Life Style

Some unexpected good news from the FDA: bemotrizinol, a sunscreen ingredient that has been used in Europe and Asia for decades, is finally being added to the allowable ingredients list for products sold in the U.S. Bemotrizinol is the active ingredient in sunscreens like Bioré Watery Essence, which has a cult following for being unlike anything we can get in the U.S.I’ve tried Bioré UV Aqua Rich Watery Essence (that’s the full name of the product) in its original Japanese formulation. This sunscreen is a cult favorite on skincare and Asian beauty forums because of its non-greasy feel, and because it protects against both UVA and UVB rays without leaving a white cast. I got mine from a friend who had either picked it up while traveling or possibly ordered from overseas; you can’t buy it in ...

They say no one actually uses their phones for phone calls anymore. That's not really true, though maybe the "Phone" app does get underused. Instead, many of us have turned to chat apps for our calls. FaceTime, WhatsApp, Messenger—these apps are now our go-to choices for getting in immediate touch with friends and family. (Not that I'm complaining: The call quality is usually better, anyway.) But one thing the Phone app—and traditional phone calls—have on these chat apps is voicemail. For decades, when you called someone and they didn't answer, you could "leave a message after the tone." That way, when the person saw they had a missed call, they didn't need to guess what you wanted to say. If it was important, they'd hear about it, and call you back. If it wasn't, they could choose to call...

The pace of AI technology is so rapid, it's tough to keep up with everything. At Google I/O back in May, Google rolled out an AI-powered shopping feature that let you virtually try on clothes you find online. All you needed to do was upload a full-length photo of yourself, and Google's AI would be to dress you up in whatever article of clothing you liked. I still can't decide whether the feature sounds useful, creepy, or a little bit of both. Google's virtual try on feature only needs a selfie to workWhat I can say, however, is that the feature is getting a little creepier. On Thursday, Google announced an update to its virtual try on feature, that takes advantage of the company's new AI image model, Nano Banana. Now, you don't need a full-length photo of yourself: just a selfie. With sol...

Planning is a key part of staying productive, but it has to be done right. To succeed, you need to understand why previous attempts at planning didn’t pan out. Conducting a personal after-action review is one way to assess your work and determine how to be more efficient, but to truly understand what went wrong and prepare for the future, you need to dig deep. Try the “Five Whys” technique to get to the bottom of things. What is the “Five Whys” technique?You should know, first of all, that this is yet another productivity protocol that springs from Japan’s famed factory system, like the 5S and 3M techniques. With this one, once you identify a problem, you’re going to ask, “Why?” five times, which will ultimately reveal the true root cause of the issue—and what you need to focus on fixing. ...

We may earn a commission from links on this page. RAM, also known as random-access memory (or just memory for short), is an important part of most electronics these days. It essentially allows programs to keep key information at the ready so they don't have to dig through your storage (like your hard drive or solid state drive) to find it. RAM is in laptops, phones, tablets, gaming consoles, and even cars, and all apps rely on it at least a little bit. Essentially, if your device has a computer in it, it probably comes with RAM equipped, or it'll want you to install some before it'll boot up. But that dependency has become a big problem recently. While RAM has historically been one of the cheaper components for home techies to buy, over the past few months, RAM has go...

Few of us are under the illusion that we own the content that we post on Instagram, but we do get a say in how that content is presented—w can choose which photos and videos we share, what captions appear (or don't appear) on each post, as well as whether or not we include where the image was taken or shared from. We might not control the platform, but we do control the content of our posts—unless those posts are found on search engines like Google. As reported by 404 Media, it appears that Instagram is experimenting with AI-generated SEO titles for users' posts—without those users' input or permission. Take this post for example: Author Jeff VanderMeer uploaded a short video of rabbits eating a banana to his Instagram. The video was posted as-is: There was no caption, location tag, or any...

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. Credit: Illustration by Zain Awais and product image courtesy of Amazon. The latest AirPods 4 dropped to a record low price during Black Friday in November, according to price-tracking tools, and after restocking, they're back on Amazon. The ANC AirPods 4 are $99.99 (originally $179.99) after a 44% discount, and the non-ANC AirPods 4 are $79.99 (originally $129.99). It's a great opportunity to get these revamped flagship earbuds from Apple with the latest features Apple has to offer. The AirPods 4 have updated USB-C charging. Both models (the ANC and non...

When it's time to buy a new car, you don't necessarily need to stick with the one you had before. You don't lose your cloud-based photos by switching from Toyota to Subaru, nor will your friends yell at you for ruining the group chat by buying a Kia. That's not the case with smartphones: When you buy an iPhone, it's tough to switch away from it. The same goes for Android: While it's easy enough to switch within the Android ecosystem, such as between Pixel or Galaxy, moving from Android to iPhone can also be a pain. Tech companies tend to make it tempting to stick with their platform, and introduce friction when you try to leave. That, of course, is entirely business-based. Apple hasn't traditionally made it easy to move to Android, because, well, you might actually do it. It doesn't have t...

Malicious extensions do occasionally find their way into the Chrome Web Store (and similar libraries in other browsers) by posing as legitimate add-ons. They are particularly difficult to catch when they are benign to begin with, only morphing into malware after gaining user trust. That's what happened with a number of extensions on Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge: researchers at Koi Security identified add-ons across both browsers that operated legitimately for several years before receiving malicious updates that allow hackers to surveil users and collect and exfiltrate sensitive data. The scheme, known as ShadyPanda, reached four million downloads and is still active on Edge. Threat actors ran a similar campaign targeting Firefox earlier this year: They gained approval for benign exten...

You may have a keen eye for spotting scams, but fraudsters are finding new ways to weaponize trusted systems to avoid detection. For example, threat actors are generating real Apple support tickets to phish two-factor authentication (2FA) codes and gain access to iCloud accounts. The scheme, detailed on Medium by a security researcher and software product manager Eric Moret, shows how social engineering tactics can sow just enough fear and confusion to trick even those who know the red flags. (The money transfer scam that conned a financial advice columnist out of $50,000 is another example.) How scammers are exploiting Apple's support systemThe Apple support scam started with a text message from Apple containing a 2FA code, followed by verification notifications across devices, indicating...