Time flies when you’re having fun. Somehow, the time of camps and lazy mornings watching TV is almost over, and school is around the corner (if it hasn’t started already). We hunted down discounts on school supplies and classroom essentials, which, in this day and age, aren’t just backpacks and glue sticks. Everyone can benefit…
And we explored pricing: how much our members paid for their mattresses, how happy they were with the price, and whether they haggled—a common practice for in-store shopping but much less common with mattresses purchased online. Based on our survey responses, members found that buying a mattress, whether online or in a store, was a…
We have a few tips and pointers on what to think about before you shop for a portable power station. Price: Portable power stations can be very expensive, but discounts, sales, and deals are common. If you can afford to wait, you can very likely get your chosen power station for less. Capacity: Figure out…
There’s plenty more bounty, from standards like in-ear sensors for auto-pause to advanced options like computational voice isolation for notably clear calling and Spatial Audio with head tracking (if you’re into that) via gyroscopes and accelerometers. The Pro 2’s IPX4 water resistance could (and should) be better, but they atone with an excellent battery life…
Synthetic voices have been proliferating for years, and the generative AI boom of the new ’20s has sped that process right along. AI voices are everywhere—in podcasts, in political campaigns, and in chatbots where they maybe-not-so-subtly replicate celebrity voices. Soon, they’ll be all up in your audiobooks too. Audible, the Amazon-owned audiobook company, announced a…
The bones of the gameplay product are already set, however, and they offer glimpses at a fully immersive future across sports gaming. Kickin’ Around Rezzil’s main priority for Premier League Player was to make the game something that appeals to the general public and not just players familiar with soccer’s mechanics. “Someone’s grandma could play…
That’s not to say that all of the mowers we’ve tested are great or even all that similar. Trezza notes that our ratings primarily differ when it comes to the convenience features each mower and tractor offers, the level of noise each makes, and their battery life—at least for electric mowers. “Mowers and tractors also…
Beliefs and practices about music’s ability to heal the mind, body, and spirit date back to the Upper Paleolithic period, about 20,000 years ago. Music was widely used by shamans and other healers to treat a variety of ailments, from mental disorders to injuries and illness. Only recently have we separated healing and music; we…
This list of the best headphones includes top-rated picks as well as bargain options that deliver strong performance based on our testing in CR’s dedicated sound labs in Yonkers, N.Y. We buy all the models we rate at retail—no freebies for us. Our rigorous testing process compares new headphones not only to the models currently…
Listeriosis, the illness caused by Listeria monocytogenes, is relatively uncommon, affecting about 1,600 people a year (compared with 1.35 million sickened by salmonella, for example). Symptoms can include fever, muscle aches, nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea. For healthy adults who have mild symptoms, the illness will resolve on its own, the FDA says. But very young…