If your current TV speakers aren’t impressing you, the easiest way to upgrade your movie night is with a sound bar. Our favorite compact option, where you might have limited space or a smaller room, is the Bose Smart Soundbar. It’s currently marked down to $400 at retailers like Amazon and Best Buy, a discount…
It has never been more expensive to buy a new car. The average transaction price last month for buyers in the United States was $48,576, up nearly a third from 2019, according to Edmunds. The “affordable” car—$20,000 or less—is dead. The high prices have been pinned on plenty of economic dynamics: lingering pandemic-era supply-chain issues,…
As self-driving car services from Alphabet’s Waymo, Amazon’s Zoox, and Tesla have slowly, quietly expanded across the US, one big, important state has mostly stayed mum: New York. The union’s fourth most populous state has some of the tightest laws governing autonomous vehicles, requiring companies approved to test in the state to only do so…
But there has been negative news about gas ranges. Outside studies and CR’s own testing have found that cooking on a gas stove may produce byproducts that are bad for the environment and can pose risks to the respiratory health of certain vulnerable people. While research is ongoing, one thing is clear: Ventilation is critical…
Other than transitioning from one stage to the next, there are some situations that call for fully replacing your child’s car seat: Your child’s car seat has expired. Many parents don’t realize that child car seats carry expiration dates. This is particularly important when you have several children and use the same car seat for…
Cases for Your Filters and Memory Cards What good is protecting your camera if your memory cards and filters get ruined? You won’t be able to take the shot you want! I like these protective cases. Wandrd Lens Filter Case Photograph: Julian Chokkattu Wandrd Lens Filter Case for $44: I’m always so bad at packing…
For far too long, purchasing sex toys was done in seedy stores on random roads off highways. Lovehoney wanted to change all that. With more and more people getting online, the founders of Lovehoney saw the opportunity to create a safe and discreet space that allowed consumers a one-stop experience for all their sex toy-related…
Layla mattresses let you flip between a softer or firmer side, depending on your needs. I’ve been testing iterations they’ve come up with for years. We’re testing Layla’s bamboo sheets at the moment, and I can report that they’re ridiculously silky and breathable. If you’re looking to score the whole nine yards—mattress, sheets, bedding, and…
Here are a few shopping suggestions to keep in mind. • Make sure you can return or exchange the soundbar even if you listen to it in a store before buying it. Soundbars may sound very different in your home. • Determine how many channels of sound you want. To simply enhance your TV sound,…
The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. Hard problems are usually not a welcome sight. But cryptographers love them. That’s because certain hard math problems underpin the security of modern encryption. Any clever trick for solving them will doom most forms of cryptography. Several years ago, researchers found a radically new approach…