Just keep in mind that not all inverter generators perform equally well. Under demanding conditions, some models simply fail to deliver the power that’s promised, according to our tests. Our generator ratings (available to CR members) feature brands you’ll see whether you’re shopping at an online retailer, a home center, or a dealer: Briggs &…
Amazon Prime Day is arguably one of the most confusing shopping holidays in existence: It’s not even a “day,” as the event spans 48 hours; it includes some great deals—Amazon promises “millions of deals”—but the displayed discounts are often misleading; and while it’s advertised as a members-only event, some deals are available to people who…
I leave ChatGPT’s Advanced Voice Mode on while writing this article as an ambient AI companion. Occasionally, I’ll ask it to provide a synonym for an overused word, or some encouragement. Around half an hour in, the chatbot interrupts our silence and starts speaking to me in Spanish, unprompted. I giggle a bit and ask…
One of the things enterprise storage and destruction company Iron Mountain does is handle the archiving of the media industry’s vaults. What it has been seeing lately should be a wake-up call: Roughly one-fifth of the hard disk drives dating to the 1990s it was sent are entirely unreadable. Music industry publication Mix spoke with…
What It Comes With• Plastic worm bin with cork lid• 1-cup food-waste container• Moisture/light/pH probe• Compost scoop• Spray bottle Size: The bin measures 18x9x6 inches (width by depth by height), and the manufacturer recommends starting with 1 pound of red wigglers (about 1,000 worms, which costs about $56 from a worm farm). The small, compact container can hold about…
Photograph: Michael Sawh Rather ambitiously, Shokz promises these sports headphones can deliver clear highs and natural mids and that the new dual air conduction unit design manages to produces pure vocal sound. The air conduction certainly delivers the bass, while the bone conduction handles the rest. In the battle to compete with traffic, wind and…
As far as your deck or patio is concerned, some spatial repellent products work much better than others. Several years ago our testers tried out two area repellents—citronella candles and a battery-powered diffuser that blows out geraniol—and found they were ineffective at keeping mosquitoes away. An oscillating pedestal fan did much better. When set on…
The two most important metrics to look for when shopping for a flashlight are the batteries and the lumens. Batteries: There are two big categories of both flashlights and headlamps: rechargeable flashlights and those that take batteries. The difference is in how you recharge them. AA or AAA batteries are easy to find and can…
Want more health-tracking options in your toolbox? Here are a few others you might find helpful. Online Hearing TestThis can be useful for anyone who wants to get a general sense of their hearing ability, says Catherine Palmer, PhD, director of audiology at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. You can take one such test…
Haut is a 21-story timber-hybrid high-rise completed in Amsterdam in 2022. It was designed by the British engineering collective Arup and Team V, a Dutch architecture firm. Haut has 55 apartments, a bicycle parking area, an underground parking garage, and an urban garden. It was the first residential building in the Netherlands to receive certification…