Topsec and Venustech were two firms alleged to have assisted these efforts. Topsec employed a number of former Honkers, including the founder of the Honker Union of China, and Topsec’s founder once acknowledged in an interview that the PLA directed his company. In 2015, Topsec was linked to state-sponsored cyber operations, including the Anthem Insurance…
With the improvements in stick-vac performance, we’ve ratcheted up our tests for the category. We’ve made our pet hair tests a bit more challenging, and we now embed dirt in carpeting instead of scattering it on the surface as we used to do. For bare-floor testing, instead of combining all the debris into a messy…
To put a wall oven through its paces, our experts use a combination of calibrated time and temperature measurements that size up how evenly an oven distributes heat for baking, broiling, and self-cleaning. Our test engineers bake over 400 cakes and 2,400 cookies each year, looking for the models that do the best job baking…
These lightweight tools (most weigh under 10 pounds) are much more powerful than they used to be. But their cleaning prowess still can’t match an upright or canister (especially on carpet), so they’re better for targeted tasks. They’re good enough that if you live in a small space with mostly hard-surface floors, a top model…
Safety tip: A Ford spokesperson explained the emergency release function to Consumer Reports: Passengers need to pull the interior door handle once to unlock and then pull a second time to open the door when there isn’t enough power for the electronic feature to operate normally. Ford is not aware of any injuries related to…
I first encountered the ideas of ultralight backpacking in 1994, in an article in now-defunct (and much-missed) Backpacker magazine. It was titled “Less is More,” by Mark Jenkins. (I still have a PDF copy I scanned years ago.) Jenkins wrote about a long trip across Europe and Africa. By the end, he and his traveling…
Huckberry, purveyors of finely curated clothing and gear for the sort of person equally at home in the woods and the city, has started its holiday sale. Huckberry’s Black Friday sale covers a wide range, from the company’s own house brands to favorites from the likes of GoRuck and Peak Design. We’ve tested and love…
On November 8, an offer for loyalty card holders appeared on the website of MediaWorld, a European electronics retailer. The deal: an iPad Air for 15 euros (about $17) instead of the usual €879 (about $1,012). No catch, no strings attached. The proximity to Black Friday only made the offer more plausible. And so several…
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,…
Compare Our Picks Others We Tested Courtesy of Petkik Petkit Eversweet Max for $90: This techy automatic fountain can be either cordless or battery-powered (lasting up to 83 days), and the drinking bowl is made of stainless steel, but the reservoir is plastic. Because of the shape of the basin with the chunky battery and…