Finding Your Roots With Help From Your Phone
Everyday tools and free apps on your mobile device can help you collect, translate and digitize new material for your family-tree files.
By J. D. Biersdorfer
What the Arrival of A.I. Phones and Computers Means for Our Data
Apple, Microsoft and Google need more access to our data as they promote new phones and personal computers that are powered by artificial intelligence. Should we trust them?
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Welcome to the Era of the A.I. Smartphone
Apple and Google are getting up close and personal with user data to craft memos, summarize documents and generate images.
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The New ChatGPT Offers a Lesson in A.I. Hype
OpenAI released GPT-4o, its latest chatbot technology, in a partly finished state. It has much to prove.
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Smartphones Can Now Last 7 Years. Here’s How to Keep Them Working.
Google and Samsung used to update smartphone software for only three years. That has changed.
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Meta, Google and others are driving a renaissance for voice assistants, but people have found the technology uncool for more than a decade.
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How to Clean Up Your Phone’s Photo Library to Free Up Space
Deleting duplicates, bad shots and other unwanted files makes it easier to find the good pictures — and gives you room to take more.
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Artificially Intelligent Help for Planning Your Summer Vacation
Travel-focused A.I. bots and more eco-friendly transportation options in online maps and search tools can help you quickly organize your seasonal getaway.
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The Basics of Smartphone Backups
It doesn’t take a lot of work to keep copies of your phone’s photos, videos and other files stashed securely in case of an emergency.
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Time-Saving Tips for Using Your Phone as a … Telephone
The latest smartphone software includes tools to help you more easily connect with the people you want to contact — and avoid those you don’t.
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How to Give Your Photos and Videos a Vintage Look
Retro-photography apps that mimic the appearance of analog film formats make your digital files seem like they’re from another era.
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It’s Silicon Valley vs. Silicon Valley as Political Fights Escalate
Elon Musk, Reid Hoffman and other tech billionaires, many of whom are part of the “PayPal Mafia,” are openly brawling with one another over politics as tensions rise.
By Ryan MacErin Griffith and
Business Is Buzzing Again for the Meme Makers of the Left
After a few sluggish years under President Biden, liberal social media creators are seeing their messages resonate as Kamala Harris campaigns for the White House.
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A Digital Coin Based on Baby Trump? Yup.
One of the wildest, most scam-ridden corners of the cryptocurrency industry — memecoins, which are rooted in internet memes — has roared back.
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How Do You Solve a Problem Like Elon?
Linda Yaccarino, the C.E.O. of X, has worked hard to bring back advertisers and fix the platform’s business. But its owner, Elon Musk, is always one whim away from undoing her work.
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Artificial Intelligence Gives Weather Forecasters a New Edge
The brainy machines are predicting global weather patterns with new speed and precision, doing in minutes and seconds what once took hours.
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Everyday tools and free apps on your mobile device can help you collect, translate and digitize new material for your family-tree files.
By J. D. Biersdorfer
Cable cars are still trundling up the city’s hills, but robotaxis from Waymo are shaping up as the city’s latest must-do for visitors.
By Lauren Sloss
The horror video game Content Warning, a surprise hit, lets players microdose as momentary celebrities on the fictional website SpookTube.
By Kieran Press-Reynolds
Despite Mark Zuckerberg’s hope for the chatbot to be the smartest, it struggles with facts, numbers and web search.
By Brian X. Chen
The $700 Ai Pin, funded by OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Microsoft, can be helpful — until it struggles with tasks like doing math and crafting sandwich recipes.
By Brian X. Chen and Andri Tambunan
Even if you manage to ditch your iPhone, Apple’s hooks are still there.
By Brian X. Chen
What happens when a columnist and a reporter use A.I. glasses to scan groceries, monuments and zoo animals? Hilarity, wonder and lots of mistakes ensued.
By Brian X. Chen and Mike Isaac
Roku recently changed its policy to make it even harder for customers to take legal action. It’s a reminder of how we need to protect ourselves.
By Brian X. Chen
A wallet-free lifestyle relying on your phone is attainable, but it requires preparation and some compromise.
By Brian X. Chen and Yiwen Lu
Canceling is simple. The tough part is remembering to do it.
By Brian X. Chen
Billed as the future of computing, the $3,500 goggles can’t replace a laptop for work. At times, wearing them also made our columnist feel nauseated.
By Brian X. Chen
Videos, many of them stunts or jokes, of people wearing Apple’s new virtual reality headset while driving Teslas in Autopilot mode prompted officials to issue warnings.
By Jesus Jiménez
The new headset teaches a valuable lesson about the cost of tech products: The upsells and add-ons will get you.
By Brian X. Chen
The music-streaming platform’s new “daylist” feature serves users three personalized playlists a day, with titles ranging from quirky to bewildering.
By Frank Rojas
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Starting with Google Glass, all have been plagued with the same issues, even as Apple plunges into the market with its Vision Pro.
By Brian X. Chen
Hunching over a device can mess with your gait, slow you down and poison your mood. And that’s before you trip and fall.
By Markham Heid
Google’s Routines and Apple’s Shortcuts combine multiple steps into one command to make your phone or tablet do more of the work for you.
By J. D. Biersdorfer
People who subscribe to OpenAI’s ChatGPT Plus service will be able to browse the new store for tailored chatbots that perform different tasks.
By Cade Metz
The best tech, from universal power charging to foldable phones, solved practical problems. But the worst tech, including self-driving cars and cryptocurrency, put us in harm’s way.
By Brian X. Chen
After misplacing his iPhone while returning a rental car, a traveler tracked down the device and presented strong evidence to the agency that a worker took it — to no avail.
By Seth Kugel
Overwhelmed by apps, profiles and not-quite-matches? Here’s how to start the new year fresh.
By Catherine Pearson
As the year winds down, take the time to explore iOS 17 and Android 14 with new wallpaper and widgets or by creating a digital diary.
By J. D. Biersdorfer
With Shopify, Mercari and other retailers rolling out chatbots to help buyers, this holiday shopping season is the first to be powered by A.I.
By Yiwen Lu
Meta’s $300 smart glasses look cool but lack a killer app, and they offer a glimpse into a future with even less privacy and more distraction.
By Brian X. Chen
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While texting technology will soon get better, the “blue versus green bubble” disparity is far from over.
By Brian X. Chen
We are overpaying for phone plans from Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile. Budget wireless services, similarly fast and robust, can save thousands.
By Brian X. Chen
Meta’s rival to Twitter will now offer users — who signed up in droves at its launch — the option to delete.
By Isabella Kwai
A first impression of Humane’s new magnetic Ai Pin: equal parts magical and awkward.
By Erin Griffith
The so-called iPhone giveaways marketed by Verizon, T-Mobile and AT&T can make customers spend more on perks they don’t need.
By Brian X. Chen
With a free library card and the right app, you can check out e-books, audiobooks and more from your local branch.
By J. D. Biersdorfer
MyShake, an earthquake alerts app created to give people a few seconds’ warning before dangerous shaking, sent a test seven hours early on Thursday.
By Amanda Holpuch
Google’s new $700 Pixel 8 lets you use artificial intelligence to add or remove elements from your images. It’s not clear we really need this.
By Brian X. Chen
For a decade, marketers have found success on social media by roasting customers, and even flirting with them. But with Gen Z, and platforms like TikTok on the rise, the jokes may be wearing thin.
By Sopan Deb
The right hardware and software — combined with time to learn — can improve the soundtrack in your videos, podcasts and other creative endeavors.
By J. D. Biersdorfer
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The new $500 headset lets people see the outside world while immersed in virtual reality. The benefits are to be determined.
By Brian X. Chen
Google says a change takes just a few steps, but a panel of designers found otherwise. The issue is at the heart of a federal antitrust trial.
By Brian X. Chen
As texting continues to be central to our social circles, the name and image attached are often more considered than the messages themselves.
By Alyson Krueger
The dream of carrying one power cable for all your devices is becoming a reality. But things aren’t as simple as they sound.
By Brian X. Chen
Apps that offer short lessons in various subjects can help get the most out of your time whether you’re waiting for a train or a meeting.
By J. D. Biersdorfer
El consumo de video cambia de las salas de cine hacia un contenido comprimido para dispositivos pequeños, y lograr que los diálogos sean nítidos se ha convertido en un gran reto para el mundo del entretenimiento.
By Brian X. Chen
Many of us stream shows and movies with the subtitles on all the time — and not because it’s cool.
By Brian X. Chen
A Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer shares tips on how to use your smartphone to shoot, arrange and edit your landscapes, portraits and other travel photos.
By James Hill
The mobile wallet service is a cautionary tale of how apps born at least a decade ago may be exposing more information than you would like.
By Brian X. Chen
If you have a story you want to share, you can easily publish your work in popular electronic bookstores — and maybe even make a little money.
By J. D. Biersdorfer
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To mitigate the production and spread of misinformation from chatbots, we can steer them toward high-quality data.
By Brian X. Chen
One of us is a Twitter addict; the other not so much. In the end, we were both unsure how people might use Threads in the long run.
By Brian X. Chen and Mike Isaac
Graphs, maps and data analyses? Now ChatGPT can do even more.
By Yiwen Lu
Instagram’s new app was downloaded more than 30 million times in 16 hours. Twitter threatened legal action against its rival.
By Mike Isaac
Here’s what to know about Instagram’s new app for public conversations and how it differs from Twitter.
By Mike Isaac
This season has seen excessive heat, violent storms and hazardous smoke already, but you can prepare for future events with a few apps and tools.
By J. D. Biersdorfer
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