, including trying System Repair and troubleshooting the issue via the Command Prompt. Eventually, via a few links to repair guides on the iFixit website, it did conclude that my SSD drive had been corrupted by a power cut—which I knew was what had indeed happened.

I also tested the bot with a more general question about a phone restarting at random times—something one of my old handsets used to do. Again, the responses were accurate, and the troubleshooting steps I was asked to try made a lot of sense. I was also directed to the iFixit guide for the phone model.

FixBot's answers are generally accurate and intelligent. Credit: Lifehacker

The bot is as enthusiastic as a lot of the others available now (I was regularly praised for the "excellent information" I was providing), and does appear to know what it's talking about. This is one of the scenarios where generative AI shows its worth, in distilling a large amount of information based on natural language prompts.

There's definitely potential here: Compare this approach to having to sift through dozens of forum posts, web articles, and documents manually. However, there's always that nagging sense that AI makes mistakes, as the on-screen FixBot disclaimer says. I'd recommend checking other sources before doing anything drastic with your hardware troubleshooting.

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Philips Hue is one of the most well-respected and popular brands in smart lights—but what about its smart security cameras? Parent company Signify has been developing Hue cameras for a couple of years now, with a video doorbell and 2K camera upgrades recently added to the portfolio of devices. (Note: This 2K version hasn't yet landed in the U.S., but the existing 1080p versions are quite similar.)

I got a chance to test out the new 2K Hue Secure camera, and alongside all the basics of a camera like this, it came with an extra bonus that worked better than I expected: seamless integration with Philips Hue lights. These two product categories actually work better together than you might think.

While you can certainly connect cameras and lights across a variety of smart home platforms, Philips Hue is one of very few manufacturers making both types of device (TP-Link is another). That gives you a simplicity and interoperability you don't really get elsewhere.

Setting up a Hue camera

All the basic security camera features are covered. Credit: Lifehacker

Hue cameras are controlled inside the same Hue app for Android or iOS as the Hue lights. You don't necessarily need a Hue Bridge to connect the camera, too, as it can link to your wifi directly, but the Bridge is required if you want it to be able to sync with your lights—which is one of the key features here. (If you already have the lights, you'll already have the Bridge anyway.)

The 2K Hue Secure wired camera I've been testing comes with a 2K video resolution (as the name suggests). two-way audio, a built-in siren, infrared night vision, and weatherproofing (so you can use it indoors or out). As well as the wired version I've got here, there's also a battery-powered option, and a model that comes with a desktop stand.

Once configured, the camera lives in the same Home tab inside the mobile app as any Philips Hue lights you've got. The main panel doesn't show the camera feed—instead, it shows the armed status of the camera, which can be configured separately depending on whether you're at home or not. The idea is that you don't get disturbed with a flurry of unnecessary notifications when you're moving around.

The basic functionality is the same as every other security camera: Motion is detected and you get a ping to your phone with details, with a saved clip of the event that stays available for 24 hours. You can also tap into the live feed from the camera at any time, should you want to check in on the pets or the backyard.

As is often the case with security cameras, there is an optional subscription plan that gives you long-term video clip storage, activity zone settings, and AI-powered identification of people, animals, vehicles, and packages. That will set you back from $4 a month, with a discount if you pay for a year at a time.

Syncing a camera with smart lights

Your cameras can be used as customized triggers for your lights. Credit: Lifehacker

I started off a little unsure about just how useful it would be to connect up the Hue cameras and Hue lights—it's not a combination that gets talked about much—but it's surprisingly useful. If you delve into the camera settings inside the Hue app, there's a Trigger lights section especially for this.

You get to choose which of your lights are affected—they don't all have to go on and off together—and there are customizations for color and brightness across certain time schedules. You could have your bulbs glowing red during the night, for example, or turning bright blue during the daytime. The duration the lights stay on for can also be set.

It's not the most sophisticated system, but it works: If someone is loitering around your property, you can have a selected number of lights turn on to put them off, or to suggest that someone is in fact at home. This is in addition to everything else you can do, including sounding a siren through the camera, and because it works through the Hue Bridge it all happens pretty much instantaneously.

You can also set specific cameras as basic motion sensors for you and your family—lighting up the way to the bathroom late at night, for example. This can work even when the system is disarmed, so there's no wifi video streaming happening, but the cameras are still watching out for movement and responding accordingly.

There's one more option worth mentioning in the security settings in the Hue app: "mimic presence." This can randomly turn your lights on and off at certain points in the day, and the schedule you choose can be controlled by whether or not your Hue security is armed or disarmed (so nothing happens when everyone is at home).

Generative AI tools continue to improve in terms of their photo editing capabilities, and OpenAI's latest upgrade brings Adobe Photoshop right inside your ChatGPT app window (alongside Adobe Acrobat for handling PDFs, and Adobe Express for graphic design). It's available to everyone, for free—you just need a ChatGPT account and an Adobe account.

As per Adobe, the idea is to make "creativity accessible for everyone" by plugging Photoshop tools directly into ChatGPT. The desktop version of Photoshop already comes with plenty of generative AI features of its own, so this is AI layered on top of more AI—but is it actually useful?

How to get started with Photoshop inside ChatGPT

Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Express and Adobe Acrobat are available now inside ChatGPT on the desktop, on the web, and on iOS. At the time of writing, you can also get Adobe Express inside ChatGPT for Android, with Photoshop and Acrobat "coming soon." To weigh the capabilities of the new integration, I tested it in a desktop web browser.

To get started, all you need to do is type "Photoshop" at the start of your prompt: ChatGPT should recognize what you're trying to do, and select Adobe Photoshop as the tool to use for the next prompt. You'll also need to click through a couple of confirmation dialog boxes, and connect an Adobe account (if you don't have one, you can make one for free).

You'll need to connect ChatGPT to your Adobe account. Credit: Lifehacker

With all the connections and logins completed, Photoshop is then added to the overflow menu in the prompt box, so just click on the + (plus) to select it. You can start describing what you want to happen using the same natural, conversational language you'd use for any other ChatGPT prompt. You do need to also upload an image or provide a public link to one—if you don't do this before you submit your prompt, you'll be asked to do it after.

You don't need to know the names of all the Photoshop tools: Just describe what you want to happen and the relevant tools will be selected for you. One example Adobe gives is using the prompt "make my image pop," which brings up the Bloom, Grain, and Lens Distortion effects—and each one can be adjusted via sliders on screen. It's actually quite simple to use.

Simple adjustments can be made with on-screen sliders. Credit: Lifehacker

If you do know the name of the tools you want, you can call them up by name, and the classic brightness and contrast sliders are a good place to start. You can either say something like "make the picture brighter" or "adjust the image brightness"—both will bring up an overlay you can use to make brightness adjustments, but if you use the former prompt, the image will already have been made a little brighter.

ChatGPT and Photoshop let you add edit upon edit as needed, and you can save the image at any stage. There's also the option to open your processed file in the Photoshop web app whenever you like: This web app uses a freemium model, with advanced features requiring a subscription, and seems to be what the ChatGPT integration is largely based on.

What you can do with Adobe in ChatGPT

Adobe offers a handy ChatGPT prompts cheat sheet you can browse through, which gives you a good idea of what's possible, and what you're still going to need Photoshop proper for. Note that you can specify certain parts of the image to focus on (like "the face" or "the car") but this depends on Photoshop-in-ChatGPT being able to correctly figure out where you want your selection to be. It needs to be pretty obvious and well delineated.

When I tried cutting out objects and removing backgrounds, this worked well—but then I had to turn to Photoshop on the web to actually drop in a different background. There's no way to work with layers or masks here, and you can't remove people or objects from photos, either. Sometimes, however, you do get a spool of "thinking" from ChatGPT about how it can't do what the user is asking for.

Cut-outs are one of the tricks you can do. Credit: Lifehacker

I was able to apply some nice colorizations here, via prompts like "turn all the hues in this image to blue," and I like the way ChatGPT will give you further instructions on how to get the effect you want. You can even say "show some examples" and it gives you a few presets to choose from—all of which can be adjusted via the sliders again.

The ability to run prompts like "turn this into an oil painting" or "turn this into a cartoon" are useful too, though the plug-in is limited by the effects available in Photoshop for the web: You'll be directed to the closest effect and advised how to tweak it to get the look you want.

Actually, some of these effects work better in ChatGPT's native image editor, which maybe explains why Adobe wanted to get involved here.

ChatGPT removed someone from this picture, no Photoshop required. Credit: Lifehacker

If ChatGPT's image manipulation gets good enough, then Photoshop is no longer going to be needed by a substantial number of users: ChatGPT can already remove people and objects from photos, for example, quite effectively. What it's not quite as good at is some of the basic adjustments (like colors and contrast) that Adobe software has been managing for years.

For quick, basic edits you want to type out in natural language—especially where you want to adjust the edits manually and need advice on what to do next—Photoshop inside ChatGPT is a handy tool to be able to turn to, especially as it's free. For serious edits, though, you're still going to want to fire up the main Photoshop app, or maybe even shun Adobe altogether and make use of ChatGPT's steadily improving editing tools.

If you've chosen a Chromebook as a laptop, then you know the main benefits that it brings: namely, speed, ease of use, and affordability. Despite the simplicity of ChromeOS, however, there's more that you can do with it than you might realize. You can use it offline, and you can sync files to and from local storage, for example. The operating system is a lot more powerful and versatile than it often gets credit for.

These hacks are for power users who want to level up their Chromebook capabilities, and get extra value out of their laptop, beyond the standard use cases that everyone knows about. No matter how you use ChromeOS, there should be something here to help.

Use your Chromebook offline

Google Drive can work offline. Credit: Lifehacker

Chromebooks are often criticized for being useless without wifi, but that's not actually the case: All of the Docs, Sheets, and Slides tools can be used offline, with changes syncing back when your internet connection is restored: From Google Drive, click the gear icon (top right), then choose Settings > General and check the option under the Offline heading.

You can use Gmail offline, too. You can't send or receive emails, obviously, but you can read through and organize your inbox, and draft emails ready to go once you get your internet back. From Gmail, click on the gear icon (top right), then pick See all settings > Offline. Check the Enable offline mail box and choose how much of your email you want to sync.

Sync media offline

This offline functionality extends to third-party streaming apps too, as ChromeOS supports Android apps. With apps such as Netflix and Spotify, you can sync content to your Chromebook to watch when you don't have a reliable internet connection—when you're on a long flight, for example, or traveling between countries.

Talk to your Chromebook

Enable dictation through the Accessibility settings. Credit: Lifehacker

Typing is all well and good, but sometimes talking is faster. Launch Settings, then choose Accessibility > Keyboard and text input > Dictation to enable the feature. You can then press the Launcher (G) button and D to start dictating in any app—whether you're composing emails or writing essays.

Move local files to Google Drive

One of the pros of using a Chromebook is that everything is synced online pretty much instantly, if you're using one of Google's own online apps or something similar. However, there may be local files that accumulate on the laptop, including screenshots and downloads, and sometimes you'll want to get those synced to the cloud as well.

You can see these files via the Files app that comes built into ChromeOS, and upload them manually via the Google Drive web interface. There's an easier way to get them into Google Drive, though: From the Files app, select all the local files you want to upload in the pane on the right, then drag them into My Drive under Google Drive in the left-hand menu bar.

Set up virtual desktops

Chromebooks don't always have the biggest or highest-resolution screens, but you can give yourself more room by managing multiple virtual desktops (which ChromeOS calls "desks"). Press the "show windows" key (it's the one with little rectangles on it, usually also labeled F3) to view open desks, switch between them, and create new ones.

Enable guest access

As ChromeOS is so tightly tied to your Google account, you don't necessarily want other people borrowing your laptop and being able to get into your Google apps. The solution is guest mode: Restart your Chromebook or sign out of your current user account, then click Browse as Guest to launch a Chrome window without any Google account attached.

Make full use of the clipboard

ChromeOS can sometimes feel limiting in that you can't quickly drag files to the desktop or to a temporary folder in the same way that you can on Windows or macOS. You might also see that as a benefit—it means less junk will be cluttering your system—but there could well be times that you just need to store something temporarily for transfer.

That's where the ChromeOS clipboard comes in: It actually stores five items rather than one, so it's a useful (if rather hidden) way of moving images, text, and links between websites and apps. Use the usual Ctrl+C, Ctrl+X, and Ctrl+V shortcuts to copy, cut, and paste, then hold down the Launcher (G) button and V to see all the clipboard items.

Open the ChromeOS Task Manager

ChromeOS comes with its own Task Manager. Credit: Lifehacker

The ChromeOS Task Manager is useful for everything from shutting down crashed apps to seeing exactly where all your RAM is going, and it can be a key tool in the power user's belt. Open it by pressing the Launcher (G) key and Esc: You'll see you can browse between individual tabs and system processes, or search for something specific on ChromeOS.

Save an older laptop

ChromeOS isn't just for Chromebooks: You can give an older, struggling laptop a new lease of life by installing ChromeOS Flex on it (even old laptops can usually handle Chrome). Google has full instructions for what you need to do to get this working, and will guide you through the process of creating a bootable USB drive with the ChromeOS software on.

Explore beta and dev channels

Switching up the channel on ChromeOS. Credit: Lifehacker

As with a lot of software, there are beta and dev channels of ChromeOS available as well as the stable one. If you want to get the newest Chromebook features before everyone else, and don't mind a few bugs along the way, then you can make the switch. It doesn't take long, and you can always switch back again, though a system reset is sometimes required.

To change between ChromeOS channels, click on the time panel (bottom right), then click the gear icon to get to the main Settings page. Choose About ChromeOS > Additional details > Change channel, then choose whichever one you want to use. You'll keep getting over-the-air updates for your selected channel until you switch to a different one.

Manually or automatically wiping your browsing history is a well-established way of protecting your privacy and making sure the digital trail you leave behind you is as short as possible—but it's important to be aware of the limitations of the process, and to understand why deleting your browsing history isn't always as comprehensive an act as you might think.

In short, the records of where you've been aren't only kept on your local computer or on your phone, they're found in various other places too. This is why fully wiping away your browsing history is more difficult than it initially appears.

Modern browsers typically sync your browsing history

Just about every modern browser can now sync your browsing history across devices, from laptop to mobile and back again. There are benefits to this—being able to continue your browsing on a different device, for example—but it means that deleting the list of websites you've visited on one device won't necessarily clear it everywhere.

Consider Apple's Safari, which by default will sync your online history, bookmarks, and open tabs between all of the iPhones, iPads, and Macs using the same Apple account. You can manage this by selecting your account name and then iCloud in Settings on iOS/iPadOS or in System Settings on macOS.

Deleting browsing history in Safari. Credit: Lifehacker

Whether or not Safari syncing is enabled through iCloud will affect how browsing history is deleted—when you try to delete this history on mobile or desktop, you'll see a message telling you what will happen on your other devices. In Safari on a Mac, choose History > Clear History; on an iPhone or iPad, choose Apps > Safari > Clear History and Website Data from Settings.

Most other browsers work in the same way, with options for both syncing history and deleting history. In Chrome on the desktop, for example, open Settings via the three-dot menu (top right): You can manage syncing via You and Google > Sync and Google Services > Manage what you sync, and clearing your history via Privacy and security > Delete browsing data.

The apps and sites you use are tracking you

Aside from all the history your actual web browser is collecting, you also need to think about the data being vacuumed up by the apps and websites you're using. If you log into Facebook, Meta will know about the comments you've left and the photos you've liked, no matter how much you scrub your history from Edge or Firefox.

How much you can do about this really depends on the app or site. Amazon lets you clear your search history, for example: On the desktop site, click Browsing History on the toolbar at the top, then click the gear icon (top right). The next screen lets you delete all or some of your browsing history, and block future tracking—though you won't be able to reorder items as easily, and your recommendations will be affected.

Clearing data from a Google account. Credit: Lifehacker

Meta lets you clear your Instagram and Facebook search history, at least: You can take care of both from the Meta Accounts Center page in a desktop browser. Click Your information and permissions then Search history to look back at what you've been searching for. The next screen gives you options for manually and automatically wiping your search history.

Google runs a whole host of online apps as well as a web browser. You can manage all your Google data from one central point from your desktop browser: Your Google Account page. Click Data and privacy to see everything Google has collected on you, and click through on any activity type to manually delete records or set them up to be automatically deleted after a certain period of time.

Your internet provider always knows where you've been

The final place there will be copies of your internet browsing history are on the servers of your internet service provider—that is, whichever company you're paying for access to the internet is keeping logs of the places you've been, for all kinds of purposes (from security to advertising). And yes, this includes sites that you open while in incognito mode.

How this is handled varies from provider to provider. For example, AT&T's privacy notice states that the company will "automatically collect a variety of information", including "website and IP addresses," "videos watched," and "search terms entered." The company says this data will be kept for, "as long as we need it for business, tax, or legal purposes."

A VPN can hide your browsing from your internet provider. Credit: Lifehacker

There's not a whole lot you can do about this either—it's a trade-off you have to make if you want access to the web. Some providers, including AT&T, will let you opt out of certain types of information sharing if you get in touch with them directly, but you can't prevent the tracking from happening in the first place.

What you can do is mask your browsing with a VPN (Lifehacker has previously picked the best paid VPNs and the best free VPNs for you to try out). As all your internet traffic will be routed through the VPN's servers, your internet provider will no longer be able to see what you're doing. Your VPN provider will, however—so find one that you can trust, and which has a no-logs policy that's been verified by a third-party security auditor.

In the long-running Android vs. iOS competition, iPhones have historically had the edge in terms of parental controls: They've been a bit more straightforward and intuitive, and easier for caregivers to understand and manage. Apple does many things well, and getting its apps and devices working seamlessly together is definitely one of them.

Google, however, is gradually improving the experience for parents, with a batch of updates earlier this year, and now some more changes as part of a significant Android 16 upgrade. The latest changes mean more controls can be accessed on your kids' devices.

What's new in Android 16

The usual Android caveat applies here: Each Android phone maker does things slightly differently, though there's not actually too much variation in this particular area. The latest Android 16 updates mentioned above are rolling out now to Pixel phones (and I've tested them on a Pixel), but will take a while to reach other handsets—Samsung phones will most likely get them early next year, for example, with One UI 8.5.

So what's new? Essentially, more of the existing parental controls are available on the Android devices of your youngsters, so you can get at them from their phones and tablets as well as accessing them remotely. It should make life easier if you're with your kids and they pass their devices over to you.

You can find the options that have been added to kids' devices by opening Settings on the phone or tablet of your young person and choosing Parental controls. Right away you'll see a toggle switch for enabling on-device controls, and when you do enable them you need to enter a PIN—to stop your kid from changing these settings themselves.

The new on-device controls in Android 16. Credit: Lifehacker

There are then four sections you can access: Daily limit, App limits, Downtime, and Website content filters. Tap on any of these to set restrictions for the current device, which can be adjusted depending on the day of the week in some cases. Pick Downtime, for example, and you can set times during which the device is locked. These match the tools you've previously been able to manage remotely.

Select Daily limit, then turn on the Use daily limit toggle switch, and you're able to control how many hours your kid can use their phone or tablet for each day. There's also a bar chart showing device usage over time, so you can see how much screen time your child has been taking advantage of.

These settings are simple, understandable, and a breeze to use—you don't have to mess around with Google accounts or family relationships if you don't want to. You can just enter a PIN and start making changes—you don't necessarily have to connect these settings to any other devices. If you want to manage them remotely, though, Google has a wider parental control system in place.

Google's Family Link controls

The new Android 16 controls that appear on devices can work independently of anything else, but Google already offers plenty of options if you need them. Everything is managed through the Google Family Link portal, which you can access on the web or through the apps on Android or iOS.

You can use Google Family Link to set up Google accounts for your kids, and then manage what they're able to do with them. The idea is that they sign into their Android devices using the account you've created for them, and because Google knows you have a verified connection to them, you can put restrictions on those devices remotely.

All the usual safeguards and protections are covered: You can set screen time limits, manage the apps your kids can use (and for how often), put blocks on certain websites and categories of website, and put parental approvals in place for making purchases through Google's various digital storefronts. These mostly match what's now available on-device.

Google Family Link on the web. Credit: Lifehacker

There's a location tracking element to Google Family Link as well, so you can see where your young people are at all times, and even get notifications based on their movements: You might want to get a ping when they turn up at school, for example, or when they leave home. All this can be managed through the apps.

More recent updates let you control the amount of screen time your children can have during school hours, and there are also now tools for managing the contacts that youngsters are able to interact with—as yet you can't get to these controls directly on your kids' devices. There's plenty in the way of reports on usage too, alongside these controls.

Add everything up, and Google now has a fairly comprehensive set of parental controls that you can manage from just about any device, or from the devices your kids are using—assuming you've given them Android phones or tablets.

AI is everywhere! Writing essays, editing photos, producing social-media slop, doing your browsing for you, making plenty of mistakes—and now, if you've installed the latest Android 16 update (currently rolling out to Pixel phones), summarizing your notifications so you have less text and fewer alerts to wade through.

The new summarization feature, as per Google, will "help you cut through the clutter and stay focused," and give you "quick understanding and context at a glance." I'm all for cutting through the clutter, so as soon as the update landed on my own Pixel device, I decided to enable the feature and see how useful it really is.

How AI summaries work, and how to turn them on

Enabling the feature on an Android phone. Credit: Lifehacker

AI notification summaries won't automatically take over your phone, after the update—you need to enable them manually. From Settings, head to Notifications, then tap Notification summaries to turn this on. The same screen lets you choose which apps you want notifications summarized for.

There are actually two parts to the new update: the actual notification summaries, and what Google is calling a "notification organizer." This organizer is designed to group and silence lower-priority notifications (including social alerts and promotional messages), though there doesn't appear to be a separate toggle switch for this.

Of course, other Android phone makers will be able to implement this in whatever way they choose. It looks as though Samsung is testing the feature with the One UI 8.5, which should be launching in beta any day now. A full release of the software is expected early next year, alongside the Galaxy S26 phones.

Using AI notification summaries for 24 hours

Ready to banish notification clutter from my life, I turned on AI summaries for all my apps to see exactly how this worked. For a start, it doesn't apply to all apps, at least not yet: My Snapchat and Instagram alerts remained the same as always, so further updates will be needed from Google and app developers before this is something you see everywhere.

The apps I saw summaries for most often were Google Chat, WhatsApp, and Slack—almost always in group conversations, and some of the time for single messages (the length of the message seems to affect this somehow). And the summaries were ... mostly okay. They tended to catch the gist of who had said what, and in that sense were an accurate recap of what I was missing by not actually opening these apps.

The summaries work, up to a point. Credit: Lifehacker

These summaries did update as more messages were added, but the summary preview window is only a couple of lines long—so once multiple people start piling into a group chat, the summary isn't going to be able to cover everything. From the lock screen and pull-down notification shade, it's possible to expand notifications to see full messages (as usual), and then minimize them back to the summary view again.

There was one occasion when the AI notification summaries got confused by the Lifehacker slack and by the various @mentions included—attributing a message to the person who had been tagged in a message, rather than the person who had sent it. On the whole, though, there were no obvious mistakes, just certain details left out from summaries of longer chats that I would've liked to have known about.

Now I've tested this out, I'm going to turn it off again, for a couple of reasons—and inaccuracy isn't really one of them (though that might certainly creep in). First, given the small size of the preview window, I'm not sure an AI summary is any more useful than the first couple of lines of text you get as standard anyway. That's usually enough for me to tell whether or not a message is important before opening it.

This Slack summary wasn't fully accurate—and Snapchat alerts weren't affected. Credit: Lifehacker

Second, I'm not sure I really want my messages and group chats summarized—at least not the important ones. If a friend, family member, or work colleague has something to tell me, I'd like to know exactly what it is, rather than reading a précis. It feels like AI is being used just for the sake of it—and not for the first time.

I didn't see any evidence of the notification organizer in action, by the way, perhaps because of the way I've got my Android notifications set up—there are now a host of granular options for alerts in Android, for silencing and dismissing notifications. This feature sounds vaguely useful, but again, I'm not sure I'm ready to hand over the job of judging how important notifications are over to AI just yet.

Android 16 officially started rolling out back in June, with most of the Material 3 Expressive visual overhaul added in a major update in September. Now, the second big Android 16 update is here, ushering in a host of new features across notifications, customization, accessibility, and device restrictions.

As is the norm, this update will arrive on Pixel devices first. For other Android devices, including those made by Samsung, it's up to each phone and tablet manufacturer to adjust the software update as needed and push it out to their users. Despite the limited rollout, Google says this marks a "new chapter" for Android releases, which, going forward, will be "more frequent" rather than once a year. In other words, we might be seeing Android 17 much sooner than expected.

But we won't see it today. We're still in the Android 16 era, which is about to get the following new features and changes:

More interface customization

You now have more control over home screen icons. Credit: Google

Customization has always been one of the strengths of Android, and this Android 16 update brings with it a bunch of features to help you change the interface in a more flexible and consistent way. Home screen icons can now have custom shapes, while themed icons are auto-applied across apps.

Both of those changes should mean that when you play around with the visual look of Android, there isn't a jarring icon or two that stands out from the rest—everything should look more uniform. "Your phone should reflect your own unique aesthetic," Google says, and these tweaks should help.

There's also an improvement to dark mode: Dark mode will now be applied across all apps, even those that haven't been coded to include a dark mode by their developer. Again, the end result should be a more consistent visual look, plus extra savings on battery life if more of the screen is dimmed more often.

Improved parental controls

More parental controls can now be managed on-device. Credit: Google

If you have kids who use an Android device, you'll know the current parental controls are a little bit clunky, and mostly managed remotely. Going forward, more of these controls will be available on the actual devices your youngsters are using, which should mean they're easier to access and manage.

The new on-board settings will be protected by a PIN, so your kids can't change them, and will cover screen time, downtime schedules, and app usage. You'll also be able to add more time for app and device usage from the phone or tablet that's being used, which is more convenient if you're actually with a child.

Additionally, Google is making it easier to set up a Google Family Link from Android 16 phones and tablets, which is where the family connections and device rules are set to begin with. Other key parental controls, including protections over purchases and location tracking, are still managed remotely.

AI in your notifications

AI will group and summarize your notifications. Credit: Google

Technically launched in last month's Pixel Drop, Android 16 now summarizes your notifications for you through the power of AI—something that tech companies are continuing to push, in an effort to save us all time and avoid notification fatigue, even if the results have been mixed so far. Why Google is announcing it alongside these other new features isn't clear, but it's a good reminder for any Pixel users who might be interested in trying it out.

AI summaries are something Apple introduced for the iPhone, then partially pulled for certain apps, then brought back. According to Google, these AI summaries will give you "quick understanding and context at a glance"—so let's hope they understand what's important in your group chats and what isn't.

On top of that, we're getting AI-powered notification organization too, with "lower-priority notifications" (which Google says include promotions and social alerts) silenced and grouped together so they're not so much of a distraction. As yet, it's not clear exactly how much control you'll get over how all this works.

And even more updates

You'll be able to mark your calls as urgent in the future. Credit: Google

There are plenty of other minor updates rolling out to a broader selection of Android devices too, not just those running Android 16. They include more expressive closed captions; ease-of-use improvements to accessibility features, such as TalkBack (voice dictation) and Auto Click (using a mouse with Android); and pinned tabs in Chrome for Android.

Emoji Kitchen is getting more features and more ways to combine emojis, Circle to Search is adding a scam detection feature (just point it towards a suspected scam message), and group chats in Google Messages will now come with options for reporting issues—chats can be easily left, blocked, and reported.

We'll also soon be getting a beta version of a feature Google has named Call Reason, in the Phone app. This lets you mark your outgoing calls to saved contacts as urgent, which they'll see when you ring them (and might encourage them to pick up. For more details on this and everything else rolling out to Android from today, see the official blog post.

It's Cyber Monday, and Lifehacker is sharing the best sales based on product reviews, comparisons, and price-tracking tools before it's over.

• Follow our live blog to stay up-to-date on the best sales we find.

• Browse our editors' picks for a curated list of our favorite sales on laptops, fitness tech, appliances, and more.

• Subscribe to our shopping newsletter, Add to Cart, for the best sales sent to your inbox.

• Sales are accurate at the time of publication, but prices and inventory are always subject to change.

The Google Pixel 10 only launched four months ago, but it's already discounted by a significant $250 for the holiday shopping season (almost a third off). You can now pick it up from Amazon for $549, its lowest price yet.

Google Pixel 10, Unlocked

$549.00 at Amazon

$799.00 Save $250.00

Get Deal

Get Deal

$549.00 at Amazon

$799.00 Save $250.00

That "lowest price yet" label does depend on the color and storage option you choose, but whichever one you pick, there are big discounts being applied for Cyber Monday. For the biggest discount, pick the 128GB lemongrass model.

I've been reviewing phones for decades at this point, and I've always loved the Pixel series (and the Nexus phones before that). They put photography and AI front and center—both high priorities for me—and they're perfect if you spend a lot of time in Google's various apps (from Gmail to Google Maps), which I do.

These phones are also well-built, durable, and distinctive-looking. I find them easy on the eye, though you do need to get past that camera bar (it at least ensures your phone doesn't wobble when laid down on its back). Add in the on-board smarts of Gemini, and there's a lot to like here.

Does Amazon have Cyber Monday deals?

Yes, Amazon has Cyber Monday sales, but prices aren’t always what they seem. Use a price tracker to make sure you’re getting the best deal, or refer to guides like our live blog that use price trackers for you. And if you have an Amazon Prime membership, make the most of it.

What stores have the best sales on Cyber Monday?

Nowadays, both large retailers and small businesses compete for Cyber Monday shoppers, so you can expect practically every store to run sales through Monday, December 1, 2025. The “best” sales depend on your needs, but in general, the biggest discounts tend to come from larger retailers that can afford lower prices: think places like Amazon, Walmart, Target, Best Buy, and Home Depot. You can find all the best sales from major retailers on our live blog.

Are Cyber Monday deals worth it?

In short, yes, Cyber Monday still offers discounts that can be rare throughout the rest of the year. If there’s something you want to buy, or you’re shopping for gifts, it’s a good time to look for discounts on what you need, especially tech sales, home improvement supplies, and fitness tech. Of course, if you need to save money, the best way to save is to not buy anything.