For audio systems that are meant to cover a large area or multiple rooms, several subwoofers can help maintain low-end clarity while delivering all the punch you could ask for. Subwoofer Placement and Listening Positions Bass quality is largely determined by two factors: subwoofer placement and listener position. In a typical home listening environment, the bass may sound overblown in some locations yet thin in others. It depends on where the subwoofer is placed and where you are in relation to it....

These eight Face ID hidden features will make you an iPhone X power user. Automatically Adjust Alarm Volume and Screen Brightness As Face ID can tell when you’re looking at the screen, it can enhance some common iPhone features like using an alarm or adjusting the screen brightness. But first, you need to make sure the Attention Aware Features option is turned on. This introduces a couple of features:...

Pen and paper RPGs engage the most powerful creative device known to mind—the human brain. Still, it doesn’t hurt to have a few apps and websites that help with the process. Here are some of the best digital aids available for your next tabletop gaming session. Fantasy Grounds can be purchased outright or through a monthly subscription. It’s available as standalone software for Windows, Mac, and Linux. A demo lets you check out a set of limited features for free....

Here’s a list of sources (in no particular order) that offer gift cards and certificates that you can purchase to redeem for digital music. This card is available from many different stores and can also be purchased online. The amount of prepaid credit ranges from $10 - $2,000. Apple Gift Cards are available from the Apple Online Store, Apple Retail Store, and many participating retailers. If you’re buying a physical card, they’ll typically come in a denomination of $25, $50, or $100, but buying directly from Apple lets you get a physical card for any amount you want....

Software Updates A software update or patch is a free download for an application, operating system, or software suite that provides fixes for features that aren’t working as intended or adds minor software enhancements and compatibility. Software updates are released to address security issues when they occur, address minor bugs discovered in the software, improve the operation of hardware or peripherals, and add support for new models of equipment. These small, incremental updates improve the operation of your software....

The latest entry to the Surface Pro lineup looks like a worthy competitor to my 12.9-inch M1 iPad Pro as the best productivity tablet on the market. Microsoft claims the new Surface Pro has 43% more computing power and 75% faster graphic power than the Surface Pro 7. It also has a 13-inch, 120Hz display with thinner bezels than previous Surface generations. While I love my iPad Pro, the Surface Pro 8 promises a full Windows experience without the sluggish performance of previous Microsoft tablets....

A recent announcement from Samsung’s newsroom has confirmed that the latest Galaxy Unpacked event is just two weeks away. And based on the brief tease in the announcement and the associated YouTube video, it looks like the next S series phone will be one of the bigger talking points. The 30-second video doesn’t share any specifics, but it shows what looks like a new smartphone frame in a couple of key moments....

Tiny but Mighty When folded up, the keyboard is ridiculously small, about the size of a large iPhone, and not much thicker. I’m a stickler for spacious, well-made keyboards, so I was doubtful at first glance that I would be able to do much work on this thing. Unfolding the keyboard powers it on, and with a press of a Bluetooth button, I was connected to my iPhone. Then, I placed it on the handy, included folding stand, and all of a sudden, I was ready to type....

Probably you can work out the meaning from the hashtag itself, but why two of them? What’s the difference between Throwback Thursday and Flashback Friday? Overall Findings Judging by the Google Trends data, #FlashbackFriday is has been around longer than #ThrowbackThursday. Still, the latter appears to be more popular today. Both trends took off in 2013. Throwback Thursday may be more popular because it’s a more active time for social media in general....

TikTok introduced a new feature on Wednesday called Creator Next that lets creators on the platform get rewarded for their unique content. Creator Next includes features like tips, video gifts, and the opportunity for more creators to join the TikTok Creator Marketplace to find collaborations with brands. “From those making TikTok videos ‘just for fun’ to side hustlers and those who consistently create, we know creators have different goals, motivations, and expectations,” TikTok said in its announcement....

Design: Small and simple The TP-Link TL-WR902AC is nothing if not simple in its design. You’ve got two Ethernet ports (one to connect the router to the network, one to connect a device to the router), a USB port, and a power adapter port. There’s a reset button, a switch for selecting one of three different modes, and the device comes packaged with just a short ethernet cable and an equally short power cable....

It’s also referred to as the Windows Tools Menu, Power User Task Menu, Power User Hotkey, WinX Menu, or the WIN+X Menu. How to Open the WIN+X Menu You can bring up the Power User Menu with your keyboard by pressing the WIN (Windows) key and the X key together. With a mouse, you can show the Power User Menu by right-clicking the Start button. On a touch-only interface, activate the menu by a press-and-hold action on the Start button or whatever right-click action is available with your stylus....

Using Measurements to Clear up the Cable Controversy A sample testing method used a Clio 10 FW audio analyzer and MIC-01 measurement microphone to measure the response of a Revel Performa3 F206 speaker in-room. The in-room measurement was required to assure that there’d be no significant environmental noise. Yes, the in-room measurement shows a lot of effects of the room acoustics, but that didn’t matter because here, since we’re looking only for the difference in the measured result when we changed cables....

Causes of an Xbox 360 Not Turning On The Red Ring of Death is a hardware issue that can prevent your Xbox 360 from functioning properly. Look at the LED lights surrounding the power button: If the Xbox 360 has a single red ring, it may display an error code on the television. The Xbox Support website has a list of Xbox 360 error codes and how to fix these errors....

Attack of the Germ-Killing Robots Swimming pools are a big deal during the pandemic as people try to find a way to relax while social distancing, but keeping a pool clean takes a lot of work. Ariel is a robot that cleans pools using solar power and algorithms. Its manufacturer, Pivot-Solar Breeze, claims Ariel can maneuver itself to clean up to 95% of dirt, leaves, pollen, dust, hair, oil, and other icky things before the debris decays and sinks to the bottom....

SLAM: Simultaneous Localization and Mapping SLAM is an acronym for simultaneous localization and mapping, a technology whereby a robot or a device can create a map of its surroundings and orient itself properly within the map in real time. This is no easy task, and it currently exists at the frontiers of technology research and design. A big roadblock to successfully implementing SLAM technology is the chicken-and-egg problem introduced by the two required tasks....

Since 1G was introduced in the early 1980s, a new wireless mobile telecommunications technology has been released roughly every 10 years. All of them refer to the technology used by the mobile carrier and device itself. They have different speeds and features that improve on the previous generation. The next generation is 5G, which launched in 2020. 1G is analog technology, and the phones using it had poor battery life and voice quality, little security, and were prone to dropped calls....

What Causes 403 Forbidden Errors Different web servers report 403 Forbidden errors in different ways, the majority of which we’ve listed below (see the Common 403 Error Messages section). Occasionally a website owner will customize the site’s error, but that’s not too common. These errors are caused by issues where you’re trying to access something that you don’t have permission for. The error is essentially saying “Go away and don’t come back here” because the server’s access permissions indicate that you’re truly not allowed access or the permissions are actually improperly set up and you’re being denied access when you shouldn’t be....

A checksum is also sometimes called a hash sum and less often a hash value, hash code, or simply a hash. A Simple Checksum Example The idea of a checksum or a cryptographic hash function might seem complicated and not possibly worth the effort, but we’d like to convince you otherwise! Checksums really aren’t that hard to understand or create. Let’s start with a simple example, hopefully showcasing the power of checksums to prove something has changed....

While this password is called the document open password in Adobe Acrobat, other PDF programs may refer to this password as the PDF user password or the PDF document open password. How to Set a Document Open Password on a PDF Some PDF readers may let you protect the opening of the PDF with a password but it’s usually specialized tools that include that option. There are also some PDF creators that have the option of creating a PDF user password....