Buying Blank Discs Before you can record a TV program or transfer camcorder tapes to DVD, you need to purchase a blank disc. Blank DVDs can be found in most consumer electronics and computer stores, and can also be purchased online. You can buy one disc, a few discs, a box or spindle of 10, 20, 30, or more. Some come with paper sleeves or jewel box cases, but those packaged in spindles require separate sleeves or jewel boxes....

What Is a TFLOP and What Is It Good For? The performance of a computer isn’t easily quantifiable. A PC that’s great at one task might be just average at another, while a modern desktop might be more capable than a supercomputer from a decade ago, depending on the tasks you set it. Clock speeds, core counts, and even instructions per second aren’t always directly comparable either. Floating-point operations per second, or FLOPS, and more recently TFLOPS are a measurement that can cross generations and even different components, to give a firmer measurement of what a computer is can do....

External SATA is an industry standard for controlling the various hardware used to connect external storage devices. It competes with some Firewire and USB standards to provide faster data transfer speeds between hardware devices. How Does eSATA Compare With USB and FireWire? Both USB and FireWire interfaces are high-speed serial interfaces between a computer system and external peripherals. USB is more general and used for a wider range of peripherals such as keyboards, mice, scanners, and printers....

The Benefit of HDMI ARC HDMI ARC transfers audio from a TV to a home theater receiver with the same HDMI connection that transfers video from the home theater receiver to the TV. With HDMI ARC, you can hear TV audio through a home theater audio system instead of the TV’s speakers without also connecting analog or digital optical audio cables between the TV and home theater system. How an Audio Return Channel Works If you receive TV signals over an antenna, audio from those signals goes directly to your TV....

What Is Echo? (Definition and Details) The primary Echo device is two speakers and some computer hardware wrapped in a sleek black cylinder. It comes equipped with Wi-Fi, which it uses to connect to the internet, and it can connect to your phone through Bluetooth. It also pairs with a variety of accessories to automate your life, shop, watch TV, and play music. Echo Frames are smartglasses that deliver content and notifications through two inconspicuous speakers in the arms of the gadget....

To help you dissect unfamiliar concepts, like “resolution” and “refresh rate,” we’ve done the heavy lifting for you, breaking down each panel technology by name so that you can make an informed purchasing decision by the time Black Friday and Cyber Monday roll around. TV Resolution: What Is It and What Is the Highest? If a pixel is one of the millions of small squares that make up an image on your screen, a TV resolution is the number of pixels arranged vertically multiplied by those displayed horizontally....

Check for Service Interruptions If you’re trying to watch a video through iTunes, you can check Apple’s system status page to make sure services are all available and running at peak level. If you’re trying to watch video through a non-Apple app, you’ll need to check the app developer’s website to ensure their product is running the way it should. These sites vary from app to app, but more popular apps like YouTube or Netflix generally make it easy to find if they’re having issues with their service....

Albums is an iPhone and iPad app that takes your music seriously. At first glance, you’ll see a nice grid of album covers, and you can tap one to play it and see the track listing. But then you notice the info panel, hidden behind an innocent-looking ⓘ (information) button. Tap this, and you’ll fall into a rabbit hole of music. It’s like being back at the record store, only without the twitchy DJs and the condescending staff....

The Echo Frames are pretty much just an Alexa speaker, embedded into a pair of glasses. But that’s enough for many people, with the bonus that the glasses don’t end up bulky and dorky. Also, smart audio assistants can be a huge boon to people with limited vision. “For blind or low-vision people, audio AR can significantly extend their ability to interact with the world,” sound artist and augmented reality writer Halsey Burgund told Lifewire via email....

The current Instagram policy forbids children under the age of 13 from using the service. The company reportedly is working on a version of the social media service that would be ad-free and feature parental controls. While details haven’t been announced, some observers are skeptical. “An app solely for kids with no credible way to assure that the profiles on there are actually underage can be very toxic and unhealthy, as many children can be exploited and manipulated into doing things that are not meant for them,” Brandon Walsh, who runs the parenting blog DadsAgree, said in an email interview....

While battery life has continued to remain around the same threshold for the past several years, new features that decrease the amount of time it takes to charge your phone have become staples in new devices. Fast-charging, aka rapid charging, often promises to charge up to 50% of a phone’s battery in a matter of minutes. Now, though, Xiaomi has revealed that it can fully charge a phone in eight minutes flat....

Keep reading to learn how to determine if the site is actually down or if there’s just something preventing you from seeing it. Well, Which Is It? Learning whether a site is down for everyone or just you is the easy part. There are several websites that can help you with this task. The most popular is Down for Everyone or Just Me. Select the link, enter the URL of the troublesome site in the text box, and select or just me....

WhatsApp Was First When WhatsApp rolled out in 2009, it was the first of its kind. There was Skype, which excelled at voice and video calling, but Skype was for the PC and made a late entry into mobile phones. WhatsApp was to free messaging what Skype was to free calling. Although other mobile messaging apps, such as Viber and Kik, came out later, WhatsApp remained the app to beat. WhatsApp wasn’t a VoIP app at launch....

Beijing, China-based Xiaomi snagged the No. 2 spot for smartphones after South Korea’s Samsung for the first time ever, according to a study of second-quarter data by independent analyst company Canalys. The rankings are based on each company’s market share for shipments. Xiaomi has proven to be popular for its affordable devices, but is now branching out and looking to grow its higher-end devices, too, Ben Stanton, research manager at Canalys, told Lifewire in an email....

The new Sony headset will have better resolution, more accurate head-tracking and a wider field of view. Like the previous Sony headset, it still will be tethered with a single wire to the console. The tethered option is a compromise in terms of freedom of movement; however, the physical connection to the PS5 console could allow for greater computing power. “Although many of the specific details of the new headset have not been made public yet, we expect that the new Sony headset will at least be on par with the latest competitor performance specifications,” DJ Smith, co-founder and chief creative officer of virtual reality company The Glimpse Group, said in an email interview....

While the issue of an inverter draining a car battery is fairly complex, the general rule of thumb is that the inverter won’t drain a battery when the vehicle is running, and especially not when it’s driving around. However, using an inverter when the engine is off will run the battery down, and it doesn’t take much before the engine won’t start back up again without a jump or a charge....

Overall Findings The Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S look quite different, with the former taking on the appearance of a black monolith, and the latter being like in size and configuration to a tissue box. Both systems share similar CPU and GPU architecture, with the Xbox Series X leveraging more powerful specifications to offer better graphics. The Series X also comes with a disc drive, which the Series S lacks....

Things to Consider If fixing the heater core on your car isn’t possible before you get into cold weather, a portable car heater is a viable option. However, there are a few things to keep in mind: Residential heaters (even portable ones) aren’t always safe for automotive use.Although some propane heaters are safe for indoor use, you should never use them in moving vehicles.A 12V portable car heater requires electricity to run, which may cause issues with a weak alternator or a lot of other accessories....

Pixalate, a fraud protection, privacy, and compliance analytics platform, examined the state of children’s online privacy by scrutinizing over 4,22,000 apps that they believe are meant for use by children in both the Apple and Google Play stores. Their research found that 68% of the top 150 most popular US-registered apps and 70% of the top 1000 apps for children, which Pixalate reviewed manually, transmitted location information, while 59% requested permission to access other personal information....

Be Smart at Night If you’re spending time in nightclubs or if you’re planning to drink alcohol, leave the DSLR camera behind altogether. The hassle you’ll save by using an inexpensive point-and-shoot camera is well worth the tradeoff in image quality. People very often lose their cameras or have them stolen during a night on the town. Camera Bag Options When traveling, use a large camera bag that is comfortable to carry but that offers some padding and protection for your equipment....