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How to turn off ACR on your TV (and why it greatly enhances your viewing experience)

Kerry Wan/ZDNET Did you know that whenever you turn on your smart TV, you invite an unseen guest to watch it with you? These days, most popular TV models utilize automatic content recognition (ACR), a form of ad surveillance technology that gathers information about everything you watch and transmits it to a centralized database. Manufacturers then use your data to identify your viewing preferences, enabling them to deliver highly targeted ads. Also: Your TV's USB port is seriously underutili

Elon Musk's X is down for some users

The X logo appears on a phone, and the xAI logo is displayed on a laptop in Krakow, Poland, on April 1, 2025. (Photo by Klaudia Radecka/NurPhoto via Getty Images) Elon Musk's social media platform X was hit with an outage on Wednesday, leaving some users unable to load the site. More than 15,000 users reported issues with the platform at around 9:53 a.m. ET, according to analytics firm Downdetector, which gathers data from users who spot glitches and report them to service. The issues appeare

I changed 8 settings on my Pixel phone to instantly improve the battery life

Kerry Wan/ZDNET Pixel phones have an excellent reputation for smart software, but battery life has been a common complaint with Google's smartphones. Thankfully, that same smart software is now improving battery life and longevity, though many features aren't set up for maximum endurance out of the box. I've found that a handful of features can dramatically improve how long your Pixel lasts, both in a single day and over the long haul. Also: Why I recommend this $280 Android phone over cheap m

$1,320 Off the Most Trusted Lifetime Cloud Storage – Act Fast!

Lifetime storage inventors should be given a Nobel Prize. While we’re not sure pCloud invented it, its Lifetime cloud storage offers have always been worthy of one. This time, it’s no different, as you can save up to $1,320 on its cloud storage with client-side encryption. However, the deal won’t last forever, as encryption is regularly a paid add-on. So, if you’re enthralled by exciting news, let’s explain the whole deal and see how to claim it before it evaporates. Save up to 70% on pCloud

Research roundup: 6 cool science stories we almost missed

It's a regrettable reality that there is never enough time to cover all the interesting scientific stories we come across each month. In the past, we've featured year-end roundups of cool science stories we (almost) missed. This year, we're experimenting with a monthly collection. June's list includes the final results from the Muon g-2 experiment, re-creating the recipe for Egyptian blue, embedding coded messages in ice bubbles, and why cats seem to have a marked preference for sleeping on thei

Songscription launches an AI-powered ‘Shazam for sheet music’

A small company called Songscription launched last week with AI models that automate music transcription, turning an audio file of a song into sheet music within minutes. Operating on a freemium model, the product is geared toward both professional and hobbyist musicians. “We hope to make playing music more enjoyable,” Andrew Carlins, CEO of Songscription and a student in Stanford’s MBA/MA in Education program, told TechCrunch. “We imagine a future where a rural Nebraska high school band teache

Gmail is making it easier to manage your newsletters and mailing lists on the web

Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority TL;DR Gmail is rolling out a new “Manage subscriptions” page on its web client to help users easily declutter their inboxes. This page lists all your mailing lists, shows their email frequency, and provides a simple one-click unsubscribe button for each sender. The feature is gradually becoming available on the web and has been rolling out on the Android app since late April. Signing up for newsletters and mailing lists is a great way to stay up to date on

The New Prescription Gummy That May Help With Hair Loss

You've tried the serums, the vitamins and the topical solutions. But have you tried a prescription gummy for hair loss? Hers, a telehealth company that provides online healthcare services and products for women, announced the launch of its Biotin plus Minoxidil Gummy, the first-of-its-kind prescription gummy formulated to support hair regrowth. Available through forhers.com, this gummy combines prescription-strength minoxidil, the only FDA-approved ingredient for female hair loss, with biotin, a

How to turn off ACR on your TV (and why it make such a big difference)

Kerry Wan/ZDNET Did you know that whenever you turn on your smart TV, you invite an unseen guest to watch it with you? These days, most popular TV models utilize automatic content recognition (ACR), a form of ad surveillance technology that gathers information about everything you watch and transmits it to a centralized database. Manufacturers then use your data to identify your viewing preferences, enabling them to deliver highly targeted ads. Also: Your TV's USB port is seriously underutili

Best Meat Delivery Services for 2025

We did the math and some services can save you money versus the supermarket. Some services send frozen meat while others serve it up fresh. Online butchers in 2024 sell far more than just steak. Prefer to pick your meats each month or be surprised? CNET staff -- not advertisers, partners or business interests -- determine how we review products and services. If you buy through our links, we may earn a commission. Can’t find great meat at your local grocery store? You’re not alone. Premium c

OpenAI charges by the minute, so speed up your audio

Want to make OpenAI transcriptions faster and cheaper? Just speed up your audio. I mean that very literally. Run your audio through ffmpeg at 2x or 3x before transcribing it. You’ll spend fewer tokens and less time waiting with almost no drop in transcription quality. That’s it! Here’s a script combining of all my favorite little toys and tricks to get the job. You’ll need yt-dlp, ffmpeg and llm installed. # Extract the audio from the video yt-dlp -f 'bestaudio[ext=m4a]' --extract-audio --au

Proton Mail is rolling out a tool to help you get rid of those unwanted subscriptions

TL;DR Proton Mail is rolling out a feature called “Newsletters view.” Newsletters view is a focused space that organizes all of your subscriptions in one place to help you declutter your inbox. It features two separate tabs for quick access to active subscriptions and mail lists from which you’ve unsubscribed. It’s easy to get overwhelmed by the amount of email sitting in your inbox. Things like promos, job alerts, store updates, and more can often make up the bulk of the messages waiting for

Ring’s descriptive alerts take the guesswork out of checking your camera feed

Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority TL;DR Ring is rolling out AI-powered Video Descriptions that summarize camera footage in plain text. The feature helps users quickly distinguish urgent events from routine activity. It’s currently in beta for Ring Home Premium users in the US and Canada. Smart home cameras have long sent vague alerts, which can be a double-edged sword. You want to know what’s happening on your property, but it can be stressful to get the notification only to realize on pla

OpenAI Charges by the Minute, So Make the Minutes Shorter

Want to make OpenAI transcriptions faster and cheaper? Just speed up your audio. I mean that very literally. Run your audio through ffmpeg at 2x or 3x before transcribing it. You’ll spend fewer tokens and less time waiting with almost no drop in transcription quality. That’s it! Here’s a script combining of all my favorite little toys and tricks to get the job. You’ll need yt-dlp, ffmpeg and llm installed. # Extract the audio from the video yt-dlp -f 'bestaudio[ext=m4a]' --extract-audio --au

Ring security cameras get AI smarts to tell you what they are seeing

While the rush to AI–ify all the things gets exceedingly silly at times, adding intelligence to Ring security cameras does at least have the potential to be a smart move. The company has announced a beta version of Video Descriptions, which attempts to describe exactly what doorbell and other security cameras are seeing when notifying you … Amazon has just made the announcement. With Video Descriptions, you will see text descriptions of the motion activity your Ring doorbells and cameras see—

Ring's AI video descriptions tell you who's doing what

Here's a use of artificial intelligence that could be handy. Ring is adding AI-generated text descriptions of alerts. If it works well, a glance will be all it takes to tell whether something requires your attention. Ring founder Jamie Siminoff gave some examples of the new notifications. "A person is walking up the steps with a black dog" could tell you it's just the dog walker returning. Or, "Two people are peering into a white car in the driveway" could indicate it's time to call the fuzz.

Ring camera alerts are about to get a lot smarter

Ring cameras are getting an AI upgrade that can tell you what’s happening at your front door, as well as show you. Video Descriptions is a new feature that generates text descriptions of the motion activity on Ring doorbells and cameras. Now, instead of an alert that says “Front door: person detected,” you’ll get something like “person with broom and mop is leaving.” Or instead of “Living room: motion detected,” you might get “a dog is tearing up paper towels on the rug.” You can see how this w

Here's How to Move the Chrome Address Bar to the Bottom of Android Phone Screens

Depending on how you use cell phones -- and maybe even your hand size, Google's latest tweak just might be a very welcome change. Starting Tuesday, Chrome for Android users can now place the address bar at the bottom of their phone screens, a move that finally comes nearly 17 years after the first Android phone hit the market in 2008. Users can still keep the address bar at the top, but being able to have it at the bottom might make sense for folks with a certain hand size or phone size. In a

Could Apple's New Adaptive Power Feature Extend Your iPhone's Battery Life?

Usually, I'm the one adapting my behavior based on the power remaining in my iPhone, but starting this fall, I can ask my iPhone to do more of the adapting. A new Adaptive Power setting in iOS 26 can extend battery power by intelligently trimming energy usage in small ways that add up to extend the time before you need to recharge. See also: Adaptive Power in iOS 26 Could Save the iPhone 17 Air From This Major Pitfall Currently, the iPhone uses as much power as it needs to perform its tasks. Y

How to get Windows 10 extended security updates for free: 2 options

hxdbzxy / Getty Images With just a few months remaining until the Windows 10 end-of-support date, Microsoft seems to have belatedly realized that owners of tens of millions of consumer PCs running Windows 10 aren't ready to replace their old computers, and they're also not about to fork over $30 for a one-year Extended Security Updates (ESU) subscription. So today, the company waved the white flag and announced new "free enrollment options" for the ESU program, along with a description of the

Gemini Robotics On-Device brings AI to local robotic devices

We’re introducing an efficient, on-device robotics model with general-purpose dexterity and fast task adaptation. In March, we introduced Gemini Robotics, our most advanced VLA (vision language action) model, bringing Gemini 2.0’s multimodal reasoning and real-world understanding into the physical world. Today, we’re introducing Gemini Robotics On-Device, our most powerful VLA model optimized to run locally on robotic devices. Gemini Robotics On-Device shows strong general-purpose dexterity an

X Display unveils ultra-fast, cable-free display that turns data into light

The big picture: Despite promising massive, unprecedented improvements in both speed and power efficiency, optical technology has yet to become a common feature of modern chip design. Now, a display company claims it can take optical solutions to the next level – at least, when it comes to transmitting data between machines and chips. X Display is focused on developing and licensing new intellectual property related to MicroLED and other display technologies. The North Carolina-based developer

Telegram Purged Chinese Crypto Scam Markets—Then Watched as They Rebuilt

One month ago, the messaging app Telegram summarily beheaded the online industry of Chinese-language crypto scam services: It banned virtually all accounts related to the first and second most popular marketplaces for vendors offering money laundering, stolen data, and a variety of other illicit wares to the vast criminal enterprises carrying out investment scams from compounds across Southeast Asia. Then, Telegram watched impassively as those black marketeers rebranded, rebuilt, and returned t

Scaling integrated digital health

Through a survey of 300 health care executives and a program of interviews with industry experts, startup leaders, and academic researchers, this report explores the best practices for success when implementing integrated digital solutions into health care, and how these can support decision-makers in a range of settings, including laboratories and hospitals. Key findings include: Health care is primed for digital adoption. The global pandemic underscored the benefits of value-based care a

From fear to fluency: Why empathy is the missing ingredient in AI rollouts

Join the event trusted by enterprise leaders for nearly two decades. VB Transform brings together the people building real enterprise AI strategy. Learn more While many organizations are eager to explore how AI can transform their business, its success will hinge not on tools, but on how well people embrace them. This shift requires a different kind of leadership rooted in empathy, curiosity and intentionality. Technology leaders must guide their organizations with clarity and care. People use

Cloud quantum computing: A trillion-dollar opportunity with dangerous hidden risks

Join the event trusted by enterprise leaders for nearly two decades. VB Transform brings together the people building real enterprise AI strategy. Learn more Quantum computing (QC) brings with it a mix of groundbreaking possibilities and significant risks. Major tech players like IBM, Google, Microsoft and Amazon have already rolled out commercial QC cloud services, while specialized firms like Quantinuum and PsiQuantum have quickly achieved unicorn status. Experts predict that the global QC ma

Amazon improves Kindle accessibility with new text spacing adjustments

is a senior reporter who’s been covering and reviewing the latest gadgets and tech since 2006, but has loved all things electronic since he was a kid. Amazon released a new software update for several recent Kindle models last week. The company’s release notes only mention “performance improvements, bug fixes, and other general enhancements,” but the update includes notable upgrades when it comes to adjusting text and line spacing, improving legibility and accessibility for many users, as spott