IT General

Bad news for the more than 180 million Americans signed up for Amazon Prime: the service is revamping its membership structure and locking 4K video streaming behind a higher-cost tier, charging customers an additional $4.99 per month to unlock the highest-resolution experience.

Prior to the change, regular Prime members paying either $14.99 per month or $139 per year could stream in 1080p HD or 4K/UHD, while customers eager to stream ad-free could pay an additional $3 per month. Now, however, the basic Prime Video package restricts users to 1080p streams, while the ad-free experience is being upgraded and rebranded as "Ultra."

To further entice customers to upgrade their subscription, Amazon is throwing in additional perks for Ultra members, including an increased download capacity for offline viewing (from 25 to 100), support for Dolby Atmos audio and Dolby Vision picture, and an increase in the number of concurrent streams from a single account, from three to five.

It isn't all bad news for basic Prime members, though: they will also gain access to Dolby Vision support, as well as an increase in the number of concurrent streams they can access from a single account, from three to four.

It's also worth noting that true 4K streaming is still a tall order for most customers, either because they lack the bandwidth or because their streaming device, especially on smartphones and tablets, doesn't support true 4K UHD resolution. 

For those Amazon customers who rely on Prime Video for their home theater, though, the Ultra upgrade should be mandatory.

For three decades, the Subaru Outback has occupied a unique corner of the automotive world, carving out a niche that sits comfortably between a family wagon and a mountain-climbing SUV. With over three million sold since its debut, the Outback has become the literal and figurative utility player of the Subaru lineup.

DIMM SSDs are one of those oddities that almost look fake at a glance if you're not familiar with them. They take up a RAM slot, but depending on the design, they might behave like a normal SATA SSD or a persistent memory module that sits much closer to DRAM than a conventional drive does.

Fans of Milwaukee and those red power tools know that the company actually makes a little bit of everything. Milwaukee is wildly popular thanks to its capable tools, specialty offerings, and a steady flow of new tools each year. You probably own the basics, but here are a few niche Milwaukee tools you might actually want, along with what they're used for.

Every other month a new Linux vulnerability appears in the news and a CVE number starts circulating. If you use Linux, the reaction is predictable: "Am I vulnerable?" Before assuming the worst, take five minutes and actually check whether your PC is affected.

PC gamers love keeping an eye on their CPU, GPU, and other resource usage and temperatures during intense gaming sessions. While a secondary monitor can handle this easily, I prefer to turn mine off completely so it doesn’t distract me while I game.

Home Assistant is a free and open-source smart home platform that operates entirely on a device on your local network, making it the go-to recommendation for any smart home enthusiast that's concerned about privacy—but there are many other reasons to choose a local smart home hub that isn't operating in the cloud.

Windows 11, Microsoft's newest operating system, got people excited at first because of its fresh look and modern features. However, as the software has been around longer, a clear trend of unfriendly design choices, really pushy ways to make money, and a plain lack of concern for your privacy have emerged. This growing list of unnecessary features shows the worst examples of how Microsoft is making the experience worse just to benefit its own corporate interests.

While March is heating up on HBO Max with several noteworthy new shows and movies, it’s also time to say goodbye to everything leaving the platform this month. Though most of the titles leaving are movies, there are some documentaries and shows in there that you’ll definitely want to see.

While we wait eagerly for some of the new upcoming series coming to Apple TV, including new seasons of For All Mankind (March 27), Your Friends and Neighbors (April 3), and Criminal Record (April 22), there are some solid shows to while away the weeks.

I grew up using Windows and laptops. Now, both of those feel like things of the past. While I can't say for sure that I'm done with laptops, if I do get another one someday, I know it won't come with Windows.

The idea of a modern smart home can sometimes be better than the reality. This generally happens when you treat it as a simple 'plug-and-play' gadget rather than the infrastructure of your home. You might have thought that kind of sluggishness was just part of the deal, but you can fix this by changing the way your devices operate.

All the different power tool brands produce a ton of excellent tools, especially Ryobi, which makes a little bit of everything. Every once in a while, you'll stumble onto some weird, obscure item that you never knew you needed. That's exactly what happened to me late last year at Home Depot, and that tool ended up solving one of my biggest workshop woes.

If you're learning python, chances are you started with tutorials–and honestly, there's nothing wrong with that. They give you a solid foundation and help you get familiar with the basics. But at some point, you can get stuck in an endless loop of tutorial hell, this cycle limits real progress without you noticing. I'm now two years in, I've made enough mistakes to know which habits actually make you better. Here are the ones worth your time.

There's been an online trend of people ditching their ChatGPT subscriptions in the wake of OpenAI's deal with the Department of War. I've used ChatGPT for years and have always been reluctant to change, but it felt like the right time, so I asked ChatGPT which AI was the best for my needs. The answer surprised me.

As we move further and further away from the heydays of the audio CD, things are getting a little muddled. Perhaps it wouldn't matter so much if physical media like vinyl, CDs, and cassettes were making a niche comeback among certain groups of people.

Failed 3D prints can be disheartening, but there are some things you can do to improve your chances of success. Printing with dry filament is a good starter, but even the driest of filaments can come undone if your build plate isn’t prepped correctly.

Calibre is a fantastic piece of software for people who love reading books digitally—which is something I started doing last year and plan to continue this year. However, there are some core functions of Calibre that I had to supplement through plugins, so here are the four plugins that fixed my biggest complaints with Calibre.

While it feels like ages until we return to the Ton for a new season of Bridgerton, we’re already looking ahead to season 5 of the Netflix series. As one of the returning shows to watch on Netflix this year, people have been fawning over Benedict (Luke Thompson) and Sophie (Yerin Ha), but now that season 4 has concluded, we have to start thinking about what’s next.

Are you a Samsung user secretly jealous of the clean Pixel look? Do you find yourself tired of One UI's heavy personality? Well, it turns out you can get surprisingly close to a Pixel software experience while sticking to your trusty Samsung hardware. And the best part is that it’ll only require a couple of apps and a few minutes of tweaking.