Overall Findings WhatsApp is designed for mobile devices. In contrast, Skype is mainly a computer-to-computer app that can also call other phones. When the world got more mobile, and when communication shifted from the office or home desk to the pocket, Skype lagged behind. For instance, the apps had limitations, and some platforms were left in the dark for many years, as was BlackBerry. So, Skype is more for the computer user who wants quality, stability, features, and added sophistication to their communication experience....

VESA (Video Electronics Standards Association) is a fantastic standard, but even the best arms don’t cut it. I have an Ergotron arm, recommended by everyone (including Wirecutter), and its pivots are either scratchy, or too tight, and almost nothing is smooth. When I tilt the display back or forward, I feel like I’m going to bend the screen—and that’s on the loosest setting with lubricant applied. Apple is already in the fancy, expensive stand game, so why not just make an overpriced VESA stand, too?...

Supply of the new consoles will be short for months, the company’s head of investor relations, Mike Spencer, told The New York Times recently. The problem is a lack of chips necessary for manufacturing the units. It’s not helping users that scalpers and bots are snapping up whatever stock they can get for resale. “One of the main reasons there’s an Xbox shortage is because of bot scalpers hoarding stock from November and December,” gaming writer Devin Pickell said in an email interview....

The plus-sized new iPhone 12 Pro is mostly the same as the regular sized iPhone 12 Pro, but with better cameras and a longer battery life. Battery life doesn’t really matter these days, when we spend so much time at home, but the cameras are worth the upgrade. On top of that, the Max gets all the other great iPhone 12 upgrades. Just Look at It The entire iPhone 12 line has a cool new look....

While Campus may sound a lot like what Facebook offered when it launched in 2004, these features find new meaning during a year when several college campuses are relying more on virtual learning and providing fewer opportunities to make friends at school functions. “For entering college students in the time of coronavirus, logging into a familiar platform such as Facebook and being able to find potential classmates with common interests or backgrounds may be a lifesaver, particularly if there are fewer opportunities to organically meet people ‘in the hallways’ or in organized activities,” Linda Charmaraman, director of the Youth, Media & Wellbeing Research Lab at Wellesley College told Lifewire in an email....

Adobe’s Pam Clark says that the rejigged version of Photoshop for Apple Silicon Macs runs an average of 1.5 times faster, with some features feeling “noticeably faster” and “substantially faster.” So, it’s faster. Photoshop on iPad also gets some improvements to how it handles your cloud-based documents. Solid updates both, but isn’t Photoshop for the iPad running a little late compared to indie photo-editing apps? Maybe, but that’s because you’re getting all of Photoshop....

As one of the biggest names in the music streaming game, Spotify has built a solid foundation on its free and paid plan options. Now, though, it’s testing a cheaper ad-supported subscription, too. Previously, Spotify only offered a free, ad-supported option, and a Premium version—which grants unlimited skips and other features. Spotify Plus will include some of these premium-only features, but still will be supported by ads. If Spotify can find a way to make this plan attractive to consumers, it could offer listeners more without costing them too much....

The M2 MacBook Air is Apple’s first Apple Silicon-era laptop for regular folks. It has been completely redesigned around Apple’s own ARM-based chips, has a new slab-sided shape, a screen with smaller borders, and a MagSafe charging port. And yet the previous M1 MacBook, which was essentially just the old Intel-era model with a new Apple chip inside, is still superior in some ways, and much cheaper. “For casual users, the M2 chip will not really make any significant differences for day-to-day tasks unless you need extreme improvements in professional workflows,” Sudhir Khatwani, co-founder and Editor In Chief at The Money Mongers, told Lifewire via email....

Superstar analyst Ming-Chi Kuo says that this fall’s new iPhone 14 will keep the current A15 chip, while the iPhone Pro models will use the next-gen A16 chip. This could be a deliberate strategy to further differentiate the two lines, or it could be down to the supply difficulties affecting the world. Either way, it doesn’t really make a difference for most of us because iPhones—and iPads—have been too fast for a while now....

Scientists from MIT have created a robot hand system that can reorient over 2,000 different types of objects. The technique combines artificial intelligence (AI) with training to program the hand, according to a recent paper published on the preprint server ArXiv. It’s part of a growing effort to develop robot hands that resemble those of people. “These hands are highly dexterous and capable of performing in-hand manipulation,” Carmel Majidi, a professor of Mechanical Engineering and director of the Soft Machines Lab at Carnegie Mellon University’s College of Engineering, who was not involved in the paper, told Lifewire in an email interview....

The choice to move from XP to Windows 7 is one that some people are still hesitant about. You know XP. You like XP. Why mess with a good thing? Here are five good reasons why. Support from Microsoft On April 14, 2009, Microsoft ended mainstream support for Windows XP. What that means is that you can’t get free support for any problems related to Windows XP now; you’ll be pulling out the credit card to get help from now on....

With Microsoft teasing the reveal of the next version of Windows on June 24 and with plenty of new leaks popping up that show off the new UI, many people are excited about the future of Windows 11. Will it be a massive change from Windows 10? Will Microsoft finally overtake the design schemes found in other operating systems like macOS? If you’re hoping for something revolutionary, you’ll probably be disappointed....

This console is remarkably compact and has a surprisingly low price point. Gamers looking for a 4K UHD in HDR experience will need to pay a premium for the Series X, but the Xbox Series S offers an enticing alternative if you’re looking to save some money or haven’t yet made the jump to 4K. Design: Sleek and compact The Xbox Series S is small, and it’s almost impossible to oversell that point....

What Is an XNK File? A file with the XNK file extension is a Microsoft Exchange shortcut used to quickly open a specific folder or other item in Microsoft Outlook. It’s also called an Exchange Link. XNK files are created by dragging the object directly out of Outlook and placing it on the desktop. Instead of moving the item out of Outlook and onto the desktop, a reference, or shortcut, is built so that you can quickly access that same thing again through the XNK file....

It’s now available on the Nintendo Switch in an HD edition, which overhauls its 2011 graphics to 2021’s standards, and a new control scheme, so players on a Switch Lite can play through the game. If you liked the motion controls from the original version, those are here too, courtesy of the gyroscopes built into the Switch’s JoyCons. As a Zelda game, Skyward Sword is a strange experience. At its worst, Skyward Sword feels like a tech demo, so in love with the possibilities offered by 2011-era motion controls that the overall experience suffers; it’s linear, easy, and won’t stop holding your hand....

To help users appreciate the dangers of web extensions, digital security company Talon has analyzed the Chrome Web Store to report that tens of thousands of extensions have access to worrying permissions, such as the ability to change data on all visited sites, download files, access download activity, and more. “Many popular extensions put users at risk,” co-founder and CTO of Talon Cyber Security Ohad Bobrov explained to Lifewire over email....

B-ARK, on the other hand, is low-key and accessible, bringing back the ’90s in most of the best ways. Its director, Abraham Morales, told me at last month’s Penny Arcade Expo Online that B-ARK is a “love letter” to the classics like Gradius and R-Type, with an all-ages hook, a Saturday-morning-cartoon art style, and a focus on cooperative play. You can run through B-ARK solo, but I found it’s probably at its worst doing so....

Combining elements from farming games with bits from games about battling monsters seemed like a precision shot to my interests. Especially since, in Monster Harvest, the crops you grow become the monsters you fight with. It’s just that I’d been fighting against a lot of really minor issues the whole time, with each new problem building on top of all the others, to the point where, eventually, I realized that I wasn’t having fun anymore....

It reimagines the classic Pac-Man arcade game as a battle royale, where the winner is the last Pac-Man standing out of 99 players at the start of the round. You have to dodge ghosts, juggle power-ups, dodge hazards, and keep a combo going, sometimes all at the same time. The natural point of comparison here is Tetris 99, a Switch Online freebie with a comparable gimmick. The two games even feature similar UI elements....

Street Fighter 6 makes it easier for new players, or just regular non-obsessed players, to pick up the game and enjoy it. Capcom Street Fighter director Takayuki Nakayama told the Verge that he made the game for everyone to play, not just long-time fans of the absurdly popular fighting game franchise. But the changes to the control scheme that make this possible might also end up annoying those core fans....