Proton Mail Wants to Write Your Emails for You

Your favorite privacy-focused service is joining the AI bandwagon.Proton Mailnow features an AI writing assistant called Scribe. It promises to help you write and revise emails without collecting your personal data. Scribeworks like any other AI writing assistant. Give it a prompt, and it generates text. Ask it to revise or proof-read your email draft, and it will do so. Similar tools are built into Gmail and Outlook. The thing that makes Scribe special is that it doesn’t collect or transmit data....

July 29, 2025 · 3 min · 463 words · Edwin Palmer

PSA: Google Maps Can Tell You When to Leave to Arrive on Time

Quick Links Trying to arrive somewhere at precisely the right time can feel like a crap shoot. What’s traffic going to be like? Are any of the roads or public transit routes closed? Thankfully, Google Maps has a feature you may not know about that can help you predict the future and never be late again. You would be totally justified in not knowing about this feature–Google Maps hasa lotgoing on....

July 29, 2025 · 3 min · 519 words · Brett Cox

RAVPower Jump Starter with Air Compressor Review: A Great Emergency Backup

Quick Links Summary Three great emergency backups in one device: jump starter, tire inflator, and power bank. I’ve put a lot of miles on my car’s tires over the years and drained a battery in my time. So, I always like to have backup plans in case something goes wrong on the road. The RAVPower Jump Starter With Air Compressor ticks so many boxes that it’s hard not to recommend it for anyone’s trunk....

July 29, 2025 · 8 min · 1654 words · James Snyder

Robotic Octopus Arms are Sort of Creepy, But Super-effective

Summary Robots that mimic the human body really only exist to either slot into a human-shaped space or make we mere fleshbags feel better. If you don’t have to follow that template, then you can make something far more efficient and terrifying. So all-hail our robot octopus overlords! Robotic Grippers Are a Tough Engineering Problem Getting a robot to pick something up, manipulate it, and then put it back where you want is much harder than it sounds....

July 29, 2025 · 3 min · 605 words · Brittney Stephens

Samsung Takes the Maximalist Approach to Software—That’s Why I Like It

Quick Links I long refused to use anything that wasn’t running plain Android. Now, I actively prefer the changes Samsung has introduced. Far from being mere gimmicks, Samsung’s software actually enables me to use my phone to do far more than any other phone maker allows. Samsung’s Theming Is Now Rather Minimal Yes, I’m going to start by praising minimalism, but this is important. In the past, I wouldn’t use Samsung phones because I considered them too ugly....

July 29, 2025 · 7 min · 1415 words · Alexandra Blackburn

Sick of Targeted Ads in the Play Store? Here’s How to Opt Out

Quick Links Google knows more about us than we’d like to admit. From our YouTube binges to the apps we obsess over, it’s all tracked to serve up ads that supposedly match our tastes. But if you’re anything like me, you might be a little fed up with personalized ads popping up in the Play Store. Luckily, there’s a way to stop Google from mining your app activity and bombarding you with targeted ads....

July 29, 2025 · 4 min · 794 words · Tiffany Jordan

The Best Retro Gaming Device Is the One You Already Have

When people think of retro gaming, they often picture CRT TVs and retro consoles with stacks of dusty cartridges, or perhaps a complicated Raspberry Pi build. But the truth is, you already own a capable retro gaming device—it’s in your hands or on your desk right now. Most Devices Can Run Retro Games Hardware has improved a lot since the ’80s and ’90s, to the point that your smartphone is orders of magnitude more powerful than the original PlayStation, SNES, or Sega Genesis....

July 29, 2025 · 5 min · 1049 words · Victoria Barker

The Death of Google Assistant, and More Big Android News From This Week

This was a big week in the Android ecosystem, with Google confirming the shutdown of Assistant, more news about Samsung’s One UI 7 rollout, and a surprise new HTC phone. Here are the biggest stories you might have missed. The Big News RIP: Google Assistant Will Be Fully Replaced by Gemini Later This Year Google Assistant’s days are numbered. Later in 2025, Google officially plans to replace Assistant with Gemini on Android phones....

July 29, 2025 · 5 min · 907 words · Jody Allen

The Opportunity Mars Rover Was Meant to Last 3 Months—So How Did It Survive 15 Years?

Summary NASA’s Opportunity rover, a robotic vehicle that explored Mars for nearly 15 years, broke the record for the longest-working robot on the Martian surface. But it wasn’t meant to last that long! Let’s look back at exactly how Opportunity exceeded all expectations. The Opportunity Timeline Before we look at the reasons why Opportunity lasted so long, let’s take a moment to appreciate the rover’s inspiring timeline: Event July 15, 2025 The Opportunity rover launched on a Delta II Heavy rocket from Cape Canaveral in Florida....

July 29, 2025 · 5 min · 1030 words · Charlotte Johnson

These Are the Only PC Game Performance Stats I Monitor, Here's Why

Summary Like many other PC gamers, I have a list of favorite in-game performance stats I monitor in every game. These help me understand which settings I need to tweak to get the best performance out of my games. Here’s how you can do the same. Why Monitor Game Performance Stats Anyway? First and foremost, most of the time, I just want to check the overall performance in frames per second (FPS)....

July 29, 2025 · 9 min · 1900 words · Joshua Howard

Today's NYT Connections Hints and Answer for May 23 (#347)

Quick Links Connections is a game from the New York Times that challenges you to find the association between words. It sounds easy, but it isn’t—Connections categories can be almost anything, and they’re usually quite specific. If you need a hand getting the answers, we’ve got you covered. What Is Connections? Connections is a game from the New York Times. The objective is simple: sort 16 words into groups of 4....

July 29, 2025 · 2 min · 422 words · Michael Guzman

Top Tech Deals: PS5 Slim, 4K TVs, 10th Gen iPad, and More!

Black Friday sales are here, and we’re seeing a lot of the best tech available at the biggest discounts of the year. You don’t have to wait until the day after Thanksgiving to buy a new TV, iPad, DJI Drone, or smart home accessories; you can score a deal today. Obviously, we can’t cover the gazillion discounts floating around, so you’ll want to continuously check out ourBest Black Friday Deals Roundup....

July 29, 2025 · 3 min · 601 words · Yesenia Arnold

Video Game Support Will Make or Break Windows On ARM

Summary After several false starts, it seems that there’s finally a viable form of Arm computer that runs Microsoft Windows. The Qualcomm Snapdragon laptops running Windows for Arm are potent productivity machines with impressive battery life. However, app compatibility remains an issue, and for games, that’s a no-no. I think that could be what breaks the camel’s back. People Play Games on Everything I can already hear the question: “What do games have to do with work laptops?...

July 29, 2025 · 4 min · 685 words · Douglas Vega