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The AirPods 3 will resemble the AirPods Pro, but without the ear tips, according to recent reports. But the new AirPods may lack some of the higher-end model’s features like active noise canceling. I’m most excited about the possibility of improved battery life and better sound. Apple is expected to tinker with the software and internals of the AirPods 3 to eke out more time per charge. The upcoming buds are rumored to pair well with Dolby Atmos with Spatial Audio for improved audio quality....

A top AI researcher recently claimed that AI is already smarter than we think. Ilya Sutskever, the chief scientist of the OpenAI research group, tweeted that “it may be that today’s large neural networks are slightly conscious.” But other AI experts say that it’s far too soon to determine anything of the sort. “To be conscious, an entity needs to be aware of its existence in its environment and that actions it takes will impact its future,” Charles Simon, the CEO of FutureAI, told Lifewire in an email interview....

Reuters reports that the iPhone 12 mini sales are weak compared to the bigger iPhone 12, and even last year’s iPhone 11, which is still available. It even quotes a J.P. Morgan analyst who thinks Apple might soon stop production. But this speculation ignores three things. One, the iPhone 12 mini may be a sleeper hit. Two, not all iPhones can be the best-selling model. And three, the iPhone mini is just awesome....

The problem with concert tickets is there’s always a service in the middle taking a cut. Whereas pretty much everything else can be sold directly these days, when you want to go to a gig, you end up paying a huge extra fee on top of the ticket price. Will Spotify make up for the minuscule amount paid to musicians for streaming their music by cutting out this ticket commission?...

For years, Apple’s 2018 iPad Pro has been almost too capable. With every passing year, it has remained just as fast as it was at launch and stayed way ahead of Apple’s software updates. Last year, Lifewire published an article hoping that iPadOS 15 would finally challenge the iPad’s hardware and take advantage of all that power. That didn’t happen. Finally, Apple announced Stage Manager, which required the M1, leaving the 2018 A12X model out in the cold....

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....

How to Use WhatsApp Using Your Landline Number It’s possible to set up WhatsApp by verifying the app with your landline phone number. Here’s what you need to know. How to Use WhatsApp Using a TextNow Phone Number Many apps are available which allow you to set up a virtual phone number. TextNow is one of the biggest out there, and one of the simplest to use. Here’s how to verify WhatsApp via a TextNow phone number....

Similar to the Netflix service with its TV shows and movies, Xbox Game Pass for PC removes video games from its content library every month and replaces them with newer titles or older ones that have been requested by its users. As part of an Xbox Game Pass for PC subscription, members are also given discounts on select video games within the Microsoft Store app store on Windows 10....