Picture this: You’re traveling, either on vacation or for business. Your phone is stolen or becomes lost. And now you’re locked out of your password manager and email accounts. One of my bosses recently lived through this nightmare while abroad. A pickpocket made off with his iPhone during the trip and when he tried setting up a new one to replace it, he found he couldn’t log in to his password manager or email account. Why? His original iPhone held his two-factor authentication codes for the password manager. And his email password was locked up inside the password manager. He had to finish his trip without access to his normal accounts, or the ability to lock down the stolen phone. Obviously, most vacations don’t go this way—and you can ensure they don’t with a few steps. Know your email password Miguel Á. Padriñán / Pexels I wrote about this last year, and it created a small stir among readers. But I firmly believe that you should always memorize the passwords to at least two accounts: your password manager and your primary email address. If you get locked out of one, you’ll still have access to the other. Or at least a better shot at having access to the other. At minimum, if you don’t want to remember your email password, set up a passkey. Put this passkey on a hardware key (e.g., YubiKey or Google Titan Security Key) that you bring with you on your trip. These have keychain holes, so you can pin one to your clothes or wear it on a chain if you prefer not to leave it in your luggage. (I like passkeys because the data can’t be stolen the way a password can, so you can use it on a public computer with less worry than if typing in a password.) Or, as my boss is considering, write the password down on a slip of paper and put it in your shoe. (Don’t label what it’s for.) Shred it when you’re done with your trip. Have a backup method of 2FA on you YubiKey If you’re smart, you set up two-factor authentication for your password manager and your email account. That means if you lose your normal method of 2FA (likely your phone), you’ll need a backup method available to you. Same as with your email password, you can go one of two pretty easy routes. Scrawling a couple of backup 2FA codes (which you should have saved after first setting up 2FA) on a slip of paper is one option. (Again, you can put this in your shoe—I recommend slipping it between the insole and the bottom of the shoe interior, if possible. Gets less humid that way.) Or you can use a YubiKey or Google Titan Security Key. If you put a passkey on it, you won’t even need to worry about entering 2FA information. But you can still use it as a 2FA method instead, if you prefer. Bring a backup phone Stanley Ng My boss mentioned he normally brings a backup phone with him on trips, but just so happened to skip it this time. (Oof.) If you have a spare phone or use a tablet, this is an easy way to ensure seamless uptime if your main phone gets lost or stolen.  You will need to set aside some time before the trip setting up the phone with your password manager and email account info, along with any other necessary apps for the trip. (Or at minimum, verifying everything on the phone is still logged in and up to date.) But once that’s done, you’ll just have to turn on the phone to be up and running again. And you should be able to immediately revoke access to your accounts for the lost/stolen phone. Read...

Qualcomm’s scintillating new Snapdragon X2 Elite chips have prompted a ton of conversations in the past few days. Can they make it? What do you like about them? And so on. While I can’t say whether or not the Snapdragon X2 Elite and Elite Extreme will eventually succeed, I can offer you an inside look at what people are talking about–at least what I’ve heard and overheard–at Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Summit in Hawaii. If you want to catch up on all the news, the Snapdragon X2 and X2 Elite offer more cores at up to 5GHz speeds, includes optional embedded memory, and preserves the performance on battery from the first generation. The good: eye-watering performance If you want a general-purpose productivity laptop, the first-generation Snapdragon X Elite was nearly perfect. The new X2 Elite Extreme looks to be even better, with (controlled) benchmarks that simply blow away Intel’s Core Ultra (Lunar Lake) and AMD’s Ryzen AI 300 chips, from CPU to GPU to the AI-enabling NPU. Qualcomm is really doing almost everything consumers are asking of it in this space. The CPU benchmarks look particularly juicy. Compared against rival chips in today’s laptops, the Snapdragon X2 Elite absolutely smokes all comers in the Cinebench benchmark beloved by reviewers, in both single- and multi-core tests. Mark Hachman / Foundry And the Snapdragon X2 Elite’s NPU offers a whopping 80 TOPs, leaving the competition in the dust. Whether consumers are asking for more TOPS from an NPU, though, is a question mark. Roughly doubling the TOPS from the first version looks great on paper, and certainly bigger numbers are better. But there’s a lot being bet on whether consumer applications will be able to take advantage of its prowess, including this concept of agentic AI everyone is talking about. No one is still quite sure whether that will happen. UL’s Procyon Computer Vision benchmark tests AI inference performance and can tap into NPUs, unlike some other AI benchmarks.Mark Hachman / Foundry It depends on how you see it: Is local AI still a selling point? Either way, the Snapdragon X2 Elite appears loaded with hardware capable of blasting through most of the tasks you throw at it, AI or not. The bad: Lukewarm PC vendor support, games, and lack of battery life talk I couldn’t help but notice that only Asus and HP endorsed the Snapdragon X2 architecture, and via video to boot — not in person at the Snapdragon Summit. The odd “agentic AI” Humain Horizon Pro laptop (which won’t use the X2, but the X1) was there, but not Qualcomm’s established customers. And where was longtime Qualcomm backer, Lenovo? Sure, new partners could always be announced. But I had questions. Another question: 3D graphics performance. Yes, supposedly the Snapdragon X2 Elite about doubles the performance of the first-gen X Elite platform, which played (some) games at roughly 30 frames per second at 1080p Low performance. Doubling that is, what, 60 fps at the same resolution and image quality? What about all the games that simply refuse to run well on the first-gen Snapdragon chips? On the more enthusiast end of things, “there’s nothing preventing” the Snapdragon X2 from connecting to a discrete GPU like Nvidia’s GeForce RTX, according to Qualcomm’s senior vice president Kedar Kondap…but it doesn’t appear like it has, or will. This is a tough one: Gaming is often seen as a high-profile design win, and proof that a chip like the X2 Elite should be seen as a sexy, high-margin gaming CPU. But doing so would immediately cut into a key Snapdragon benefit: long battery life. Gaming on a phone, weirdly, seems more viable with a Qualcomm Snapdragon processor than on a PC.Qualcomm And that was weird, too: Qualcomm really downplayed the battey life of a Snapdragon X2 laptop, referring it to “multi-day” on a couple of occasions. I’m not sure if that was because the competitive landscape had erased that advantage, or what. But it simply was not a big focus. Again, Qualcomm does have a cross to bear in its Arm legacy, and how that affects application compatibility. This only really affects some weird, dusty old business utilities, the occasional printer, and games. But games are the one area where it can make inroads, though Snapdragon simply can’t offer the “it just works” assurance of its X86 rivals anytime soon. The ugly: A grab bag Naturally, any new launch offers opportunities for criticism. Not only did people take issue with the Microsoft-esque naming scheme — the X2 Elite Extreme, really?! — critics made the very valid point that this was Qualcomm’s first major architecture launch in years. Reviewers got hands-on tests of the X1 Elite two long years ago, in October 2023, ahead of the Snapdragon’s launch alongside Copilot+ PCs in May 2024. Qualcomm followed it up with the cut-down X1 Plus and X in the interim. As one attendee pointed out, “You can’t play on that timetable and expect to win against Intel and AMD,” which launch a new or updated mobile chip architecture on an annual cadence. Intel has been talking about Panther Lake for months…and has already shown more demo systems than Qualcomm has for the X2 Elite.Adam Patrick Murray / Foundry Qualcomm’s X1 Elite also signaled to Intel and AMD that those rivals needed to have their own chips in order. But tying Snapdragon X to Copilot+ and Microsoft’s beleaguered Recall didn’t do much for Qualcomm, if anything. Qualcomm was the flag-bearer for Windows on Arm, and its (now largely undeserved) reputational concerns about app compatibility. Then Intel’s Lunar Lake came along, and offered a very competitive — and maybe even better — chip without any of that baggage. One laptop maker told me that they had bought into the original X1 Elite in part as a bargaining chip with Intel. People had a lot of questions about what that meant for Intel’s upcoming “Panther Lake” chip, which should be unveiled this fall. In my personal opinion, one of the best things Qualcomm ever did was to simply offer a compelling third option to Intel and AMD. That means we all benefited from an competitive market for PC processors that only continues to heat up. Disclosure: Qualcomm held its press briefings in Hawaii, and would not pre-brief reporters in other locations or over video meetings. They paid for my room, boarding, and travel expenses, but did not ask for or exert any editorial control over this story or other PCWorld content. Read...

TL;DR: Save 85% on a 1min.AI lifetime subscription with code SAVE20 at checkout during our Deal Days sale ending October 12. Paying separate monthly fees for top AI tools adds up fast. But you don’t actually need a dozen subscriptions to access the best models. With 1min.AI, you can unlock them all in one streamlined dashboard for a single lifetime payment, now $79.99 for the subscription tier with the most monthly credits, with code SAVE20 (MSRP $540). Start by choosing your use case—blog writing, image generation, code debugging, video editing, and more—and pick your preferred AI model there. All of the latest ones are included, and you can expect to receive new ones when they’re released. All of your tasks will be even more streamlined with these preset AI templates vs randomly entering prompts into a chatbot. The plan includes 4,000,000 credits per month, which is enough to generate about 1.1 million words, 1,100 images, or 37 videos (depending on the AI model you choose). You can also earn up to 450,000 bonus credits every month just by opening the web app. Use code SAVE20 at checkout to get this lifetime AI tool for $79.99 until October 12 at 11:59 p.m. PT (MSRP $540). 1min.AI Advanced Business Plan Lifetime SubscriptionSee Deal StackSocial prices subject to change. Read...

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TL;DR: Get Microsoft Windows 11 Pro for just $9.97 (MSRP $199) through October 12 — the most up-to-date OS with an improved interface, AI Copilot, enhanced multitasking, and stronger security. Sometimes your PC just needs a refresh. For less than the cost of a drive-through lunch, you can give it the upgrade it deserves with Microsoft Windows 11 Pro. On sale now for just $9.97 (MSRP $199), this latest version of Windows smooths out the way your computer runs with better multitasking, improved design, advanced security, and even AI help built right in. Windows 11 Pro is a productivity booster. Whether you’re a small business owner trying to juggle dozens of tabs, a creative pro needing seamless workflows, or a gamer craving performance, this OS has it all. Why Windows 11 Pro Sleek Interface: Streamlined design makes navigating faster and easier. Stronger Security: TPM 2.0, Smart App Control & biometric login keep your system safe. Enhanced Productivity: Snap layouts, virtual desktops & smarter search for smoother workflows. Copilot – Your AI Assistant: Get real-time help for writing, summarizing, or even adjusting your system. Gaming Ready: DirectX 12 Ultimate delivers high-performance, realistic graphics. This is a lifetime license. Pay once, keep it forever, and never worry about subscription fees. Don’t miss Windows 11 Pro while it’s on sale for just $9.97 (MSRP $199) through October 12 during this special sale. Microsoft Windows 11 ProSee Deal StackSocial prices subject to change. Read...

The government wants to keep the backing it won before the election, our business editor Simon Jack writes. Read...