IT General

High fidelity is almost never the default setting in the digital streaming world today. Most platforms, including YouTube Music, prioritize keeping your playback smooth and saving your data over giving you pure audio quality. This trade-off is silently ruining your listening experience.

Imagine yourself lost in the wilderness, miles from civilization, with no cell signal or Wi-Fi. Your phone is pretty much a useless brick. But what if you could still send a text? While it's not always possible to text without any connection, your Google Pixel has a few tricks up its sleeve for when you're truly off the grid.

Home Assistant is arguably the best choice for anyone looking to start a smart home, but this is especially true for power users. If you want unhindered freedom to decide how your smart home functions and you’re not afraid to get your hands dirty, there’s no better choice.

I used to treat my Linux app menu like a forgotten drawer. I rarely opened it, only to switch to my terminal a bit later. Then I found Ulauncher. It quietly replaced my start menu, app grid, and desktop shortcuts. Once I got used to it, I wondered why I ever clicked through menus in the first place.

With Microsoft's long-term vision aiming for Windows to become an agentic OS, you may think about switching away. I don't blame you because it sounds like a horrible idea, and one that I believe will end in disaster—I have three reasons why.

VBA used to be the only way to handle iterative, multistep logic in Microsoft Excel. Not anymore. REDUCE brings the power of functional programming directly into your cells, allowing you to condense complex, messy data into single, clean results.

This was another busy week for tech news, including more updates (and bugs) for Windows 11, cheaper plans for YouTube TV, Amazon bricking smart home hardware, and more. Here are the biggest stories you might have missed.

Hot hatches are everywhere these days, from mild sport compacts to full-blown speed demons, but one still stands out from the crowd. Even after decades on the road, this car proves that you don’t have to sacrifice practicality for fun.

SAVE $500: The DJI Mini 5 Pro Fly More Combo is on sale at Amazon for $1,099, down from the normal price of $1,599. That's a 31% discount that matches the record low at Amazon.

Opens in a new window Credit: DJI DJI Mini 5 Pro Fly More Combo $1,099 at Amazon
$1,599 Save $500   Get Deal

Despite the FCC ban on foreign drones, you can still get yourself a DJI drone. The fine print of the ban explains that any drone already in the country are excluded from the new legislation, which means they're fair game for ownership and operation. However, that means stock is dwindling, so if you're searching for a DJI drone, check out this deal.

As of Jan. 24, the DJI Mini 5 Pro Fly More Combo is on sale for $1,099 at Amazon, marked down from the standard price of $1,599. That's a 31% discount that takes a hefty $500 off the price. It also matches the record low at Amazon.

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The DJI Mini 5 Pro is a premium drone and the Fly More Combo makes it just that much more appealing. The bundle includes the DJI Mini 5 Pro drone itself, the DJI RC 2 camera-drone remote controller, a set of filters, three DJI Mini 5 Pro Intelligent Flight batteries, three propeller sets, a shoulder bag, and more. Boiled down, this is everything you'd want for an epic drone set-up.

In terms of performance, the DJI Mini 5 Pro is a stellar model. It has a one-inch CMOS camera with 4K HDR filming at 60fps. You can also go with 4K 120fps for slow-motion filming. DJI also made this model especially appealing for night flying thanks to the 360 degree Nightscape Omnidirectional Sensing and Nighttime return-to-home function. DJI's ActiveTrack 360° technology is a must-have feature if you'll be filming moving subjects like a cyclist, skier, or surfer.

While it's still in stock and on sale for a record-low price, snag the DJI Mini 5 Pro Fly More Combo. The bundle is packed with advanced accessories while still being a perfect model for beginners.

It's no secret that Milwaukee is one of the most popular tool brands, and while many owners love the M18 line of powerful 18V tools, Milwaukee's M12 platform is equally excellent at a lower price point. If you're looking to get your money's worth with a new tool purchase, here are five M12 tools that live up to the hype.

Many Excel users abandon the ROWS function because it feels like a technicality they can skip. However, to build a truly functional workbook, you need formulas that adapt to your data dimensions, and the ROWS function is ideal for this. Here are four ways I use it to make my Excel spreadsheet smarter.

People are freaking out about Fallout — and the reactions couldn’t be more divided. Some fans are calling it one of the best video game adaptations ever made. Others think it’s already betraying Fallout’s canon. So… are they right?

I don’t have to tell you that phones are really good now, and you can probably point to the areas where that’s obvious. Cameras, displays, processors, build materials, and so much more. However, phones have improved in sneaky ways, too.

You’ve probably seen those social media adverts for minimalist maps of your city, but did you know you can create your own? While it might seem like a lot of work, this simple Python script takes minutes to set up and is easy to use on pretty much any computer.

These jq filters handle the jobs you do every day: select, map, reduce, sort, defaults, and formatting. Find out how to use these vital features with explanations and examples.

The Nothing Ear (3) has an eye-grabbing design with a pleasant sound and a unique case to boot. Unfortunately, there are two major downsides working against what would otherwise be decent earbuds.

Winter is here, and that means snow! Just how much snow? Well, back in the day, after a big snowfall, you'd need to whip out the ruler or yardstick and actually trek out into the white winter wonderland. And with a huge winter storm set to blanket much of the South and Northeast this weekend (200 million Americans are expected to see snowfall), this isn't a rhetorical question.

Nowadays, thankfully, you don't even have to go outside to see just how long you'll be digging out your car or shoveling your walkway.

There are a few great online resources that can let you know just how many inches — or dare I say feet — of snow fell anywhere in the country. So, whether you're checking up on your adult kids, a distant relative, or your own backyard, here's how to check how many inches of snow have fallen.

NWS Snowmap and NWS Snowfall Analysis

Perhaps the easiest and most straightforward way to find out how much snow fell in your town is directly from the National Weather Service. There's the National Weather Service's Snowmap and the National Weather Service's Snowfall Analysis map. Both maps track how much snow, measured in inches, has fallen and place it on a map of the U.S. in a simple and easy-to-understand way. The Snowmap tracks the snowfall in a specific U.S. city by using circular markers color-coded to match the snowfall amounts, whereas the Snowfall Analysis website maps out the snowfall with a more traditional weather report design. Users can check out how much snow fell in the past hour, the past 24 hours, and the past 72 hours.

It's important to note that the NWS Snowmap and Snowfall Analysis sites only track how much snow has already fallen — they aren't forecasting services.

USA Today Snowfall Accumulation Tracker

If you're looking for a more modern tracker, then perhaps the USA Today Snowfall Accumulation Tracker is for you.

USA Today has built a sleeker tracker that uses the same trusted data from the National Weather Service. The site maps out the snowfall across the U.S. over the past 24 hours, 48 hours, and 72 hours. It even throws in a "Season" toggle so you can see how much snow has accumulated for the entire winter season so far.

Windy: The Windy map and weather forecast

If you're a complete weather head, then Windy.com might be the site for you. Windy maps out weather forecasts of all types — temperature, wind gusts, and, yes, snowfall. Unlike the previous options, Windy will also give you future forecasts of snowfall and not just how much snow is already on the ground.

Windy includes a highly interactive map, but there are also premium options that require a paid subscription, so unless you're a hardcore weather nerd seeking more than just how many inches fell in your hometown, it might just be more straightforward to check out the other platforms.

NCEI's Daily U.S. Snowfall and Snow Depth report

National Centers for Environmental Information's Daily U.S. Snowfall and Snow Depth report will provide the most accurate information when it comes to how much snow fell in your location.

However, the snowfall report will usually come a few days after the snow has already fallen. Why? Because the data is pulled from the Global Historical Climatology Network daily (GHCNd) database, which basically records daily climate summaries from land surface stations around the world.

With more than 100,000 stations, this data is as accurate as you're going to get if you want to know how much snow fell in a specific area.

Color e-readers are the future of the e-reader market. Every brand is coming out with its own iterations — Amazon has a whole slew of Kindles now with color displays. But if you're looking to avoid Amazon, look to Kobo. We already know and love the Kobo Libra Colour, but what about the smaller, more affordable Kobo Clara Colour?

Even after testing dozens of e-readers, I still stand in awe of the occasional e-reader. The Clara took me by surprise, a perfectly handheld e-reader that's an incredible value considering its color display. I've already put the Kobo Clara Colour head-to-head with the Kindle Paperwhite, but today I'm focusing on the Kobo Clara Colour. Is it worth it? And what are the device's downfalls? Here's everything to know about the Kobo Clara Colour.

Kobo Clara Colour price and specs The Kobo Clara Colour is the same price as the Kindle Paperwhite. Credit: Samantha Mangino / Mashable

The Kobo Clara Colour costs $159.99. It comes in two different colors, black or white, but let's get into what's inside.

• 6-inch E Ink Kaleido 3 display

• 300 ppi black and white resolution and 150 ppi color resolution

• USB-C charging port with up to 6 weeks of battery life

• 16GB of storage

• IPX8 waterproof rating can be fully submerged in water for up to one hour

• Night mode available

Why go for a Kobo?

Kindles are by far the most popular e-readers out there, so why should you swing for a Kobo instead? Kindles are Amazon devices, so if you're avoiding shopping on Amazon, you'll need to look elsewhere. Having tested our way through e-readers, we find Kobos equally great. They're just as fast and user-friendly as Kindles, but they're free of Amazon.

Your borrowed Libby books automatically populate on Kobo e-readers. Credit: Samantha Mangino / Mashable

Another huge perk across Kobo devices is OverDrive integration. If you're using Libby, that's part of Overdrive's system. With Kobo's Overdrive integration, any book you borrow through Libby will auto-populate on your e-reader. While Kindle also has a Libby integration, it's not nearly as smooth as Kobo's.

The most affordable color e-reader

At $159.99, the Kobo Clara Colour is the most affordable color e-reader. It's more expensive than the basic Kindle, which costs $109.99, but it's the same price as the Kindle Paperwhite. Its affordability is key here, as color e-readers are typically expensive, so a price below $200 makes it more budget-friendly.

The Clara Colour is, in fact, colorful but also muted Expect accurate but muted colors on the Kobo Clara Colour. Credit: Samantha Mangino / Mashable

With color e-readers, manage your expectations on just how vibrant they can be. On the Kobo Clara Colour, its colors are accurate but muted compared to a physical book or even an e-book on a tablet. This is the case with most color e-readers, since they have such low color resolution. The Kobo's color resolution is 150 ppi, half its black-and-white resolution. If you're reading a standard book, you won't fault the lower color resolution, but it might be a bummer for those reading graphic novels.

The perfect handheld size The Kobo Clara Colour is perfectly palm-sized. Credit: Samantha Mangino / Mashable

In testing the Kobo Clara Colour, I put away my Kindle Paperwhite for a few weeks and was surprised but how much I didn't miss it. It was refreshing to use a smaller e-reader that truly felt handheld. The six-inch screen is smaller than the Paperwhite's, but I didn't miss the extra real estate. In fact, it was a worthy sacrifice for how comfortable it felt to hold.

Rather than the Kindle Paperwhite's screen that sits flush with the chassis, the Clara's screen is surrounded by a raised edge. This follows the same design as the basic Kindle. The Clara is also the same size as the basic Kindle, which, in my review of the Kindle, I noted would be the perfect e-reader if it were waterproof. Well, the Kobo Clara delivers a near-identical design and is waterproof.

Compatible with the Kobo remote Kobo is the only e-reader brand with a remote for their devices. Credit: Samantha Mangino / Mashable

Another reason to love the Kobo Clara Colour is its compatibility with the Kobo remote. Kobo is the only e-reader brand with a native remote. It connects to the Clara via Bluetooth so you can move forward (or backward) in the book with just the press of a button. Just prop up the Clara on a stand, get out the remote, and prepare for the coziest winter reading setup.

It needs better battery life

The biggest issue I have with the Kobo Clara Colour is its battery life. It lasts up to six weeks, which, compared to a phone or laptop, might seem like plenty. The issue is that the bar is high for e-reader battery life, with Kindles lasting up to 12 weeks. In the months I've had the Kobo Clara, I've needed to recharge it twice as often as the Kindle Paperwhite. If Kobo wants to one-up Kindle, it needs to improve the device's battery life.

Is the Kobo Clara Colour worth it? Want an e-reader but don't want to shop at Amazon? Try the Kobo Clara Colour. Credit: Samantha Mangino / Mashable

If you're seeking a new e-reader and want to avoid Amazon, go for the Kobo Clara Colour. It's an incredible value at $159.99, the same price as the Kindle Paperwhite, but the Clara comes with color displays and a better handheld size. It's a worthy competitor to Amazon's Kindles, but there is room for improvement, especially around its battery life.

TikTok's newest goal-setting trend borrows from an old retail trick: the loyalty punch card. But instead of free coffee, these handmade cards offer users a small, tangible sense of accomplishment.

The appeal may be less about self-improvement and more about the ritual. For millennials and Gen Z —generations raised on sticker charts, gold stars, and achievement tracking — the punch card offers a familiar feedback loop. Creating the card, decorating it, and punching each hole delivers a hit of accomplishment that can feel meaningful even before the goal is fully realized.

Media theorists might recognize this as a form of interpassivity, in which the gesture of progress stands in for the thing itself: by turning goals into punchable milestones, users externalize motivation, letting the card do some of the work, while the satisfaction of the punch becomes its own reward.

"Making punch cards is such a fun way to make goals feel like a game," creator @caro.fields wrote in the caption of her TikTok. In a follow-up video, she added, "They're a whimsical way to make your goals feel more approachable." Creators like her highlight one of the trend's biggest draws: the act of designing, crafting, and punching the card can feel just as satisfying, and sometimes more immediate, than completing the goal itself.

These punch cards run on a kind of retail psychology. They don't just offer the promise of a future reward, but proof that you're getting closer to your goal. The difference is that instead of earning a free drink, users are tracking micro-goals that feel manageable in a chaotic day — five workouts, ten walks, seven days of journaling, a month of language practice broken into punchable steps.

But discipline isn't the only appeal. In an era of burnout, these cards function more like comfort objects than productivity systems. It's a tiny routine that makes effort feel tangible and maybe even fun.

And like many productivity trends on TikTok, punch cards often double as aesthetic objects. Unlike apps, no cards look the same. The careful lettering, color coding, and reward sections are as much part of the appeal as the goals themselves, blurring the line between tools meant to be used and objects designed to be seen.

The punch-card trend also reflects a broader shift toward analog tools in online spaces. From paper planners and bullet journals to analog bags and "dumbphone" experiments, TikTok has increasingly embraced tactile, offline objects as a response to digital overload — and often turning them back into content in the process.

The cards may not guarantee follow-through, but they do offer something immediate: a quick punch, a moment of satisfaction, and the feeling that progress, however small, has been made.

On the moon's extreme western rim, straddling the border with the lunar far side, a landmark nearly 600 miles wide almost completely escapes Earth's view. 

A colossal asteroid-like invader once ripped through the lunar crust, flinging out rings of mountains and scooping out a giant bowl, later flooded and backfilled with dark lava. The bullseye still stands today, scars memorializing that long-ago catastrophe. 

From space orbiter cameras, Mare Orientale, which means "Eastern Sea" in Latin, reads clearly as a fossil of violence, geometry, and time. But despite the lunar feature's vastness, its location has forced it to remain one of humanity's white whales. 

"Orientale has never been seen by human eyes," said Reid Wiseman, commander of NASA's Artemis II. 

On the upcoming historic mission, the first to send people into deep space in 50 years, astronauts Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Hammock Koch, and Jeremy Hansen will loop around the moon in the Orion capsule. Depending on final tests and weather conditions, NASA could launch the spaceship as early as Feb. 6. As the crew swing past the far side — the lunar hemisphere that never faces Earth — the astronauts may see landscapes no one has ever seen before in sunlight.

With Apollo 8 astronauts taking the first glimpse of the far side in 1968, Artemis II won't be the first mission to have this vantage point. But this time, the launch period, flight path, and lighting conditions of the lunar terrain could let the crew study parts of the moon humans have never seen directly, revealing subtle surface details that stayed hidden in earlier missions.

SEE ALSO: NASA’s Artemis 2 astronauts could head to the moon in a matter of weeks The far side of the moon

The far-side hemisphere was once dubbed "the dark side" because people had never seen it. The misnomer has led many to incorrectly assume the far side is shrouded in darkness, a confusion that persists even today. In reality, the hemisphere receives just as much light as the near side. 

People only ever see the near side because of one truly astronomical coincidence. It takes about a month for the moon, some 250,000 miles away, to orbit Earth. For the moon to make one full spin on its axis, it takes roughly the same amount of time. Until October 1959, when the Soviet space program swung the robotic Luna 3 probe around the moon and snapped some grainy pictures, no one had any idea what the other side was like. 

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Apollo crews only had brief views of the far side as they looped around the moon. Their launches were timed so that the near side, where they landed and explored, would be bathed in sunlight. But that usually meant when the near-side was well-lit, the far side was in shadow or only had a thin crescent illuminated. 

By comparison, Artemis II will have a high likelihood of seeing 60 percent of the far side that human eyes have never seen. That matters, mission leaders said, because despite having plenty of robotic spacecraft images of the far side, nothing beats firsthand observations. 

After all, having people there, not just machines, is the point.

Artemis II astronauts Jeremy Hansen, left, Christina Koch, center, and Jenni Gibbons, a backup crewmate, get hands-on geology training on a field trip to Iceland. Credit: Canadian Space Agency

"Most people think that the moon is only gray," said Jacob Bleacher, NASA's chief exploration scientist, "but the human eye can pick out a tremendous amount of detail." 

Three full hours of observations

NASA plans to make the most of that opportunity. Even though they won't put boots down on the moon, the Artemis II astronauts have received geology and science training so they know what to look for as the moon fills Orion’s windows.

During the flight, they hope to spend three full hours completely devoted to observations. Their eyes will scan the far-side terrain, studying variations in the grayscale. Those subtle nuances of how bright or dark patches of the surface appear can hint at different rock types and ages. 

Artemis II astronauts Christina Koch and Victor Glover, right, practice photography of lunar targets during a training exercise. Credit: NASA / James Blair

NASA expects the crew to move between looking with their own eyes, taking pictures with cameras, and talking through what they see with flight controllers in Houston. They will carry checklists from science teams on where to look, but they'll also have the freedom to explore as they please.

"The moon will look about like holding a basketball at arm's reach," Bleacher said, "so they'll be able to see a good bit of the moon, if not all of it."

Future Artemis landing sites

Scientists believe a lot could be gained from studying the far side. The near side has large dark patches, called maria, that together resemble the "man in the moon" face. When lava filled in the ancient craters, it erased other craters that recorded some of the moon's geological history. But on the far side, fewer of these dark splotches exist, suggesting that it has a more pristine record of cosmic collisions. 

During the NASA and Soviet space race, no one ever landed on this unseen side, even robotically, because of how challenging it is. The moon itself blocks communication between flight controllers on Earth and spacecraft on the other side. But in 2018, China put a communication relay satellite in space about 40,000 miles beyond the moon to allow the exchange of signals. That same year, China succeeded in becoming the first nation to put an uncrewed lander on the far side. 

Not only could the Artemis II observations enlighten scientists about solar system history, but the crew could help pick landing sites for future missions and pinpoint compelling science targets. They may just turn our familiar gray saucer into something new again. 

"We hope it's not 'the dark side,'" Koch said, referring to its old, misleading nickname. "We hope it's the lit far side."