Author: Press Room

How to use Action mode on your iPhone

If you have a newer Apple phone in your pocket, you’ve got a bunch of excellent cameras in easy reach. They’re superb for stills, but also take fantastic video footage, and iPhone Action Mode is a big reason why. Action Mode was introduced in the iPhone 14 series, and is meant to prevent your vids from being ruined by shaky hands. The digital image stabilisation tech helps keep those otherwise blurry frames from Saturday night looking clean and crisp – which may not be a good thing, depending on what you got up to. To get smoother shots, follow our…

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Apple iPad Mini 8: release date, price, specs and everything you need to know

Okay, so the Apple iPad Mini 8 technically doesn’t officially exist. But we all know it’s coming. After all, Apple isn’t the type to rest on its laurels when it comes to refreshes, and tablets are no exception. Nothing has been officially announced, of course, but there are enough whispers, rumours, and analyst insights to paint a reasonably clear picture of what to expect. Here’s everything we know so far about the iPad Mini 8. Oh, and all the images in this article are of the current-generation iPad Mini 7. We haven’t got a super-secret Apple prototype or anything. Honest.…

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I plugged my headphone amp into Ethernet, and streaming finally sounded right

Streaming music puts millions of songs in our hands at a low monthly cost, but it encourages the use of wireless protocols with serious bottlenecks. When streaming high-resolution lossless music through a Wi-Fi network or cellular connection, speed and bitrate become concerns. Using a Bluetooth connection to connect your streaming device to earbuds, headphones, or speakers means you’ll be further limited to the bitrate of the Bluetooth audio codec used. Streaming sounds “bad” when your gear and wireless communication protocols aren’t good enough to support the quality of files you want to play. I use Ethernet throughout my home, but…

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Self-hosted media servers aren’t as hard as Plex makes them seem

Plex’s recent push toward subscriptions and remote ad-supported streaming has many people looking for a way out, but the idea of running your own media server still scares them off. The word server makes it sound like you need a closet full of blinking lights and a computer science degree to keep it running. If you’ve been waiting to use Jellyfin, you should try it out. You can build something that plays your library on any device in the house, transcodes on the fly, and never asks you for a credit card. You can use hardware you already have Linux…

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After 16 years, this blue-collar sitcom pulled off the rare perfect reboot

The history of television is littered with failed revivals of old TV shows. That ’90s Show, a revival of That ’70s Show, flamed out after a few seasons. A reboot of the iconic sitcom Frasier lasted two. One of the first beloved sitcoms to revive itself years later was Arrested Development, which aired its first three seasons on Fox in the mid-2000s, gained a passionate cult following, and then came back on Netflix in 2013 to muted applause. In all of these cases, the magic that had made the show popular in the first place just wasn’t there anymore. Somehow,…

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I finally found a free app that mirrors my phone to my TV without the usual headaches

Mirroring or casting my phone to a smart TV is a feature that often comes in handy for sharing media with friends and family, immersive mobile gaming, and watching movies and shows stored on my phone. However, it’s not always as straightforward as I’d like. Some apps only work with specific devices, others bombard me with ads, and many require complicated setup processes that leave me wondering whether it would have been easier to plug in an HDMI cable. There’s always going to be a solution among the vast array of apps available, and in this instance, I found one…

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A month with the Oura Ring 5 – this is the iPhone moment for smart rings

I’ve worn a fair few of the best smart rings over the past couple of years, and almost all of them have shared the same problem: they look like smart rings. Chunky, slightly clinical, and weird enough to make people ask “what’s that on your finger?” The new Oura Ring 5 is the first smart ring that actually looks like a piece of jewellery. After a month of wearing it day and night, I’m convinced this is the smart ring’s iPhone moment – the point when a product reshapes what users expect by default. So, should you buy one? Here’s…

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I asked Claude, ChatGPT and Gemini to build Chrome ad-blockers — YouTube exposed all their worst instincts

No one, and I mean possibly no one, likes ads. Sure, the people behind them and the people earning from them have their reasons for keeping them around, but as a regular person trying to watch a YouTube video or read an article without five banners fighting for my attention, I’m obviously not a fan. Ad-blocking extensions are everywhere, and while I’m not here to recommend one, I figured building one would be a fun way to test what AI coding tools do when handed a problem that sounds simple on the surface but gets messy fast. So, I gave…

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MacBook Neo vs MacBook Air: which Apple laptop should you buy?

Trying to decide between the MacBook Neo or MacBook Air for your next laptop? It’s not as easy a decision as one may think – though that hasn’t always been the case. It used to be simpler, y’know. For years, if someone asked which Apple laptop to buy, the answer was almost always the same – the MacBook Air. It struck a sweet spot between price, portability, and performance, that very few laptops – Apple’s or otherwise – could match. Then the MacBook Neo arrived, bringing macOS to a lower price point without asking buyers to spend four figures. Far…

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Here’s why the Mazda 6e’s quirky feel makes it a contender against EV greats from Tesla and Mercedes

Introduction One of the best things about Mazda is it always likes to do its own thing. Just look at how it continues to use various powertrains across the range rather than go all-in like many rivals. For the Mazda 6e, though, collaboration was the name of the game. This electric car has been produced in a production partnership with Chinese carmaker Changan. The coupe-style saloon with a hatchback is already known as the Changan Deepal L07/SL03 in other markets. That will surely discount it from any kind of US release, despite Mazda taking the bare bones and making this…

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