What Are Fake IRS Letters? When a taxpayer owes back taxes, or there are any other issues that need to be sorted out, the IRS usually initiates contact by sending a letter. Knowing that, scammers will send fake IRS letters that look like the real thing in an attempt to fool you into paying money that you don’t owe. Fake IRS letters can look quite real if the scammer is skilled enough, but there are a few key things that you can look for....

Ferrite shows that deep, full-featured apps can not only exist on the iPad but can be better than any other option on any platform. You could use Logic Pro to edit your podcasts on a Mac, but why bother when there’s something better suited to the task and much easier to use? Ferrite 3 even shows us how a developer can build a sustainable app business on iOS, which is a feat in itself....

Compared to the standard operating system ping commands, these tools typically provide a graphical interface and sometimes include charts to track the statistics of ping tests over time. Computer Ping Tools There’s no shortage of Ping tools for desktop computers. Here are some of the most popular free network troubleshooting ping tools. Manage Engine Free Ping Tool ManageEngine Tools includes a polished, free ping tool as part of a suite of network tools....

The engineers at Google have tackled one of the biggest and most expensive issues in heating your house. Why bother to blast the furnace or the AC if there’s no one home? After all, heating and cooling account for nearly half of the average home’s utility bills, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. To solve this problem, Google has added a sensor that can tell if people are inside the house or a specific room....

We assembled key Lifewire articles that will arm you with the information you’ll need to make your way through the surround sound and home theater receiver maze. Surround Sound: History and Facts of Home Theater Audio Today’s home theater surround sound experience is the result of decades of evolution. Since the early days of stereo, the race has been on to create the ultimate home listening experience for television, music, and movies....

A team of researchers from NVIDIA Research and Stanford University published a recent paper demonstrating a pair of thin holographic VR glasses. The scientists also proposed new algorithms for rendering the image for improved visual quality. It’s part of an ongoing effort to make VR headsets that are comfortable to use for long periods. “Holographic display is the only viable solution so far that provides 3D images in a glasses-form factor,” Jonghyun Kim, an NVIDIA researcher and one of the paper’s authors, told Lifewire in an email interview....

Computer parts maker NVIDIA recently unveiled tools that can capture the sound of natural speech by letting you train an AI with your voice. The software also can deliver one speaker’s words using another person’s voice. It’s part of a burgeoning push to make computer speech more realistic. “Advanced voice AI technology is allowing users to speak naturally, combining many inquiries into a single sentence and eliminating the need to repeat details from the original query constantly,” Michael Zagorsek, the chief operating officer of speech recognition company SoundHound, told Lifewire in an email interview....

How Does Apple Watch Track Exercise Ring? The sensors on the Apple Watch periodically check your heart rate and movement. Once the sensors notice an increase, the watch begins keeping track of how long you’ve been doing that movement (or series of actions). Once the Apple Watch determines you’re performing a task briskly or with more intensity than usual, each minute you spend doing it is added to the exercise ring....

Cars are a blight on cities. Roads bisect neighborhoods and pollute our living and working spaces with noise and dirty air. Roads and free parking take up a huge percentage of real estate, and for what? A notion of freedom and convenience. Removing cars from cities is the way to increase livability, reduce pollution, and free up space for parks and much-needed housing. But we still need to get around, and bikes are one of the best ways to do that....

The recently released Home feature claims to give you quick access to your most relevant content. It features a revamped look and a customizable dashboard that includes a scratchpad and recently captured information. The dashboard gives Evernote a fresh shot at becoming your online corkboard and one-ups some competitors, observers say. “For many years, Evernote was my main app to keep digital documents, manage projects and tasks, and collect useful information,” Rebeca Sena, a consultant at GetSpace....

Speeds vary by your location, provider, mobile network load, and device. If you live in a large city, the speed is usually higher than the speed available in remote areas of the country. 4G and 4G LTE 4G is the fourth generation of mobile network technology. It replaces 3G and is more reliable and much faster than its predecessor. It accommodates streaming media on your phone, where its speed means you won’t see any buffering delays....

Round One, Hardware Specs-wise, these two are almost equal. They both have Bluetooth for connecting headphones and listening to e-books, they have warm front lights for comfortable late-night reading, they’re waterproof, and both have battery life measured in weeks. The main difference in hardware is that the Kindle has a 6.8-inch screen, a little bigger than the Kobo’s 6-inch unit. That’s an advantage or a disadvantage, depending on whether you value a bigger screen over portability or vice versa....

Since its inception in 1996, Pokémon has grown and expanded, sparking a number of one-off titles and sequels. Perhaps the most iconic of these spin-offs though, was 1999’s Pokémon Snap. Snap took the monster-catching nature of the franchise and did away with it completely, instead focusing on an on-rails experience about taking photographs of different Pokémon. Now, with over 20 years of Pokémon titles in the rear view, a return to the simple mechanics with the new Pokémon Snap is exactly what the series needs to help refresh and push it forward....

Learn the Terminology of Wireless Networking WLAN A WLAN is a wireless LAN, and a LAN (local area network) is a related group of networked computers situated in close physical proximity to each other. You can find LANs in many homes, schools, and businesses. Though it’s technically possible to have more than one LAN in your home, few do this in practice. Wi-Fi Wi-Fi is an industry name for networking products....

What You Need to Build a DIY External Hard Drive Case If you build your own external hard drive, there are a ton of benefits. You can choose the size of the hard drive and the type of connections you want on your case. You can also choose an external case that lets you use all of these popular methods of connecting an external enclosure to a computer: A hard drive: This can be a drive you purchased for this project or it can be an unused hard drive from another computer....

Wireless Carrier At the most basic level, you need a mobile phone that works (i.e., can get a reliable signal to make calls and access data). So your first consideration should be choosing a cellular service provider with decent data and voice reception wherever you may be. Below are the 3 C’s of selecting a carrier: Coverage: Check cellular coverage maps to make sure you’ll have ​an adequate voice and mobile broadband data coverage both in your local area and the places you may travel to....

Having a local copy of a web page makes for quick loading on your next visit because your computer or mobile device doesn’t have to download it from the internet again. Over time, however, the cache may take up a big chunk of your computer’s storage. Why Do You Have to Clear Cache? You don’t have to clear the cache as a regular part of computer or smartphone maintenance. However, there are some good reasons to clear cache:...

Why Should You Compress Video? Video compression is useful for a number of reasons. If you want your videos to upload and download quickly online, compression reduces the file size and makes that an easier process, especially on social media. If your video will only be watched on a device with limited storage, compression can help you save space. And if you want to send videos via email or over social networks, compression helps you meet any file size limits....

Can My Computer Support Three Monitors? A computer needs the proper hardware and software to support three monitors at once. Even one with enough physical video outputs might not support three monitors if the driver for its graphics hardware lacks support for so many displays. HDMI and DisplayPort are the most common video connections. Verify the monitors are arranged as you want by opening a window and dragging it between monitors....

Use Google Home With TV via Chromecast One way to connect Google Home with your TV is via a Google Chromecast or Chromecast Ultra media streamer that plugs into any TV with an HDMI input. Typically, after you set up a Google Chromecast, a smartphone or tablet is used to stream content through the Chromecast so that you can see it on a TV. However, when a Chromecast is paired with Google Home, you have the choice to use Google Assistant voice commands through your smartphone or Google Home....