According to a report from Canalys, Chrome OS-based computers have seen a huge uptick in shipment growth over the past year, with Q1 sales jumping 275% year over year. Experts say the overall cost of Chromebooks and the features they offer are key factors in the growth, and more than enough reason for users to look into Google’s laptop solution when picking out their next laptop. “A Chromebook offers all the functionality that a casual user could want from a laptop—be it surfing the web or working with documents—and at a much lower price point than most Windows 10 laptops,” Anja Lill, the founder of My Laptop Home, told Lifewire in an email....

The current iPhone—the iPhone 12—can be had with a maximum of 512 MB. That’s already a lot of storage for a phone. So what on earth does Apple have in mind? What kinds of uses could require such a bottomless pit of storage? Two things: photos and videos. “The photos and videos we’re taking and sharing on our phones are higher resolution and larger file sizes than ever before,” Naomi Assaraf, co-founder ofcloudHQ, told Lifewire via email....

Fans of cinematic, single-player games were delivered a blow back in 2017, when Electronic Arts suddenly stopped production on a new Star Wars entry that was said to be in the same vein as PlayStation’s Uncharted action-adventure games. The massive success of fan-favorite Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order in 2017—combined with the lackluster reception of online-focused shooter Anthem—could see the solo genre make a resurgence. While no one’s hammering a nail in the coffin of online games, these recent trends could have an impact on what type of games studios favor in the future....

Refurbished phones have been available on third-party resellers for years now, and in more recent generations of smartphones, even wireless carriers and manufacturers have started to sell refurbished versions of their most popular smartphones. There are a lot of benefits to refurbished phones being available, experts say, even though it can be very tempting to get the biggest and best anytime you decide to upgrade. “Price and value are arguably the most influential factors in the rise of refurbished,” Lauren Benton, the general manager at Back Market, a refurbished electronics dealer, told Lifewire in an email....

How: You might see a blank box when searching your Windows 10 PC. Why Do You Care: Fixing the issue before Microsoft issues an official patch could let you use the Search function again. We noticed that one of our articles about fixing Windows 10 search received a high amount of traffic Wednesday morning, too. Windows Central attributes the issue to Windows’ Bing integration, and offers some steps involving the Windows registry to get things back to working shape....

Microphones convert sound into electrical impulses that can be recorded onto some form of storage media. Once captured and stored, it can be reproduced at a later time or place. Hearing recorded sound requires a playback device, an amplifier, and, most critically, a loudspeaker. What Is a Loudspeaker? A loudspeaker is a device that converts electrical signals into sound as the result of an electro-mechanical process. Speakers typically incorporate the following construction:...

The Xbox Series X|S controller, also known as the Xbox Wireless Controller, has a pretty clear pedigree. Set it next to an Xbox One controller, and you have to look closely to notice the differences. It includes one extra button, the D-pad looks a little different, and that’s about all. It does include a handful of welcome upgrades, but Microsoft clearly wasn’t looking to fix something that wasn’t broken. Unlike previous generations of Xbox hardware, Microsoft chose to make Xbox Series X|S controllers and Xbox One controllers entirely interchangeable....

There are a lot of reasons for this. First, EVs are new, and even the folks selling them at the dealer level don’t know all that much about them. Plus, instead of automaker ads explaining the fundamentals of EVs using well-known actor voices, we’re still being sold trucks with awesome multi-function tailgates. The Monroney sticker (the piece of paper affixed to all new vehicles that show all the features, the price, its environmental impact, and its efficiency) does give you a yearly cost to run the vehicle, but it’s wrapped up in MPGe (miles per gallon equivalent), a weird calculation you’ll never make in real life....

Your car knows where you drive, how fast you go, your favorite destinations, and more. Pair your car with your phone, and it can access your contacts, your email, SMS history, favorite songs, and anything else stored on your phone. And while this data makes your car more convenient to use, it is far too valuable to remain private. “Car manufacturers benefit the most from the ‘data troves’ that cars carry around inside them,” Daivat Dholakia, director of operations at Force by Mojio, a GPS fleet tracking company, told Lifewire via email....

What Is the YouTube Music Replay Mix Playlist? YouTube Music’s Replay Mix playlist is a playlist made by the YouTube algorithm and populated with tracks based on the user’s listening history. The feature is nearly identical to Spotify’s On Repeat playlist and is used to collect all of the most-listened songs in one convenient place. Unlike other automatically generated playlists, which often include suggestions of new songs or genres for the listener to try out, the Replay Mix playlist only features songs the user knows and has already listened to multiple times....

Keep Your Videos Private You can choose to share your YouTube videos with the world, or you can keep your videos private and limit viewers to a select 25. When you upload numerous private videos, consider a video-sharing site other than YouTube. That said, YouTube is an exceptional video platform, supporting 4K videos, 360 videos, and more. Be sure to investigate other platforms before making a switch. While there are other players, few have the capabilities or bottomless resources a Google-owned site like YouTube can deliver....

I went into the open beta for Legends cold, knowing little other than that it existed. I was half-expecting a more traditional MMORPG, World of Warcraft-style, but instead, I found myself beating up fungus monsters with an ax in the finest Diablo/Path of Exile tradition. It’s a surprisingly natural fit for the Magic: The Gathering universe, where you can summon creatures and cast spells to mow down an assortment of Magic’s trademark monsters....

You spend much of the game on psychic deep dives into people’s minds, where you fight their own intrusive thoughts and doubts inside their unique mental landscapes. Gravity, perspective, and physics are all up for grabs, so you never know what’s coming next. I’ve played more painstakingly realistic shooters than I can count, but this kind of unrestrained creativity is always much more engaging. It’s a real highlight of what a video game can actually be in 2021....

Upgrade to Strava Premium for $59.99 per year and gain customizable training and workout plans, along with live feedback, so you can achieve your goals faster. Strava is a great one-stop solution for all your workout needs, with advanced analysis over the standard Apple Watch Workouts app. Download: Upgrade to the MVP Premium package for $5.99 per month or $29.99 per year, and you gain heart rate zone analysis designed to determine when you’re working your hardest, as well as specialist training plans for help in achieving your goals....

We routinely test each of them and can confirm they really are free, and they really do offer driver downloads; they don’t just scan for potential updates like some “free” driver updaters. While there are others we could include in this list, we’ve omitted them because they either are too restrictive or include malware. “…makes updating drivers simple because it does all the heavy lifting for you.” Best for Offline Driver Installs: Snappy Driver Installer “…gives you immediate access to install the updates—with or without an internet connection....

The announcement was made on the company’s official blog, detailing the new user interface, redesigned menus, and better password generation for 1Password 8. The redesign changes categories to a dropdown menu, giving more room to the sidebar and avoiding clutter. Indicators will be to the side of each shared vault to let users know which are private and which are shared. Drag-and-drop will now be a feature to move items from one vault to another, and the browser also will show who will gain access before moving data....

Make an Alexa Tracker Using the TrackR App One of the official Find My Phone apps supported by Alexa-enabled devices is TrackR. It’s fairly easy to set up, but doesn’t work for every situation. Here’s how to check if it will work with your device: Use Cell Phone Finder to Have Alexa Call a Lost Phone Cell Phone Finder can be a bit harder to set up, but not every phone is compatible with TrackR....

Many have lots of other features that make them unique, like having address books, letting you manage photos, allowing you to upload and share documents, and much more. Below is a list of the best online calendars out there. Be sure to use the review links to learn about how they work, what you can with them, how to use them as online shared calendars, and more. Choose who’s allowed to make changes to your calendars and who can view them, or keep your Google calendars completely private....

With homebrew apps, you can do things you can’t normally do on a Wii. This might include playing unlicensed games or allowing your ​Wii to support DVD playback, both of which a “regular” Wii is not able to do. The idea is that you can install apps that Nintendo does not officially approve of. How to Install These Apps You have to have the Homebrew Channel on your Wii in order to use these apps....

Here are a few of the best free video converters (such as for MP4 and AVI files), audio converters (MP3s, WAVs, etc.), image converters (e.g., files that end with PSD, JPG, and PNG), and document converters (PDF, DOCX, etc.). Many video converters also convert DVD and BD movies into various other video formats such as MP4, FLV, AVI, etc. Some of these output formats are ideal for use on mobile devices....