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Tax time is high season for scammers, who target taxpayers with fraud campaigns ranging from IRS impersonation to "ghost" preparers that take your money and run. In fact, the IRS publishes its annual "Dirty Dozen," a list of the tax scams consumers should be especially aware of. And this year's list reveals that, as with romance scams and scams targeting travelers, AI is making tax scams appear more sophisticated—and harder to spot. AI is facilitating tax scamsOne of the IRS' top scams for 2026 is AI-powered impersonation by phone: fraudsters are using AI tools for voice cloning and caller ID spoofing so recipients believe they are talking to a legitimate IRS representative. These forms of impersonation are so good that it's difficult to distinguish between what's fake and what's real. Sca...

Daniel Oropeza Daniel Oropeza Staff Writer Experience Daniel is a Staff Writer for Lifehacker covering tech deals and reviewing TVs, headphones, speakers, and projectors. He earned his master’s in journalism from Columbia University and has reported for the Miami Herald. He lives in Atlanta. Read Full Bio ...

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. I'm practically an evangelist about this point: If you need a TV, you should get one right now. Not just because it's Amazon's Spring Sale—March and April are traditionally the time when retailers clear space on their shelves and in their warehouses to make room for the new models coming for the holidays. And this year, the RAM tax is coming too: Big tech companies are buying up the world's supply of memory to power AI data centers, so the price of televisions is expected to go up in the near future, and stay elevated for a while. That's all to say: Grab these bargains from Amazon's Big Spring Sale while you can. The best budget TV i...

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. Headphones! Earbuds! Bone-conducting headsets! There's a bargain for every pair of ears in Amazon's Big Spring Sale. I've combed through Amazon's listings to bring you the best deals, no matter what kind of headphones or earbuds you're looking for. Best overall headphones deal in Amazon's Big Spring Sale: Sony WH-1000XM6Sony WH-1000XM6 are Lifehacker's top overall pick for best headphones. Daniel Oropeza knows audio gear, and he calls these the "best over-ear headphones I tested [in 2025] and ever, really." They feature S-tier noise cancellation, 12 microphones for crystal-clear calls, and the ability to listen and charge via USB-C ...

I find it satisfying to do a word puzzle (or three) each day. Wordle is great, but it’s not really exciting anymore. Crosswords are fun if you have the time (I love an NYT Thursday puzzle) but I don’t always bother. My sweet spot, lately, are games like Minute Cryptic and Parseword—which are entry points into the incredibly bizarre world of British “cryptic” crossword clues. What is a cryptic puzzle?Cryptics are a type of word puzzle unlike anything else. There exist whole crosswords full of them, but the daily puzzles I’m writing about are just one clue per day, so you can focus on exactly what’s going on in that single clue. Cryptics look like a regular crossword clue—a short bit of text with a single word or phrase as an answer—but the way you come up with the answer is by re-interpreti...

Daniel Oropeza Daniel Oropeza Staff Writer Experience Daniel is a Staff Writer for Lifehacker covering tech deals and reviewing TVs, headphones, speakers, and projectors. He earned his master’s in journalism from Columbia University and has reported for the Miami Herald. He lives in Atlanta. Read Full Bio ...

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. Garmin’s Vivoactive watches are some of my favorites for casual fitness tracking. The Vivoactive 6 is the newest version, but right now you can get a steal on the Vivoactive 5 for just $179.99 in Amazon’s Big Spring Sale.  The Vivoactive 5 originally launched at $299.99 in 2023. When the Vivoactive 6 came out, the 5 dropped to $229.99. It’s been hovering around the $200 mark since the holiday season, but is now at $179.99, give or take a few dollars depending on which color you choose. For more about why I like the Vivoactives, check out my comparison of the Vivoactive 5 with the Pixel Watch 3, where the Vivoactive pulls off an under...

Daniel Oropeza Daniel Oropeza Staff Writer Experience Daniel is a Staff Writer for Lifehacker covering tech deals and reviewing TVs, headphones, speakers, and projectors. He earned his master’s in journalism from Columbia University and has reported for the Miami Herald. He lives in Atlanta. Read Full Bio ...

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. The 13-inch Apple MacBook Air (2025, M4, 512GB) is down to $949 for Amazon’s Big Spring Sale, a $250 drop from its usual $1,199 and its lowest price yet, according to price trackers. This is Apple’s most accessible laptop, and an easy-to-recommend choice as a long-term machine for everyday use. Reviews back that up, with PCMag giving it an “outstanding” rating and naming it the best ultraportable laptop of 2025. Over at Lifehacker, senior tech editor Jake Peterson has also pointed out in his coverage that this Air is a better value for most buyers than stepping up to a MacBook Pro, especially at a discount like this. The M4 chip keep...

This week, people are wrong about teleportation. A common science fiction trope, teleportation is the transfer of matter or energy from one point to another without traversing the physical space between them. Widely repeated claims of teleportation have been cropping up since at least 1583, when occultist John Dee supposedly vanished from his home in England and reappeared at the same moment in Prague. The most recent report comes from Gregg Phillips, who was appointed to lead FEMA's office of response and recovery in December.On a January episode of the Onward podcast, Phillips said, "I was with my boys one time, and I was telling them I was gonna go to Waffle House...this was in Georgia, and I end up at a Waffle House like 50 miles away from where I was... they said: 'That’s not possible...