Technology

The first cell phone plan I ever purchased was via an MVNO, and I’ve stuck with them almost exclusively ever since. I love them, but even I must there are a few things I wish I were better prepared for going in.

Microsoft Access is still sitting in your Office app list like a dusty VHS player in a 4K world. Back in the 1990s, it was the Swiss Army knife of the office, bridging the gap between basic spreadsheets and complex code. Today, it isn't officially dead, but its days are numbered. Here's why, and what you can use instead.

Finding answers to simple smart home questions like "does this light bulb require a cloud service" or "is this smart switch reliable with Home Assistant" can be surprisingly difficult, even after trudging through forum posts and Reddit threads. The Open Home Foundation Device Database aims to fix these problems, using data collected and anonymized from Home Assistant installations.

Linux is increasingly user-friendly, and as more and more apps become compatible, it is more tempting than ever to jump ship from Windows to Linux. However, there is one major drawback to Linux for anyone that wants to try it.

Your NAS is, at its core, kind of another PC. It has PC specs, and it runs a full operating system, but the way it's put together means it's optimized to do certain things betther than your PC.

SAVE 14%: As of Feb. 2, the 11-inch Apple iPad (A16) is $299.99 at Amazon, down from $349. That's a 14% discount or $49.01 in savings.

Opens in a new window Credit: Apple 11-inch Apple iPad (A16, 128GB, WiFi) $299.99 at Amazon
$349 Save $49.01   Get Deal

If you've been waiting to replace an old, cracked tablet or just want one for travel so you can stop squinting at your phone, our favorite entry-level iPad just hit a price that makes it a very easy buy.

As of Feb. 2, the 11-inch Apple iPad (A16) is $299.99 at Amazon, down from $349. That's a 14% discount or $49.01 in savings. While this isn't the lowest we've seen (it dipped to around $274 during Black Friday), it's still a solid deal for a non-holiday window. Just note that this price is currently available on the pink and blue colorways; other finishes are still in the $320+ range.

SEE ALSO: The 4 best iPads of 2026: Which iPad should you buy in the new year?

This model features the A16 chip (which is more than fast enough for gaming and editing), an 11-inch Liquid Retina display, and 128GB of storage right out of the box — a much-needed bump from previous base models. It also supports USB-C charging (so you can use the same cable as your laptop) and offers all-day battery life.

Affordable family sedans often trade premium features for low prices, but one Korean-built example proves that doesn’t have to be the case in 2025. It delivers a level of comfort, refinement, and technology that rivals far more expensive rivals, all while staying within reach of mainstream budgets. For buyers who want a sedan that feels genuinely upscale without the luxury-car price tag, this model hits a rare sweet spot.

SAVE $700: The Soundcore Nebula X1 Pro outdoor cinema projector is on sale at Amazon for $4,299, down from the standard price of $4,999. That's a 14% discount and the lowest price we've ever seen at Amazon.

Opens in a new window Credit: Soundcore Soundcore Nebula X1 Pro outdoor cinema projector $4,299 at Amazon
$4,999 Save $700   Get Deal

If you're a sports fan, you have a very exciting week ahead. On Friday, we have the opening ceremony for the 2026 Winter Olympics, followed by weeks of epic sporting events. And this coming Sunday, we have Super Bowl LX. If you already have the snack menu planned, but you're still searching for another way to make this winter's sporting events better than ever, you might want to check out this deal.

As of Feb. 2, the Soundcore Nebula X1 Pro outdoor cinema projector is on sale for $4,299 at Amazon, marked down from the list price of $4,999. That's a 14% discount that shaves a nice $700 off the price. It's also the lowest we've ever seen at Amazon.

If you've ever wished you could have a drive-in movie experience in your own backyard, Soundcore heard your desires and released the Nebula X1 Pro home and outdoor cinema projector. Before we dive into the specifics of what this projector can do, note that it's shaped like a massive boom box on wheels. It looks more like the JBL PartyBox 520 in its stature than a standard projector.

But the Soundcore Nebula X1 Pro is a complex beast in what it's capable of, while still being super easy to use, of course. It's a 4K projector with 3,500 ANSI lumens that's capable of projecting a display up to 300 inches. But since it's a mobile theatre, it also includes speakers that are designed to create surround sound.

SEE ALSO: The Samsung Frame TV is back on sale at Amazon — save $300 right now

The speaker set-up uses 12 custom drivers with dual-opposing subwoofers. Used inside or out, you'll be able to recreate a theatre-experience at home which will be awesome for this weekend's sports events. Soundcore made this model super portable with a telescoping handle and durable wheels. Plus, there's a 6.6 foot retractable power cable.

For anyone looking to get a major upgrade to backyard movie nights or indoor winter streaming sessions, go with the Soundcore Nebula X1 Pro outdoor cinema projector while it's on sale for $4,299 at Amazon. If you're looking for something a whole lot more portable and less expensive, the Nebula Capsule 3 Laser mini projector is also on a nice 28% discount at Amazon.

The 2026 Winter Olympics begin this week, and for athletes trying to have their own Heated Rivalry moment, gay hookup app Grindr is beefing up its safety features.

Grindr will be available during the Olympics, the app told Mashable, with additional safeguards in place. For example, the location-based features Explore and Roam will be disabled within the Olympic Villages to prevent people outside the venues from browsing who's on the app. Distance visibility will also be turned off by default, and users will have the option to use approximate distance. Private videos will also be disabled in official Olympics locations.

SEE ALSO: Review: Grindr, you're a mess in 2026, so why can't I quit you?

During the Olympic Games in recent years, dating app users have changed their locations in hopes of matching with athletes, so these measures make sense.

In addition to those location features, Grindr will also have unlimited disappearing messages and the ability to unsend messages available to all users. Screenshots will be disabled for profile images and photos shared in chat, which is a standard feature.

Regular in-app safety reminders will also appear on Grindr, with links to support and resources. Only public service announcements will be shown, too — no third-party ads.

"The Olympic Games bring heightened visibility, which can create real safety risks for LGBTQ+ athletes, especially those who are not out or come from countries where being LGBTQ+ is dangerous or illegal," Grindr's chief product officer, AJ Balance, stated in a press release. Grindr is restricted in several countries due to local laws.

"These temporary changes are about reducing that risk and giving users greater control of their privacy while keeping the app available."

Grindr also implemented these safety measures at the 2024 Paris Olympics and the 2022 Beijing Olympics.

With optical media production winding down, and many people seemingly happy to get rid of their disc collections, there's never been a better time to pick up used media for your collection, but I'm still somewhat particular about used discs no matter how low their price!

Some SSDs are already quite compact, but a new SSD format takes things to the next level. The Mini SSD tech from Biwin looks more or less like a microSD card, but boasts PCIe 3.0-like read and write speeds and is available in capacities up to 2TB.

People on the internet like to say "God gives His toughest battles to His strongest soldiers," and I think that statement applies to people like me who love RPGs but can't earnestly recommend them to friends because so many are several dozen hours long.

This problem is often worsened by remakes or re-releases of old RPGs, which add new content that extends their already substantial playtimes. Dragon Quest VII Reimagined from Square Enix is a fascinating exception to this trend, as it takes a famously 100+ hour game from 26 years ago (which already got an expanded remake on 3DS in 2013) and actually condenses it down into a format that's a lot more digestible for players who don't want to devote that much time to a game.

Square Enix went so far as to cut entire areas and storylines out of the game, and also accelerated the upgrade mechanics. The end result is a much leaner, quicker, almost entry-level version of DQVII. It's a great game for Dragon Quest first-timers like me, but admittedly, it left me wanting to see what was left on the cutting room floor.

SEE ALSO: 'Resident Evil: Requiem' might actually get to have its cake and eat it too A unique island-hopping adventure It's a real looker. Credit: Square Enix/Steam

We can debate the necessity of remaking Dragon Quest VII for a second time this century, but there's no question that its premise and structure make it one of the more compelling games in the venerable RPG series. For that reason alone, I'm glad Square found a way to get this game in front of people again.

At the start of the journey, the silent protagonist and his friends live on a small island with a couple of towns, a castle, and a mysterious shrine. As far as they're concerned, that's the entire known world. There are no other islands or continents in the vast ocean, and no one really knows why or even cares to ask about it. Before long, though, you'll find yourself using the aforementioned shrine to travel back in time to islands that used to exist, saving them from whatever perils they faced, and then going back to the present to find them restored.

While DQVII does have a main plot hanging over all of this, in practice, it feels more like a short story collection than many other RPGs. Each island has a little narrative to tell that you can get through in an hour or two, and as a reward, you get to revisit the island again in the present to see how your actions in the past affected it. It's an innately captivating way to structure a game, and it makes DQVII Reimagined less intimidating.

Another aspect of DQVII that makes it stand out compared to later entries (like the also-excellent Dragon Quest XI) is that its story has a somewhat darker tone. You aren't always able to solve every person's problem cleanly. Several stories end in either outright tragedy or at least in a bittersweet fashion; one that really stuck with me involved going to the present to find the long-dead corpse of an inventor I helped in the past still being attended to by a robot that didn't understand the concept of death.

It's often sad without ever resorting to overly edgy tactics, and in a way that marries nicely to the late, great Akira Toriyama's colorful and personality-laden art direction.

It's exceedingly chill, almost to a fault I like the combat, but there's no denying that it can be pretty low-impact. Credit: Square Enix/Steam

The somewhat clashing narrative tone and bubbly character designs feel in keeping with Dragon Quest in general, as the whimsical, humorous vibe the series has always had also contradicts its nature as one of the definitive "sit back and watch numbers go up" video games.

DQVII carries forward the same basic turn-based combat the franchise has had since day one. The first-person perspective of the older games has long since been replaced by a more modern third-person view with excellent attack animations, but mechanically it's still a game about doing whatever you can to make the math work in your favor.

You can accomplish that either by grinding to become overpowered or by carefully outfitting your characters with certain gear that will make otherwise random battle effects occur more frequently. Either way, you're manipulating numbers in service of making bigger numbers pop out of enemies when you attack them.

I absolutely dig this approach, as do many other people, judging by the enduring popularity of Dragon Quest both in Japan and elsewhere. There's no denying, however, that I spent much of DQVII Reimagined with auto-battle turned on and the combat speed set to the max, essentially watching the game play out in front of me instead of actively participating in battles.

Arguably, this is how the series is meant to be played (of course, I turned off auto-battle for boss encounters), but I can also understand why modern gamers might question a game you barely play in the traditional sense.

Towns are rendered pretty gorgeously here. Credit: Square Enix/Steam

For me, the fun lies in constantly working towards something. DQVII Reimagined includes a similar job system to previous versions of the game. You can equip different character archetypes like Mage, Warrior, and Priest to any character you want, and the more time you spend with that job equipped, the more skills you unlock for it. Mastering certain combinations of jobs will even allow you to equip more advanced jobs with endearingly game-breaking abilities.

DQVII Reimagined makes one major change to this system, which is that after a point, you can equip two jobs to a character at the same time, reaping the benefits of both at once. This allows for greater flexibility in build-crafting (having a beefy tank who can also heal is self-evidently useful), but it also lets you level up jobs more quickly, granting access to end-game variants in an efficient manner.

I was honestly a bit shocked at how quickly you can master jobs and unlock new ones. You wind up not spending much time at all with any given job, which adds to the sense of mechanical variety, but does also make it feel more transparently like you're playing just to fill up a meter rather than fully engaging with specific combat roles for extended periods of time.

All of that combines with the lack of random encounters, as enemies now appear on the overworld. That means you can outright skip fights if you feel like it, which works to increase the pace of DQVII Reimagined. You can also swing a weapon at enemies in the overworld, and if your level is high enough relative to theirs, you'll instantly take them out right there instead of transitioning into a turn-based fight.

This is perhaps my least favorite gameplay mechanic in the remake, as I feel that it's balanced a bit too generously in the player's favor. I spent huge swaths of multiple late-game dungeons doing very little turn-based combat because I could just take out enemies that way instead.

I am rarely the type to complain about a game being too easy. I am an adult man who no longer has anything to prove to anyone. I generally just don't care about challenge in the traditional sense. But there's no denying that, by the end of DQVII Reimagined, I yearned a bit for the main story to offer more difficulty than it ultimately does. Still, the experience DQVII Reimagined provides is adequately pleasant and satisfying, putting it right in line with other games in the series.

As good as this remake is, it'll never feel complete These are really lovingly rendered takes on Akira Toriyama's character designs. Credit: Square Enix/Steam

Before we wrap up here, I do want to shout out the visual presentation in DQVII Reimagined. Toriyama's exceedingly charming character designs have been brought to life in full, luscious 3D, thanks to the use of physical models that the developers actually crafted and then scanned for use in the game.

The characters look fantastic, and all of the classic DQ monsters look as good as they ever have. It's a bright, colorful game full of verve everywhere you go, and some of the more modern visual additions, like depth-of-field effects, work to enhance the look. The PlayStation 5 version I played also performs flawlessly.

Lastly, I should mention that this version of DQVII only took me about 35 hours to complete. That's a significant reduction in time compared to other versions of this game, largely attributable to things like increased combat speed and being able to skip combat encounters. However, I should also note that at least a few islands and storylines from the original game have been scrapped entirely here, while others have been made optional.

It leaves me in a weird spot where I do sincerely really like this version of DQVII, but as someone playing it for the first time, I felt a little short-changed. I now want to go back to the original PS1 or even the 3DS remake to see what was removed. I applaud Square Enix for having the gall to make a shorter version of an infamously long game, but there's no question that this isn't really a definitive version of DQVII.

Still, even with those caveats, DQVII Reimagined is a great time and a fun way to kickstart 2026 for RPG fans who want something that goes down easy rather than a 100-hour juggernaut.

Dragon Quest VII Reimagined launches on Feb. 5 for PC, PS5, Xbox Series S/X, and Nintendo Switch 1 and 2.

Opens in a new window Credit: Square Enix/Steam Dragon Quest VII Reimagined $59.99 at Amazon
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Ubuntu is one of the most popular Linux distros, but as with a lot of popular things, some people hate it. If you're fed up with Ubuntu's direction in the past few years, you might want to check out the distro it's based on, Debian. Here are some reasons why.

February is exciting for a mash-up of reasons, and in honor of that, I’ve selected a mash-up of movies on Amazon Prime Video for you to watch this week. From a cloak-and-dagger adventure and a gritty crime thriller to a feel-good mental health drama and one of my favorite Philip Seymour Hoffman comedies, we’re taking a ride.

One of Apple's major selling points is the seamless sync and continuity it provides between devices, and this is a major reason I've been immersed in its ecosystem for years. The iPhone often steals the show, but there's another killer productivity combination that is not talked about as much.

When Stray Kids launch into "Maniac," there's no such thing as easing in — and this exclusive clip from Stray Kids: The dominATE Experience captures that full-throttle moment in all its thunderous glory.

Filmed during the group's sold-out 2025 world tour stop at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles, the performance of "Maniac" is Stray Kids in peak form: dynamic choreography, explosive rap exchanges, and a stadium crowd roaring back every word. It's the kind of sequence that instantly transports you back into the sensory overload of a live show, where you can feel the bass in your chest and the lightsticks blur together.

SEE ALSO: 'The dominATE Experience' trailer proves Stray Kids were built for the big screen

As someone who saw this tour multiple times, that energy is instantly recognizable. "Maniac" was a statement piece in the show. It's a performance that summed up exactly who Stray Kids are onstage.

And in the clip, it does.

Alongside massive stadium footage, the film offers behind-the-scenes glimpses into how Stray Kids construct these moments, revealing the planning and discipline behind what often looks effortless onstage.

Directed by Paul Dugdale, with documentary segments from Farah X, the film is built for immersion for fans and novices alike. When it opens globally on Feb. 6, 2026, in IMAX®, SCREENX, 4DX, and ULTRA 4DX formats, you'll be able to feel performances like "Maniac" in your chest. (Whether that means emotional devastation or being physically rattled by the bass depends on your seat.)

I love Windows, don't get me wrong. However, I would be wrong to not recognize that Linux, for all its faults, is better than Windows at some things.

Wiping a drive before selling it is very important. Not just because whoever's going to use it next needs the space, but also because you don't want them snooping through your files after you sold it.

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 price 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 latest deal.

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 price 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.

Bad Bunny was one of the big winners at the 2026 Grammy Awards, taking home the trophies for Best Música Urbana Album and Album of the Year for DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS.

During his acceptance speech for the former, the rapper and singer took a moment to address ICE, which has come under increasing criticism following the deadly shootings of Renée Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis by federal immigration agents.

"Before I say thanks to God, I'm gonna say ICE out. We're not savage, we're not animals, we're not aliens, we are humans, and we are Americans," says Bad Bunny in the clip above.

"The hate gets more powerful with more hate. The only thing that is more powerful than hate is love. So please, we need to be different. If we fight, we have to do it with love. We don't hate them, we love our people and we love our family. And that's the way to do it, with love."

Picking up the award for Song of the Year, Billie Eilish also criticised ICE during her acceptance speech.

The question is, will Bad Bunny call out ICE again when he performs at Super Bowl LX?

Check out the full list of winners at the 2026 Grammys.