Technology

Willy Barton/Shutterstock.com

If you’ve just bought a new TV, you might be wondering why everything you watch feels eerily sped up and smooth, like you’re watching a live broadcast all the time. You’re not imagining things: Your TV might be suffering from Motion Smoothing.

What is Motion Smoothing, and How Does it Work?

Every TV manufacturer calls their specific tech by a different name, for marketing reasons of course. Action Smoothing, TruMotion, Motionflow—these are all names for the same function: making your TV’s picture feel smoother. And that’s motion smoothing. It’s also known as the “soap opera effect” because low-budget soap operas used to have cheap video cameras that produced a higher frame rate, smoother-looking video.

Most TV shows, movies, and broadcasts are filmed at 24 or 30 frames per second (fps, also called “hertz” or “Hz”), which is fast enough for the eye to perceive them as smooth video and not a choppy slideshow. However, the standard most TVs and monitors are capable of is 60 Hz and some more expensive displays clock in at 120 Hz and even 240 Hz.

But, movies and TV shows are still 30fps, which presents a problem: what’s the point of 60hz displays if the content you watch only updates at half of that? The refresh rate of film isn’t changing anytime soon, so this is where “Motion Smoothing” comes in. Motion smoothing tries to fix this issue by taking a guess at the 30 frames missing from each second, usually by comparing a before and after shot and attempting to find the middle ground between the two of them.

RELATED: Why Does My New HDTV’s Picture Look Sped Up and “Smooth”?

Why Is It Such a Problem?

Most people have trouble with motion smoothing. After all, we’ve spent years training our brains to enjoy movies and TV shows filmed at 24 or 30fps, and our brains have come to think of that as how a movie or TV show should look.

TV manufacturers, on the other hand, are just trying to advertise bigger numbers to consumers. 240 Hz must be better than 120 Hz and much better than 60 Hz, right? Well, sometimes it is, yes—especially when the content is designed for it.

But most consumers don’t enjoy the higher frame rates on most of the content they watch. Viewing content filmed at 24 or 30fps looks especially weird on TVs that run at 120 Hz and above. The insanely smooth motion makes the video almost seem real, which breaks the immersion of cinema completely. Honestly, it often feels more like you’re watching a behind-the-scenes documentary about the movie than the movie itself.

For some things, motion smoothing makes sense. Live action sports and video games, for example, have fast-moving content that could use a bit more clarity. Unfortunately, two other problems associated with motion smoothing break these two use cases as well.

• For sports, things sometimes move so fast that the smoothing algorithm doesn’t know what to do, and ends up producing a strange, often blurry image instead of a clear “in between” frame. This defect, which results in incorrect or glitch pictures, is called artifacting.
• For video games, the extra input lag required to add motion smoothing completely ruins being able to play the game effectively. The controls feel sluggish and unresponsive, which is why most TVs offer a “Game Mode” that disable motion smoothing and other advanced picture effects.

Read the remaining 5 paragraphs

Craig Lloyd

Most Wi-Fi cameras require a power outlet, which puts a real damper on where you can place them. Battery-powered Wi-Fi cameras, while not as numerous as their wired counterparts, offer much more flexible placement. Here are the best models available.

If you’re not interested in tearing up your walls to run wire (or paying an electrician to do it), wireless battery-powered security cameras are pretty appealing. There’s no video feed cable, no power outlet required, and if you’re willing to charge the batteries a few times a year then installation is as simple as screwing the mounting point into the wall or even just setting the camera on a shelf in your home.

Arlo Ultra ($399) Arlo

If money really isn’t an issue and you simply just want the best battery-powered Wi-Fi camera on the market, you can’t go with the Arlo Ultra.

The Ultra can record in 4K HDR, which is quite impressive for a battery-powered camera. It also can do color night vision thanks to the built-in spotlight, making it easier to recognize objects (unlike the typical black and white night vision that most other cameras that makes it more difficult to distinguish between things on the video feed). It has two-way talk capabilities and a really wide 180-degree field of view so you see much more of your yard or home.

It’s also weather resistant, so you can place outside if you’d rather keep tabs on the outside of your house. Plus, it has strong magnetic mounts to make it easy to mount the cameras but just as easy to dismount it whenever you need to recharge it.

The downside is that a proprietary hub is required in order to operate the Ultra cam, but once you have the hub installed, you can add as many cameras as you want with little hassle.

Buy on Amazon Ring Stick Up Cam ($179) Ring

Ring doesn’t only just make video doorbells. They also make standalone Wi-Fi cameras as well, and the Stick Up Cam comes in a battery-powered version that works great anywhere around your house.

While it doesn’t do 4K video like the Arlo Ultra, it can at least churn out 1080p video and comes with all the features you’d want, including two-way talk and night vision, as well as motion alerts and plenty of different ways to mount it.

If you only need one or two Wi-Fi cams in your house and need them battery powered, this is definitely the way to go.

Buy on Amazon Budget Option: Arlo Wire-Free ($249 for 2) Arlo

Read the remaining 5 paragraphs

leungchopan/Shutterstock.com

The “screen door effect” often occurs when using modern virtual reality headsets. It looks like you’re viewing the world through a mesh screen, and is a result of the black, empty spaces between pixels when seen up close.

What Does the Screen Door Effect Look Like? thd_fon/Shutterstock.com

Screen doors have mesh screens, and it looks like you’re viewing the world through a grid when you look through them. That’s exactly what the screen door effect can look like in a virtual reality headset.

The screen door effect doesn’t always look the same. The visual effect depends on the specific headset you’re wearing and the content you’re viewing. Different people’s eyes and brains may perceive the screen door effect differently, too. And, even if two people can see the same visual effect, it may annoy some people more than others.

Heck, one person on Reddit even claims the screen door effect is less noticeable when using a VR headset while intoxicated—perhaps due to slightly blurrier than normal vision.

RELATED: How Good is VR in 2018? Is It Worth Buying?

What Causes the Screen Door Effect? CobraCZ/Shutterstock.com

The screen door effect (SDE) is a visual artifact caused by the display inside the headset. Modern flat-panel displays use pixels, which are tiny individual elements laid out on the panel. There’s a bit of space between each pixel. That space isn’t lit and is black, and it results in the black visual grid you sometimes see. That’s the screen door effect.

This effect isn’t new to VR headsets, and it can occur for other types of displays. It’s worse on VR headsets than other modern displays because our eyes are so close and are looking at the panel through lenses that magnify it. In other words, you’re looking at the display really close, so you can see the individual pixels and the spaces between them.

However, if you get your face right up against another display—assuming the display is low resolution enough—you may be able to see the individual pixels and the grid between them on that display, too.

How Can the Screen Door Effect Be Fixed? Samsung

This problem is less noticeable on higher-resolution displays, which have higher pixels per square inch (PPI.) This means the pixels are packed more tightly together and there’s less space between them. As the space between pixels shrinks, the screen door effect becomes less noticeable and can practically be eliminated.

Read the remaining 13 paragraphs

Cameron Summerson

If you’re running a Google Pixel handset, your phone is safe from a security hole that could let a PNG file completely wreck the system. If you’re using nearly any other Android handset, then your phone is vulnerable. This is a problem.

Google recently released the February security update for Pixel devices, which closes a hole that would allow malicious PNG files to “execute arbitrary code within the context of a privileged process.” In simpler terms, the code can run at a high level and steal your info—all you need to do is open the file. That’s it.

That means any PNG that comes to you—be it in an email, a messaging client, or even over MMS—could potentially hijack the system and steal valuable data. That is, on any phone that isn’t a Pixel, because they’re protected now. Samsung, LG, OnePlus, and most other manufacturers’ handsets are still susceptible to this bug. We have to start holding manufacturers to a higher standard when it comes to security updates. Period.

I currently have four Android phones within arm’s reach: Pixel 2 XL, Pixel 1, Samsung Galaxy S9, and OnePlus 6T. The two Pixels are patched and protected with the February update, but the S9 and 6T are only on the December security patches. That means any newer vulnerabilities—like this PNG one, for example—are unpatched on both of these handsets. Considering that Samsung Galaxy devices are among the most popular phones on the planet, this is troubling.

Cameron Summerson

But it’s not just an issue because of the current problem. This is a dynamic problem that is a constant concern—or at least it should be. As long as there are new vulnerabilities, delayed security updates will always be an issue. So, to put that in simpler terms: this will always be an issue because vulnerabilities are guaranteed.

While Android “fragmentation” has long been an issue (since the platform was introduced, essentially) when it comes to full OS updates, this should not apply to security updates. These are not “new features are cool, and I want them” updates, these are crucial data-protecting updates. Regardless of whether they’re small or not, this isn’t something that should be overlooked by any consumer. Ever.

RELATED: Fragmentation Isn’t Android’s Fault, It’s the Manufacturers’

Currently, manufacturers are doing a terrible job of protecting their users, full stop. While not getting full OS updates (or even point releases) is annoying at best, not getting security updates is unacceptable. It sends a message that can’t be ignored: it says that your phone manufacturer doesn’t care about your data. Your info isn’t important enough for them to protect.

Security updates aren’t huge like full OS updates or even point releases. They’re released monthly by Google, so they’re much smaller and easier to bake into the system—even for third-party manufacturers. Again, there’s no real excuse not to make this a priority.

Read the remaining 7 paragraphs

Apple’s Original Logo Featured Which Famous Inventor?

1. Sir Isaac Newton
2. Thomas Edison
3. Nikola Tesla
4. Alexander Graham Bell

Think you know the answer?

Tired of racing people to the overhead compartments? Maybe it’s time to start shoving that carry-on luggage under the seat.

Underseat bags, while not as big as overhead bags, are incredible pieces of luggage. They’re compact, lightweight, and the best of them can totally replace your overhead bag. An underseat bag can take the hassle out of a short flight, but it can also smooth the edges of a long flight.

Not to mention, replacing (or supplementing) your overhead bag with an underseat bag can provide you with in-flight access to the snacks, games, and books that would usually be thumping around above somebody’s head. You won’t have to scramble together what you need while boarding, and you won’t have to beg an attendant to let you dig around in the overhead compartment mid-flight.

A lot of underseat bags have found their way to store shelves and online retailers, but none of them are created equal. Some of them are just big, pocket-less nylon tote bags. What’s the point in buying a piece of luggage that isn’t durable or organized?

That’s why we’ve taken the time to find the best underseat bags in a variety of shapes and sizes. All of these bags are durable, organized, and suited to a modern flyer’s needs.

Samsonite Underseater With USB Port ($90) Samsonite

Samsonite Underseater is a strange, exciting little bag. It’s a bit roomier than most underseat bags, and tows the line between a backpack and a serious piece of luggage. The Underseater has four organized pockets, and the main pocket is big enough to hold a 15″ laptop. It has a set of wheels and a retractable handle, but it can still slide onto the handle of a larger bag. The Underseater also has a USB port that can be linked with a portable battery, for easy in-flight phone charging.

Really, anyone can get some use out of the Underseater. It’s a great primary bag for short flights, as it can hold a lot of clothes and electronics. But it’s also a good piece of supplemental luggage for longer flights, because it has so many organized pockets for your laptop, your portable battery, snacks, books, and games.

Buy on Amazon Samsonite Advena Travel Bag ($55) Samsonite

If you’re looking for a deep and durable underseat bag, then you should check out the Samsonite Advena. It’s a duffel-styled bag with two large pockets, a shoulder strap, and a sleeve that can slide over the handles of a larger bag.

Read the remaining 10 paragraphs

Smarthome gadgets are convenient, but what happens when the power goes out? Can you unlock an electric smart lock? Will all your smart lights come on at 3 a.m. when the power returns? And what about your garage door.

Power Outages Aren’t Much Worse For Smart Homes

Power outages happen, and they’re annoying to everyone. Every home depends on electricity to power climate control, lighting, internet, appliances, and so many other modern conveniences. A power outage is a problem in a smarthome, sure—but it’s a problem in every home.

Let’s be honest: Losing power in a smarthome isn’t different from losing it in any other home these days. Most smart devices will stop functioning just like most “dumb” devices, but there are some things to keep in mind—especially for smart locks and some smart lights.

Smart Locks Are Battery Powered, and May Have A Backup

Just because you’ve lost power doesn’t mean a smart lock has completely stopped working. Smart locks are battery powered, so the locking mechanism can keep working even when the rest of your home loses power. However, any remote capabilities that rely on the internet or a connected hub will not work. And that includes battery notifications, so if the power outage is expected to last you might want to replace your batteries as a precaution.

Batteries dying won’t be a concern if your smart lock includes a keyhole. In that case, make sure to have your key, but if your smart lock features only a keypad or Bluetooth connection then go ahead and replace the batteries or at the very least test their charge. Some smart locks have terminals to receive a charge from a 9V battery as well; if that applies to you, then it may be worthwhile to store one in your car in the glovebox. For example, both the Schlage Z-Wave connect and the Kwikset Kevo have keyholes, while the Yale Assure Lock features a 9-volt battery backup option.

Smart Lights Might Wake You Up

While your power is out, your smart lights are the same as any other light—off. They won’t do much of anything until you get power back, which is no surprise. The bigger question is what happens when the power comes back on. Many smart lights will stay off until you explicitly turn them back on. But some lights, like Philips Hue bulbs, can act differently. Depending on the current setting, these bulbs may turn on as soon as your power returns.

Read the remaining 13 paragraphs

Which Computer Engineer Is Best Known For Giving The Mother Of All Demos?

1. Bill Gates
2. Tim Berners-Lee
3. Douglas Engelbart
4. Steve Jobs

Think you know the answer?

Boszyy Artist/Shutterstock

A good quality car shampoo is key for starting off your car cleaning experience just right. The best car shampoo will clean off all the dirt without leaving a mark or stain in sight. We’ve looked at some of the best options out there for you.

In all cases, we’ve focused on gentle formulations that are pH neutral and guaranteed to not damage your car’s clearcoat or underlying paint. We’ve also looked at some options that work great without water, or that don’t require you to wax separately afterwards. After all, not everyone wants to spend hours detailing their car, right?

Here’s our favorite car shampoos for every situation.

Best Overall: Adam’s Car Wash Shampoo ($45) Adam’s Polishes

Adam’s Car Wash Shampoo is a perfect one-stop destination for washing your car. It’s pH neutral, guarantees to never scratch, cause swirls, or leave water spots, and it’s easy to use. Its formulation is safe on all vehicle surfaces including paint, rubber, vinyl, glass, and plastics.

You can use it with a bucket of water to create a rich, thick head of foam or you can opt to pair it with a foam gun or cannon for a snow like consistency. It smells nice too which is always a welcome bonus. Simply add a few ounces of the gel to your water and you’re set up to wash your car without any hassle. It’s sure to become a favorite of yours.

Buy on Amazon Best Wash And Conditioner: Meguiar’s Gold Class Car Wash ($30) Meguiar’s

Meguiar’s Gold Class Car Wash is a dependable all in one solution if you want something that both cleans and conditions your car. Because not everyone wants to do that in separate steps. Meguiar’s formulation does a good job of foaming away tough dirt and road grime, while also adding ultra-rich conditioners to your paintwork. Somehow, it does all that without stripping away wax protection.

Like the Adam’s solution, you can slip it into a bucket or foam gun so it’s pretty easy to apply, although generally, you’ll get better results from this via the bucket and scrub method than foam gunning it. Bear that in mind if you want minimal effort when washing. Still, it’ll last you a while thanks to its high concentration levels of about 1 ounce to 1 gallon of water.

Buy on Amazon Best Concentrate: Chemical Guys Citrus Wash and Gloss ($45) Chemical Guys

Chemical Guys is always a great brand for car washing products so we couldn’t skip mentioning its Citrus Wash and Gloss. It smells as nice as it sounds with a biodegradable formula that out performs any shampoo that uses more aggressive chemicals. Its fast penetrating lubricating foam lifts and holds soil, so you won’t have to put much effort into your wash.

It also goes a long way with 1 cap of the shampoo combining with 5 gallons of water. It works equally as well via the bucket method or using a foam gun or cannon. Just make sure to shake it up before use as otherwise the agents can separate in transit.

Buy on Amazon Best For Waterless Wash: Adam’s Waterless Car Wash ($54) Adam’s Polishes

Read the remaining 6 paragraphs

A time-lapse is the opposite of slow-mo: instead of slowing down fast-moving activities they speed up slow ones. They’re perfect for showing the movement of clouds, crowds, traffic, and the like. You can even use them to show slow moving things like blooming flowers.

The great thing about time-lapses is that they’re very easy for photographers to shoot. Each frame is a single still image. Let’s have a look at the basics of shooting one yourself.

Before You Start

While it’s possible to shoot a time-lapse with your iPhone, for this article we’re going to look at using DSLRs or mirrorless cameras. They give you the most control.

RELATED: How to Select and Use a Tripod

As well as your camera, you need a tripod to keep everything locked in the same position. You also need an intervalometer so you can take photos at the same interval; some cameras have one built in, but if yours doesn’t, any decent remote shutter release will work.

RELATED: How to Remotely Control Your Camera

The final thing you have to do before starting is to work out how many images you have to shoot. There are calculators that can help, but I find it’s worth doing the math yourself.

Read the remaining 36 paragraphs

Cel-Shading Was First Used In Which Video Game?

1. Robotech: Battlecry
2. Jet Set Radio
3. Mega Man X7
4. Cel Damage

Think you know the answer?

dourleak/Shutterstock

There are a lot of reasons for wanting to boot from an external drive. If you’d like to keep files synced between a desktop and laptop, expand your storage, or have a bootable backup copy of your system, there’s a hidden feature in Disk Utility that makes it easy.

Generally, booting from an external drive will be slower, even with new Thunderbolt and USB-C drives. Those are still much slower than the solid state drives (SSDs) found in most new Macs. So while this isn’t recommended for daily use, it’s still possible.

Straight from Disk Utility, No Third Party Apps Required

Fire up Disk Utility from Spotlight (Command+Space) or the Utilities folder in your applications. You’ll be greeted with a list of all of your volumes, including your internal hard drive (probably called OS X or Macintosh HD) and your external hard drive.

Here’s where we get to that hidden feature we mentioned.

The “Restore” button in Disk Utility will copy the files from a backup to your main drive. It’s intended to be used from Recovery mode to restore your hard drive after a failure.

But, if you choose your external drive as the restore target, you can flip that action around and copy files from your main drive to the backup. Select your external drive in the sidebar, click “Restore” in the menu, and then select your main drive as the “Restore From” option. You can also choose an ISO image, but that doesn’t have much use here.

Click “Restore,” and Disk Utility will start the copying process. This can take fairly long, depending on the speed of your external drive and its connection to your Mac, so it’s best to have a fast hard drive with Thunderbolt, USB-C, or USB 3.0 connections.

Read the remaining 5 paragraphs

Spotify updated its terms of services to prohibit ad blockers, bots, and fraudulent streams. If you use an ad blocker on the streaming service, you should stop, or you may be banned from the service.

Spotify sent out an email to its users notifying changes to its Terms of Service. Helpfully, it included some plain English summaries in the email. While the usual boilerplate points were present, promising easier to understand language and updated information about third-party subscriptions, applications, and devices, one section of the summary stood out:

We’ve updated our User Guidelines, making it clear that all types of ad blockers, bots, and fraudulent streaming activities are not permitted

Spotify is like any other company, with the need to make a profit. But profitability has been extremely difficult, so much so that it just posted the first profitable quarter in the streaming service’s twelve-year history. That’s an enormous amount of time to lose money quarter after quarter.

So these changes are designed to accomplish two things. Ensure that Spotify receives all the money it should (no ad blockers), and prevent Spotify from paying out money that it shouldn’t (no fake streams). Unfortunately for Spotify, in addition to ad blockers for browsers, there are apps for Windows and Android designed to block the streaming service’s ads. If you’re using any of these options, you should probably stop immediately, lest your account gets terminated.

Spotify makes clear in its wording that you accept the new Terms of Service by continuing to stream, and the only way to opt out is to close your account. If you keep using ad blockers, Spotify says it will ban your account. The best way to avoid ads on Spotify is to pay for the premium service. If you don’t want to pay for premium, then you’ll need to stop using ad blockers and accept the ads.

There’s nothing better than a new iPad. And now might be your only chance to grab a new iPad for $100 off before Valentine’s Day.

Right now, Amazon is selling the 128GB iPad 6th Gen for just $330—that’s the same price the 32GB model usually goes for, making this a killer buy. This iPad is part of Apple’s newest iteration of tablets, and it’s one of the best tablets for professionals, mobile game players, musicians, and visual artists. Oh, and it makes a great Valentine’s Day gift.

The iPad has a 9.7″ retina display, fingerprint sensor, HD 8MP camera, and a 10-hour battery life. It works really well with an Apple Pencil, and it can be paired with a Bluetooth keyboard for typing on the go. It’s one of our favorite tablets, and it can even compete with some laptops for many people.

Of course, deals like this are few and far between. The iPad is an incredibly popular device, and it usually retails at a competitive price of about $430. If you’re interested in an iPad, now is a great time to pick one up at a ridiculous $100 discount.

Buy on Amazon

Still trying to find the perfect Valentine’s Day gift? You could save a bit of money by buying one on Amazon.

Right now, Amazon is discounting most of its tablets and smart devices, including the Echo Show and the Kindle Fire. And these aren’t some puny little deals, some products are 50 percent off. If your Valentine is a big fan of e-readers and smart home products, now may be the perfect opportunity to impress them.

Of course, you could always buy these products for yourself if you’re Valentine-less this year. Amazon won’t know the difference. Keep in mind that less expensive products, like the Echo Input, work best when you buy a bunch of them. Grabbing one for every room of your home can make your smarthome setup even more efficient.

Here are the best Valentine’s Day discounts on Amazon products:

• Echo Input – $20
• Amazon Echo – $70
• Amazon Echo Plus – $120
• Kindle Paperwhite – $100
• Kindle Fire 3-Pack – $108
• Echo Dot Kid’s Edition – $35
• Echo Show – $180
• Echo Spot – $100
• Ring Alarm System – $160
• Buy Two 4K Fire TV Sticks – $85

These discounts won’t last forever (and Valentine’s Day is approaching quickly), so don’t wait too long to make your big purchase.

Buy on Amazon

Epson

Can a label maker bring you joy? Kind of. It can certainly help you organize your life a little better and make it easier to find things—we’ve got a selection of great label makers for aiding everything from everyday items to crafting or outdoor use.

There comes a time in every life where you suddenly realize just how useful having your own custom labels are—or would be if you had a label maker. Whether it’s because you need to label some power adaptors so they’re easier to identify, or you want to set up an intricate Tupperware storage system to organize hobby supplies, there’s a label maker for you. Our list encompasses label makers of varying abilities and prices, but all are high quality and sure to improve your organizational skills in some way. Even if the idea of them sparking joy might sound unlikely.

Here’s the pick of the best label makers.

Best Overall: Brother P-touch PTD210 ($25) Brother

If you need a label maker for mostly everything in your life then you can’t go wrong with the Brother P-touch PTD210. It’s suitably versatile for many different situations. With one touch keys, you can easily gain quick access to fonts, frames, symbols, as well as templates. It also has an easy access memory system so you can store up to 30 labels for quick reprinting.

14 fonts are available with 10 unique styles, 97 frames, and more than 600 symbols. Because of all that, it works just great for boringly responsible tasks like organizing tax records, as well as more fun projects like arranging your herb garden pots nicely.

Buy on Amazon Best For Rugged Or Outdoors Use: Brady BMP21-PLUS Handheld Label Printer ($88) Brady

A rugged label maker is necessary if you plan on heading outside a lot with it or to more industrial locations. That could be if you’re in the server room labeling up cables, or if you’re simply delving into the attic to tidy up some wires. Even if you just need a tough label maker to survive clumsy drops in a warehouse then the Brady BMP21-PLUS Handheld Label Printer is for you.

This handheld label maker is sturdy and will fit alongside your toolbox nicely. It skimps on an extensive array of ‘pretty’ features for the text but there are still over 100 symbols to choose from. It’s suited well for working on irregular or rough surfaces thanks to the labels’ aggressive adhesive. Each of them has superior chemical resistance too.

Buy on Amazon Best For Postage Labels: DYMO LabelWriter 450 Turbo ($86) DYMO

For small business owners, the DYMO LabelWriter 450 Turbo is well worth checking out. That’s because, through the DYMO Stamps software, you can print USPS-approved postage directly without any extra hassle. It’s also possible to print up to 71 address, shipping, file folder, barcode, and name badge labels per minute.

Additional options also mean you can create customized labels directly from your PC or Mac, which is great if you want to show off your business name and reputation. It’s a neat touch particularly if you’re still establishing yourself.

Read the remaining 7 paragraphs

Have you been telling yourself to buy a Raspberry Pi for the past few years? Well, today might be the day that you actually do it.

Building a Raspberry Pi media center or retro gaming console can be difficult if you don’t know what you’re doing. You need to find the right parts, and often you can end up spending more than $100 for a project that should’ve been relatively cheap.

That’s why starter kits are a great starting point for new Raspberry Pi builders. Starter kits tend to be inexpensive, and they can be a good way to source all of the parts that you need without too much work.

Right now, Woot is selling a Raspberry Pi 3 B+ Ultimate Starter Kit and a Super Retro Gaming Kit for $70 each. That’s $20 off of an already inexpensive kit. Both kits come with a Raspberry Pi 3 B+, a power supply, heat sinks, a 32GB Samsung SD card, an HDMI cable, and building instructions.

The Ultimate Starter Kit is geared toward novice programmers or people who want to build a tiny media center for their TV. It’s packaged with a clear case, jumper wires, LEDs, ribbon cables, an ethernet port, and a dual-band 2.4GHz and 5GHz wireless LAN connector. Not to mention, it comes preloaded with NOOBS, an easy OS installer, so you can hit the ground running.

The Super Retro Gaming Kit is, obviously, targeted toward retro gamers. While it doesn’t come preloaded with any games, it does come with two SNES style gamepads, a SNES style case with a built-in fan, a RetroPie download wizard, a Bluetooth connector, and a Wi-Fi connector.

Buy on Woot

Roku TVs sometimes use a technology they call “Action Smoothing” to artificially speed up the framerate of video, but it often ends up looking fake and ruins the cinematic look of movies.

What Is “Action Smoothing” Anyway?

Action Smoothing is Roku’s implementation of motion smoothing, a common feature on high-end TVs. Motion smoothing works by increasing the framerate of the video on the TV. More frames make motion feel smoother, but there’s a problem: since there’s no way to create new frames out of nowhere, it has to take two frames and attempt to figure out what the “in between frame” is. This leads to a lot of motion-blurred frames and a fair number of artifacts.

Roku says “Action Smoothing” reduces “motion blur,” which is true as far as it goes. It can help you to see fast moving objects easier, but it adds a bit of motion blur to the in between images to make them smoother. That can be good for fast-action live events like sports, but it can make movies and TV shows look weird

This feature isn’t included on all Roku TVs. We couldn’t find it on any of our TCL Roku TVs, but some manufacturers do include it.

RELATED: Why Does My New HDTV’s Picture Look Sped Up and “Smooth”?

How to Turn Off Action Smoothing

Luckily, you can disable this feature on your Roku TV. Roku hides the option under “Advanced Picture Settings” in the menu, which you can open by pressing the “*” button below the direction pad on the remote. Note that how this button press works changes depending on what’s on your screen. It doesn’t work on the Roku home page or on the home pages of streaming video apps, which all use the “*” button for other things. You must be playing a video in a streaming app to access the menu. You can also access the menu by simply pressing “*” when you’ve selected a specific HDMI or other input on your TV—no need for a video to be playing then.

If your Roku has motion smoothing, you’ll see “Action Smoothing” options under Advanced Picture Settings. There are four different levels of Action Smoothing you can select: High, Medium, Low, and Off. If you just want to get rid of the motion smoothing effect, select “Off”. The other levels will use less motion smoothing, but will still interpolate the content. (If you don’t see the Action Smoothing options, your Roku TV doesn’t have motion smoothing.)

Your Roku TV will save your settings, but it has different settings for different types of content. Here’s what Roku says:

Read the remaining 4 paragraphs

Breadmaker/Shutterstock

If your Google Home or Amazon Echo has trouble controlling multiple lights or devices in a room, you probably haven’t set up groups correctly. Giving each item a unique name and then grouping those items makes your Voice Assistant work better.

Naming Devices Quickly Becomes Complicated

A smart bulb is one of the most natural things to add to a growing smarthome. You need light bulbs, and these are incredibly easy to install, requiring no wiring on your part. But you’ll quickly run into an issue with voice assistants like Google Home and Alexa: everything needs a name. As you add on other types of devices like smart switches or smart outlets, those names multiply, and it becomes harder to remember what to say when.

Unfortunately, Voice Assistants don’t truly understand you; they only listen for expected commands. So if you stumble over “turn on the study… I mean office window light” there’s a better than decent chance it will mishear you and do nothing at all, or do the wrong thing. If your device names aren’t memorable, then you’ll run into this issue frequently. But coming up with lots of different easy to remember names is hard, so you’re better off grouping your devices instead.

Naming Groups Reduces Device Name Complications

Voice assistants still aren’t as smart as they should be. The less “thinking” you make your voice assistant do, the better. Groups provide a convenient shortcut for both you and the voice assistant.

When you group your devices, the names of the individual devices matters less. You can name them Study1, Study2, and Study3—or you could call them Window Light, Wall Light, and Ceiling Light if you prefer—but you’ll seldom actually use these names. Instead, you will be using the group’s name when you speak to Alexa and Google Home by saying something like “Alexa, turn off the study lights.” If your three lights are all in a group named study, that will turn off all lights in that group. This will also help avoid confusion if you’ve named a smart light study and a smart outlet study (but you should avoid doing that).

Better yet, if you associate a voice assistant device in the room to that group, then you can say “turn off lights,” and it will know which lights to turn off based on that association. That is if you name a group. You may still want to choose unique names for the devices based on their location in the room, so if you ever do want to control just a single device remembering the name will come easier.

We recommend creating groups even if you have only one device you want to put into that group. The reason for this is that you might add more devices to the group in the future and changing your own habit of what you say can be difficult.

How to Set Up Groups for Amazon Alexa

We’ve covered setting up groups in Alexa before, but it’s a pretty straight forward process. Just tap the devices button at the bottom of the Alexa app, and then either tap your existing group or tap the plus sign in the upper right corner followed by “Add group” to create a new group. Then tap on the devices you want to add to the group.

RELATED: How to Control Your Smarthome Products with the Amazon Echo

Read the remaining 8 paragraphs

In our interconnected world a power outage is particularly frustrating. But if you have an electric power station on hand, then you never have to worry about dead cellphones or gadgets again.

Large capacity batteries are becoming more affordable and more efficient. It’s gotten to the point that a shoe-box sized electric power station can, in the right contexts that is, give you more mileage than a loud, gas powered generator.  And you could use a power station to go off the grid for awhile, you’d just have to pair it with some solar panels.

It’ll be a long while before you can toss out the gas generator at your cabin and replace it a backpack friendly power station, of course, but the current generation of power stations are pretty amazing and you can easily stay juiced up at a remote campsite for days and weather minor power outages with your cellphone and laptop still going strong.

But there’s a lot to take into account before buying a power station. If you want a power station for outdoor or auto work, then you should find one that has a large capacity and a lot of AC or DC ports. But if you’re just looking for something to charge a couple of phones on a camping trip, then you’ll want to focus on portability and USB ports.

Luckily, we’ve done the research for you. Here’s our favorite power stations to keep the juice flowing whether you’re in the deep woods, deep under the snow in a power outage, or deep into a serious job at the worksite.

EcoFlow River 412Wh Power Station ($550)

If you’re looking for a large capacity power station that can charge multiple devices during a camping trip or power outage, then you should take a look at the EcoFlow River. We’ve raved about the EcoFlow River before—it has a capacity of 412Wh, which means that you should be able to power TV or lights for a couple of days. Or, if you want to blow through those 412Wh a little bit faster, then you can use the EcoFlow River to power up to 11 devices at a time. The River has 2 USB Quickcharge inputs, 2 regular USB inputs, 2 USB-C inputs, 2 AC outlets, 2 DC outlets, and a 12V car port input. That’s quite a few ports and significantly more than you’ll find on most power stations.

If you need some extra juice, then you can extend the life of this power station by pairing it with an EcoFlow solar panel. But really, 412Wh is more than enough power. The only real downside to this device is that it’s pretty expensive. And if you’re just trying to charge a couple of phones on a camping trip, this power station may be a little overkill.

Buy on Amazon Suaoki 150Wh Portable Power Station ($126)

Read the remaining 16 paragraphs