Author: Press Room

I thought streaming over Wi-Fi on my TV was fine, but I decided to try Ethernet since I had a cable lying around. It instantly improved everything, and now I wish I’d made the switch years ago. 4 More Stable Connection One of the biggest improvements I experienced after switching my smart TV to an Ethernet connection was a significantly more stable connection. My internet speed is fast enough for streaming, but I occasionally experience buffering or dropped streams, especially with high-bandwidth content like 4K and Dolby Vision. It didn’t happen all the time, but it was annoying enough to…

The Amazon Fire TV Stick works just fine right out of the box, but it definitely has its share of little annoyances. Tweaking a few default settings made a big difference for me, and it can for you too. 6 Turn Off Video and Audio Autoplay If you’ve ever lingered on the Fire TV Stick home screen for more than a few seconds, you’ve probably been blasted by some random trailer or preview you never asked for. Turning off autoplay might honestly be the best thing you can do while setting up your Fire TV Stick. It won’t get rid…

Having just unboxed your Fire TV Stick, it’s tempting to load it with all your favorite apps and start streaming right away. However, there are a few tweaks you should absolutely consider to boost the performance of your Fire TV Stick—and they’re simple to make! 1 Update Fire OS and Remote Software Jack MItchell/MakeUseOf The first step in setting up your Fire TV Stick is to check for available updates to ensure it’s operating at its best. Even if you have the latest model, it’s possible that an update has been issued between its manufacture date and when it left…

Forget going out—why spend money on expensive cinema tickets when you can recreate the theatre experience right in your own living room with one of the best 4K TVs? By investing in a new television, you can enjoy stunning visuals and immersive entertainment without leaving your home. Even if you’re on a tight budget, there are plenty of affordable options that will make a significant difference to your viewing experience. For those with a bigger budget, you can elevate your home theatre setup with top-of-the-line gear that brings the magic of the movies to your doorstep. Selecting the right 4K…

For the longest time, the iPhone was my favourite games platform. In fact, I considered it the greatest gaming device I’d ever owned. Which probably sounds bonkers if you’ve spent your life welded to an Xbox or PlayStation gamepad. But for me, mobile gaming rekindled something I’d long felt lost. These days, though, Netflix Games has me wondering if mobile gaming’s magic is gone for good. Let’s rewind. My formative gaming years were during the 8-bit era. People donning rose-tinted specs would have you believe everything back then was amazing and new. It wasn’t. The market was rife with rip-offs.…

Electronic instruments have come a long way since New Order sequenced Blue Monday using binary code. Now it’s all quantised beats, USB-C, and expensive noise-cancelling headphones. And if you’re in the market for modern melodies, these are the machines you need. From MIDI keyboards to beat pads, below you’ll find an orchestra of tools for making electronic music. Whether you’re tinkering with your first track or ready to lay down another lo-fi banger, the kit listed here will help you sample, sequence and synthesise your way to a smash hit. Or at least something worth sharing on SoundCloud. Don’t know…

I’m sure I’m not alone in often struggling to make decisions. It’s not just the big decisions, such as whether to move house or change jobs, but also everyday minutiae, like what to eat for dinner or what to watch on TV. Our lives are all punctuated by a never-ending succession of decisions, both big and small. And that can sometimes feel overwhelming. Thankfully, artificial intelligence, and (in my case) ChatGPT in particular, can help. Using ChatGPT to Help Me Make Decisions We all make multiple decisions every single day. And that can sometimes feel a little overwhelming. So, when…

Imagine your Google TV responding instantly, apps launching fast, and menus gliding smoothly. That kind of speed isn’t just for new devices. With a few quick tweaks, you can make your Google TV feel fast and fresh again. 8 Turn on Quick Start Most Google TV models come with the Quick Start feature turned on. This puts your TV into a low-power standby mode instead of fully powering down when you turn it off. This way, your TV can skip the lengthy splash screen and jump straight to the home screen the next time you turn it on. It may…

A newly disclosed set of Bluetooth vulnerabilities in Airoha-powered audio devices could allow attackers to eavesdrop on users, hijack connections, and extract sensitive information—all without the victim’s knowledge. What Is the Bluetooth Headphone Vulnerability? Security researchers at ERNW revealed the flaws, highlighting serious authentication issues in both Bluetooth Classic and BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy) services used by Airoha System-on-Chip (SoC). Affected devices include some of the most popular headphones and earbuds on the market, such as those from Sony, Bose, JBL, Jabra, Marshall, Beyerdynamic, and others. While you likely haven’t heard of Airoha, as per the above list of headphone…

Version 2.2 of the HDMI Specification is here, because we weren’t blazing ahead into eyeball-dazzling televisual overkill enough already. The new spec ramps up maximum bandwidth from 48Gbps to 96Gbps, and supports resolutions up to a whopping 16K resolution at 60Hz. That’s 15,360x8640px. You could tile 16 4K images – or 64 1080p images – within the same space, if you were very bored and didn’t have anything better to do. But come on: do we really need 16K? According to our team here at Stuff, no. And also, yes. 16K? Pfft. Just buy 16 4K TVs and a big tube of glue instead.…