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Critical alerts are notifications that appear even when your iPhone or iPad is in Do Not Disturb mode or silenced. These include notifications with crucial information about weather emergencies or important health alerts from connected devices. How Do Critical Alerts work? Apple’s iOS 12 introduced critical alerts along with several other notification enhancements. They cannot be silenced because they contain essential information you need to be aware of. Weather, health, and security apps might generate a critical alert notification, for example....

The NHTSA Created the Levels for Clarity If it seems like you’ve been told that cars can already self-drive and that cars can’t self-drive, you’ve heard it essentially right both ways. The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) defines six levels of car autonomy. They released this guidance to both push forward and standardize autonomous vehicle testing. Self-driving cars could potentially save many lives, but not having a common goal and agreed-upon rules against which to test could wipe out any potential gains....

The Consumer Electronics Show happens every year in early January, and it’s hard to keep up with all the gadget news during CES. But what exactly is CES, can you go, and why should you care? What Is CES? CES is the “Consumer Electronics Show.” It’s held in Las Vegas each year in early January. The first CES happened more than fifty years ago. More than 182,000 people attend CES, with more than 4,400 companies showing off their products....

Discord offers free VoIP, text, and video chat servers, along with unique features for gamers like Twitch integration. It’s also a must-have for doing business in the gaming industry, and it might give other enterprises a unique edge in customer communications. Discord Offers Community-Driven Communications Discord is a free communications app, most similar to popular apps like Skype, Microsoft Teams, Slack, and TeamSpeak. It features user-friendly text, voice, and video chat in public or private servers that anyone can quickly set up for free....

SD Cards Are Reaching Their Current Limits Since we use SD and microSD cards in 3D cameras, action cameras, ever more powerful smartphones, DSLR cameras, tablets, video game consoles, and even cars, there are ever-increasing demands for storage space, as well as faster read and write speeds. SanDisk recently announced what it called the world’s fastest 1 TB microSD card, touting read speeds of 160 MB/s, which is enough to “transfer 1000 high-resolution photos and 30 minutes of 4K video (24GB) in less than 3 minutes....

An unfortunate side effect of the yearly phone upgrade cycle is accessories that become obsolete. Billions of plastic phone cases are sold every year, and the majority of them end up in landfills. That’s not great. RELATED: How to Safely Dispose of an Old Phone Sell With Your Old Phone First and foremost, you should include your old cases as a package deal with your old phone. Whether you’re selling it online or giving it to a friend, the new owner has more use for the case than you do....

The Windows Briefcase was introduced in Windows 95 and was the Dropbox of its day. It’s still part of Windows 7, but was deprecated in Windows 8 and is no longer part of Windows 10. The Briefcase Was All About Syncing Files If you’re old enough, you’ve probably seen a “My Briefcase” icon on a PC’s desktop at some point, even if you’ve never used the Windows Briefcase. The Windows Briefcase was designed to make synchronizing files easier in the days before solid Internet connections....

After the update is installed, you won’t be able to log into Windows if you have affected antivirus software on your system. Windows will grind to a halt after you sign in. This problem affects PCs with Sophos, Avira, Arcabit, Avast, and McAfee antivirus software. Microsoft has been continually adding antivirus programs to this list and McAfee is the latest one. To protect users, Microsoft has added a block to this update that prevents it from being installed on PCs with affected antivirus software....

Windows 10 comes with the Microsoft Solitaire Collection, a solitaire game that requires you to watch 30-second-long full-screen video advertisements to keep playing. Ad-free solitaire costs $1.49 per month or $9.99 per year. That’s $20 per year if you want both ad-free solitaire and ad-free minesweeper. But there’s a better way. Microsoft has jumped on board the “free-to-play” bandwagon, which means these games are no longer actually free but have become quite expensive....

There are more ways than ever to watch the final season of Game of Thrones—and every other season, too if you’re not caught up yet. This article focuses on solutions for people in the USA. Unfortunately, HBO restricts HBO Now and HBO Go to the US. You’ll have to look up how to get access to HBO in your country unless you want to get creative with VPNs and gift cards....

When you search for something on Instagram, the platform saves that search term in your account history. You can clear this search history whenever you want, and we’ll show you how. RELATED: How to Search Your Instagram Direct Messages Clear Search History on Instagram on Mobile On your iPhone or Android phone, use the Instagram app to clear your search history. RELATED: How to Clear Your History in Any Browser...

Windows won’t allow you to modify files that open programs have locked. if you try to delete a file and see a message that it’s open in another program, you’ll have to unlock the file (or close the program). In some cases, it may not be clear which program has locked a file. Sometimes, a program or background process may have finished with a file, but not unlocked it properly when it was done....

If you’re only looking to edit an address, you can do so without deleting it. Also, know that your current orders will be shipped to the address you chose during checkout, even if you delete that address in your account now. In the submenu, click “Account.” On the “Your Account” page that opens, scroll down to the “Ordering and Shopping Preferences” section. Here, click “Your Addresses.” On the “Your Addresses” page, you will see all your saved addresses....

If you use a custom font (anything other than Word’s built-in fonts) in your document, embedding those fonts ensures that whoever views the document sees it the way you intended. If you’ve ever opened a Microsoft Word document with a custom font that you don’t have embedded, you know that Microsoft Word changes the custom font to your default font setting. That change can mess with the layout of your document and make it look sloppy and hard to read....

Corsair makes excellent “gaming” mice and keyboards with many great features, like custom RGB lighting, profile modes, macro support, and fine-tuned performance settings. Most of these require iCUE, Corsair’s proprietary software, which is great but only works on Windows. If you have a Mac, you’ll have to turn to third-party drivers to get the features for which you paid. Install CKB-Next CKB-Next is the actively maintained fork of the original CKB, which was abandoned by the creator....

You launch a PC game or stream a movie, but you don’t hear any sound. On the surface, there’s no apparent reason for the lack of audio. This guide shows you how to fix sound problems in Windows 10. Unfortunately, sound issues can be tricky. Problems could merely reside in third-party software, requiring a patch. Issues could also stem from within Windows 10 itself or the underlying hardware. Possible fixes include installing new drivers, tweaking settings, or even revert to a previous restore point....

Are you creating a Google Doc and have a PDF that you want to include? While there isn’t a straightforward way to insert a PDF in Google Docs, we have a couple of workarounds you can try. The method that’s right for you depends on how you want your PDF to appear in Google Docs. You can add the PDF to Google Drive and include a link to it in your document, with an optional small icon....

If your notifications on your iPhone aren’t displaying the full preview of the content on your lock screen, here’s how to change that. By default, iPhones with Face ID hide the content previews for notifications until it can verify your face. This isn’t such a big deal since Face ID is super quick and nearly instant. However, if you have your iPhone laying on your desk and in a position where Face ID doesn’t work, receiving a notification would require you to pick up your iPhone and verify your face to see the preview....

Flip to Silence With the Google Phone App Google’s Phone app comes pre-installed on Pixel devices and can be chosen as the default dialer app on other Android devices. If you have a Pixel, the feature is called “Flip to Shhh.” It mutes calls and enables “Do Not Disturb” when the phone is face down. On non-Pixel phones, the feature is called “Flip to Silence” and it only mutes incoming calls....

Restart in the Settings Menu If your Apple TV is acting up, it’s easy to restart it—like rebooting a computer—using the Settings app that comes built-in with tvOS (the Apple TV’s operating system). First, locate the Settings app on your home screen (with a grey gear icon). In Settings, select “System,” then choose “Restart.” On older Apple TV models, select Settings > General > Restart instead. After that, your Apple TV’s screen will go black for a while, then you’ll see an Apple logo as the unit restarts....