You’ll find free wallpaper for your desktop computer, laptop, tablet, phone, and other mobile devices. There’s just about every category of wallpaper available, from abstract to nature. These free wallpaper sites were reviewed based on the quality, uniqueness, and quantity of wallpapers on their sites. They were also reviewed on how easy it was to search for wallpapers and how pleasant the download experience was. These free wallpaper sites truly are the best of the best, and might very well become your go-to when it comes to downloading free wallpaper....

Working in tech support means taking calls, emails, or chat sessions from people who aren’t happy. It’s a lot like a retail customer support job, only without the benefit of body language, eye contact, and other things that make human interaction easier. It’s a unique career with unique challenges. My How to Talk to Tech Support piece was written to help make your overall experience working with them easier, but I think knowing some of this insider information might help too....

Most head units still include an AM tuner, but eight-track tapes, cassettes, and other technologies have faded into history. Other technologies, such as the compact disc, would also disappear over the next few years. It may seem far-fetched, but the history of car radios is littered with abandoned technology that was once considered state of the art. 1930s: The First Commercial Head Units Enthusiasts had already been finding creative ways to integrate radios into their cars for over a decade, but the first true car radios weren’t introduced until the 1930s....

Apple is testing Conversation Boost, a feature for the AirPods Pro that focuses the microphones on the person in front of you, boosting their voice, without cutting out the sounds of the world around you. Currently in beta testing, this feature continues to blur the lines between augmented reality and accessibility. “This is definitely a feature that all users, even those with normal hearing, would like to have because we are often in noisy environments and this amplifies the voices that we care about while rejecting other sounds,” John Carter, former chief engineer at Bose, told Lifewire via email....

What Can the Fitbit Ace Do? From telling the time to tracking steps, the Fitbit Ace can perform a variety of functions. Here’s a full list of its capabilities. Step tracking: The Fitbit Ace can keep track of how many steps are taken by the wearer over a given time period. Activity tracking: Tracks how many minutes the wearer is physically active during the day. Watch functionality: The Fitbit Ace, like other Fitbit trackers, features a digital watch face which, in addition to displaying step and activity progress, can show the time and date....

Discontinued: Still being sold Rumors swirled around the next-generation Apple TV box for years. For a long time, many observers assumed that it wouldn’t be a box at all: it was expected to be a full-fledged TV set with the Apple TV hardware and software built into it. We learned that that was not the case when Apple unveiled the 4th Generation Apple TV at its “Hey Siri” event on September 9, 2015....

What Is DTS 96/24? DTS 96/24 isn’t so much a separate surround sound format but an upscaled version of DTS Digital Surround 5.1. Manufacturers encode it onto DVDs or set it as an alternative listening option on DVD-Audio discs. DTS 96/24 provides higher audio resolution than the traditional DTS Digital Surround format. The audio industry measures audio resolution in the sampling rate and bit-depth. The higher the numbers (more resolution), the better the sound....

Design: Futuristic design powered by Alexa The Fire TV Cube is a cute, futuristic-looking block that will stand out on your home console despite its 4-inch sides. On the outside, it’s virtually unchanged from the first-generation model. Across the top, there’s a blue LED bar that lights up whenever the Cube takes action. The sides of the cube have a glossy black finish that’s a fingerprint magnet. There’s volume and menu buttons on the top, as well, but we don’t foresee a lot of use for them considering that the Cube comes with a remote....

That’s five times faster out of the box, using the default settings, with no fancy setup. The M5 also has a built-in webcam to watch progress or record time-lapse videos of your work-in-progress, and can pause and warn you when things go awry. It’s also a very affordable $500 on Kickstarter, with a possible final price of around $760, which is still pretty good. In short, this is an amazing step forward for 3D printing enthusiasts and may even send 3D printing mainstream....

The Aphaca Wireless Car Bluetooth FM Transmitter is a very simple, compact, and well designed Bluetooth FM transmitter that allows you to connect almost any Bluetooth-enabled audio device to your car’s stereo system. In this review we’ll examine the transmitter’s compact design, audio quality, and features to see if this little transmitter is a good buy. Spoiler alert: it is. Design: Simple and compact The Aphaca Bluetooth Car FM Transmitter is a svelte device that will easily fit in any car’s 12V power outlet....

Apple doesn’t make new apps very often, so Freeform is exciting for that reason alone before you even get into its features. It’s also Apple’s first attempt at a real-time collaboration app, and in my limited testing, it seems to work great. But Apple’s problem is that there are already other freeform canvas-sharing tools, which are not only fuller-featured but don’t require Apple devices to use. “As with most of the features that are Apple only, Freeform is unlikely to be hugely useful in most corporate environments as they are firmly fixed to Windows products,” Dragos Badea, CEO of Yarooms, told Lifewire via email....

Offline Finding allows you to locate Apple devices even if they aren’t connected to the internet. Apple has said the app protects user privacy, but reported security flaws in the software show anonymity is hard to come by on the internet. According to a recent paper published by researchers from the Technical University of Darmstadt in Germany, hackers could get unauthorized access to your location history for the past seven days and correlate it with your identity....

iOS and Viruses In a technical sense, a virus is a piece of code that replicates itself by creating a copy within another piece of software on your computer. But, unlike Windows computers that have a very open file system, iOS doesn’t allow one app direct access to the files of another app, preventing any would-be virus from replicating. If you visit a website and see a message pop up informing you that your device is infected by a virus, you should immediately exit the website....

Former Google executive Mo Gawdat said in a recent interview that AI will soon overtake human intelligence, with dire consequences for our civilization. As evidence, Gawdat claims that he witnessed a robot arm making what he perceived to be a taunting gesture to AI researchers. But some experts beg to differ. “AI is woefully inadequate in many domains and relies heavily on Big Data and human surveillance to fuel its software models,” Sean O’Brien, a visiting fellow at the Information Society Project at Yale Law School, told Lifewire in an email interview....

In the world of wireless earbuds, the Powerbeats Pro are top tier. Everything from their design to the sound quality, connectivity, and battery life place these Bluetooth earbuds among the best you can buy. We tested the Powerbeats Pro nearly continuously over the course of a week. We found them to be comfortable, convenient, and a pleasure to listen to. Every word, note, and beat came through flawlessly. The physical controls are outstanding and you’ll be hard-pressed to find the limit of their battery life....

But women are increasingly leveling up in the industry. They are creating games featuring female-centric characters and advocating for more women’s voices in the bigger-named gaming institutions. One such woman is Brianna Wu, a dedicated gamer and advocate for women and politics. Being so sick of games tailored to men, she set out to create her own game, tailored to everyone. “It just made me so angry that women were the damsels in distress that never got to be the hero,” Wu told Lifewire in a phone interview....

The best digital photo frames let you put your memories on display using a convenient and easy-to-setup device. With the increasing popularity of smart displays like the Echo Show that offer digital photo display along with a slew of other features, digital photo frames have to provide a truly simple and seamless experience to compete. I tested the 10.1-inch Brookstone PhotoShare Friends and Family Smart Frame to see how it stacks up against other digital photo frames and smart displays, paying close attention to its design, setup process, audio and video quality, software, and price....

Inkjet printers are great for printing everything from documents to high-resolution photo prints, but the reality is if it’s only documents you’re looking to print, your best bet is to go with a laser printer. Not only do laser printers cost less per print, but they also tend to be easier to maintain over the long run, as you don’t have to worry about multiple inks every time you run out—you simply pop in a new drum or toner cartridge and you’re good to go....

You start to say things you might later regret. Suddenly, a message appears on your computer screen. “Empathy Cue—Think about how the customer is feeling. Try to relate.” It’s not a real person telling you what to do. It’s a message from Cogito, an artificial intelligence program designed to help workers empathize with frustrated callers and boost performance. Cogito is one of a growing number of AI programs that are trying to teach humans empathy....

What Is a CHA File? A file with the CHA file extension is most likely an Adobe Photoshop Channel Mixer file, a format that stores custom intensity levels of red, green, and blue source channels. However, it’s not the only format that uses this extension. Some CHA files are IRC Chat Configuration files, a format that stores information about an IRC (Internet Relay Chat) channel, like the server and port, and maybe even the password....