A splash of color? Think bigger. With its latest light, Signify-owned Philips Hue is looking to wash your walls with a multicolored glow. Also: The promised Hue AI chatbot is making its debut in a handful of countries.  Available now, the $220 Philips Hue Play wall washer is a squat cylindrical module with a “transparent projection window” in back that reveals a trio of rectangular lighting elements.  Positioned near a wall, the Play wall washer–leaked earlier this month–does just that, washing any nearby surface with up to 1,035 lumens of multicolored light.   Philips Hue Measuring 6.2 x 3.6 inches (HxD) and arriving with an aluminum finish, the Play wall washer boasts Hue’s ColorCast technology, a lighting feature we originally saw in the brand’s Twilight bedside lamp. With ColorCast, the Play wall washer can deliver “an even wider spread of rich, deeply saturated gradients of color,” Hue says.  As with Hue’s other Play-style lights, the Play wall washer’s lighting effects can be customized in the Hue app, which allows for precise arrangement with other Hue Play products within a drag-and-drop 3D interface.  Used in conjunction with the Hue Play HDMI Sync Box or the Hue sync app, the Hue Play wall washer can sync up with the images on a TV, or it can pulse in time to your Spotify tunes with assistance from the Hue app; it can also be grouped with more traditional Hue light bulbs and lamps.  Available in black and white finishes, the Philips Hue Play wall washer is on sale now at Amazon and the Philips Hue online store, although it’s listed as “temporarily out of stock” on the former.  Meanwhile, Philips Hue is starting to roll out the AI chatbot that it first announced at CES back in January.  Now live in the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg, the Hue AI assistant is designed to deliver “personalized lighting scenes based on mood, occasion, or style.”  For example, you’ll be able to submit prompts like, “Give me a scene for a garden party,” and the chatbot might say, “Give me a sec… Here are some scene suggestions for you.”   This news story is part of TechHive’s in-depth coverage of the best smart lights. Besides merely suggesting existing lighting scenes, the Hue AI chatbot will also be able to generate new scenes, a Hue rep previously told me.  The Hue AI assistant is slated to arrive in the United Kingdom next month, with a global rollout set for August. Read...

The technology store took to social media to make light of the complaint. Read...

Will your laptop recognize you in the dark? Maybe. Maybe not. An April patch update for Windows now “requires color cameras” to see a visible face when signing in, according to Microsoft via Windows Central. Technically, that means that Windows Hello is now using your webcam as well as the infrared depth camera to log you in. Windows Central notes that the change has been made to solve a spoofing vulnerability. The question is, will it really matter? My quick tests say that from a practical sense: no, it won’t. I took three laptops — a Surface Laptop 7th Edition, an Asus ZenBook S 14, and an MSI Prestige 16 AI Evo — and made sure that my Windows Hello facial logins were up to date. All three laptops had had the April update cited by Microsoft, KB5055523, which made the change. I then took the laptops into the stairs leading into my “basement” office, where I work at home. (That office has two windows; the stairwell is lit by an open door at the top, if it’s open.) While in the dark, I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face. I then opened up all three laptops and attempted to log in using just my face. All worked successfully. I even turned on Windows’ anti-spoofing technology — a technology that promises to make it even harder for someone to impersonate you. I’m not familiar with what, if anything this changes in the process. Again, however, I logged in using Windows Hello’s facial login without issue. In both cases, I found that my laptop’s screen was enough to illuminate my face without any problems, and provided enough light that the camera was able to recognize me. I used my laptop’s webcam to snap a spooky photo of me to illustrate how dark this area was. Mark Hachman / Foundry Weirdly, both my colleague Michael Crider as well as Windows Central reported that their laptop cameras couldn’t see them well enough to recognize them. In any event, the problem basically resolves itself by simply turning on a light. Microsoft has always asked me for a numeric PIN as a backup, which you can use as well. My laptops recognized me when these two settings were enabled. You might argue that this change enhances the security of your PC, as it now requires the webcam to “see” you using visible light instead of just recognizing you via your infrared signature. Practically, though, very little has changed. The tech world often throws a fit when certain trivial changes are made. Here, I don’t think you need to worry. Further reading: Best Windows Hello webcams 2025: Add biometric login to your PC Read...

With a brain that’s swimming in a cocktail of neurodivergence, one of my most persistent enemies has always been procrastination. I was once told that my attention span is, on a scale of 1 to 10, either 15 or random. But as hard as it is to overcome—a condition that feels more nature than nurture—it’s something I’m learning to manage. Weeks ago, I decided I couldn’t get arbitrary brain chemistry get in the way of productivity, and so I took matters into my own hands. I needed to stop being so distracted and to change some habits, but I wasn’t going to do it alone. I was going to use technology to help me. Now, a couple of weeks on from implementing these tweaks, I feel like it’s been moderately successful. Here’s what I did. Stop procrastination dead in its tracks The first and most impactful change I knew I could make was to cut out a bunch of social media usage. I’m no voracious user, but I’m a sucker for scrolling through subreddits and diving into deep discussions on the minutiae of my various hobbies and interests. As much as I’ve learned doing that over the years, I’ve also developed unhealthy habits of following politics far too closely—and the news cycle is nothing but a doomscroll hole waiting to happen in 2025. So, I took drastic measures. I installed the BlockSite extension on every web browser (except one, in case I need to check Reddit or Twitter for work) and completely blocked the most distracting sites. I did the same on my phone too, as it’s that little black mirror that’s probably to blame for most of my procrastination. I also installed NoScroll on my phone to block shorts and reels. That stuff is crack to an ADHD brain. I use the BlockSite extension to block distracting sites. The block screen is mildly mocking, but I don’t mind it. I probably deserve it.Jon Martindale / Foundry If you’d rather take a less puritanical approach to managing the sites and services that tempt you to procrastinate, extensions like StayFocusd can make it easier to limit your time rather than block entire sites permanently. If you’re like me, though, excising the whole habit cold turkey is an easier change to make than having a lesser drip feed of it. Whatever the case, cutting out distractions leaves me with little to do but focus on the task at hand—and it works to encourage greater focus. The carrot alongside the stick The first time I sat on the toilet after blocking everything, I had a bizarre moment where I was staring at my phone with my mind telling me there’s something interesting there to do. But I’d blocked everything I usually do. What was I even looking at this thing for? That was a prime opportunity to not just hinder my bad habits but to reward the good ones. How am I going to improve my attention span? By doing things that require greater attention. Mozilla So I stocked my bathroom with a cheap e-reader with a few novels I’ve been neglecting. I also installed Pocket on my phone. While Firefox recently announced that it’s discontinuing Pocket, there are similar alternatives and the premise is all the same: save articles and web content to read or watch later when you have time. Now when I have time to kill, it’s with something more mentally nourishing than Reddit or TikTok. At the very least, I come out of it with less brain rot; at best, I’m developing better attention. Boring and silent are friends of focus Modern electronics and software are designed to grab and hold our attention with colors, lights, quick hits of compelling content, snazzy animations, etc. For me, it wasn’t enough to avoid social media and other distracting sites. A part of me was still drawn to the pretty icons and animations on my phone—so I decided to make it boring, too. Enter Minimalist Phone, a paid app (with a free trial) that turns your phone into a boring brick of black, overhauling the entire OS to look as dull and uninteresting as possible. That means no more icons, only text for everything, and it’s all black and white, yet you can still manage apps and services with ease thanks to its intuitive navigation. Check out my minimalist phone. It isn’t pretty, but that’s the point.Jon Martindale / Foundry But Minimalist Phone goes further than that. It also has an app blocker that lets you restrict certain apps to a schedule, or set mindfulness pauses before running certain apps, or even create an entirely separate work profile with different behavior when you’re “in focus mode.” It can also filter unimportant notifications so you aren’t distracted by alerts. I personally made a point of disabling all unnecessary notifications on Teams, Slack, and other work communication tools. For the ones I kept, I made the notifications monochrome and silent. That means I only know if someone sent me a message when I choose to check in—not when the app wants me to know—and that makes it easier for me to stay on task. Speaking of staying on task, I also have ChatGPT send me occasional reminders using its scheduled tasks feature. It’s just little things like a notice in the morning to start my day or a prompt to make sure I get done a certain task by a deadline. Could I use a traditional reminder app? Sure, but ChatGPT’s organic variations make me less likely to skip them. Plus, I’m already paying $20 per month for ChatGPT Plus. Might as well use it! A better way to procrastinate Breaking old habits isn’t easy. Even with blocks in place, I still feel the urge to procrastinate—and even when I’m reminded not to, I still want to find workarounds. For me, it isn’t plausible to never procrastinate. That’s why I allow myself to procrastinate in better ways. Maybe when I complete a task, I fire up my Chess.com account for a quick game. In between writing projects, I might give myself a few minutes with my preferred idle game: Ropuka’s Idle Island. Yes, it’s still a game, but at least it’s designed for drip entertainment. It doesn’t hook me for hours and hours, and the chill lo-fi soundtrack keeps it mellow. Jon Martindale / Foundry On dog walks, I’m making myself listen to audiobooks rather than shorter-form brain-rot content. And don’t underestimate the power of analog activities! I took up a new hobby in knitting. I won’t pretend it doesn’t feel like a whim for now, but I’m giving it a go as a way to detox from tech and procrastinate in a more productive way. Every second away from my phone helps to train away my urges to procrastinate. Jon Martindale / Foundry Overcoming procrastination is a long-term project, one that will probably remain a struggle for the rest of my life. But I already feel some of the positive benefits of these mitigating techniques. I’m less hooked on scrolling and more content overall. I’m a little more focused and a little more effective. We’ll see how long it lasts. Read...

Outdoor cameras play a critical role in your home security system, but continuous recording eats up storage and network bandwidth. Adding motion detection sounds sensible–until you later need to call up a recording and discover it’s missed crucial frames. Imagine being able to go back in time and start the recording sooner. Reolink’s Altas security camera solves exactly this problem with its 10-second pre-recording feature. There’s more to get excited about here, too: this new security camera from Reolink is innovative and reliable, offers home owners peace of mind, and it comes at a great price point. Shop Reolink`s 16th Anniversary Sale Never miss the action At its core, the Reolink Altas is a 4MP Wi-Fi battery camera designed for seamless home security. A motion sensor triggers video recording, while a 10-second pre-recording feature means all critical moments before motion is detected. How did that suspected burglar arrive at your property? Did your delivery person drop the parcel before reaching your porch? Well, now you’ll know. The Altas camera can easily distinguish between people, cars, and animals, and sends notifications accordingly. Crystal clear recordings–even in the dark Reolink’s Altas security camera captures video in 2560×1440 resolution, which means you’ll get to see all the detail you need, right down to being able to read license plates. During the night, the Altas camera uses ColorX Night Vision technology and six physical spotlights to ensure crystal-clear color video is captured. Two-way communication Another great feature you’ll enjoy with the new Reolink Altas camera is the fact it comes with a built-in mic and speaker, which lets you chat with whoever is outside your home at any time. You can use it as you might a video doorbell, or simply chastise your pups for digging up the garden. #id684fe0a3a1843 .jw-wrapper::before { content: `Reolink Atlas` !important; } Set-and-forget security solution With support for Wi-Fi 6 over 2.4- and 5GHz networks, and options for portable power and storage, the Reolink Altas is quick and easy to set up, and it will just carry on doing its thing for up to 18 months. You need to worry about it only when you need to check a recording. That runtime is based on the assumption the Altas will record around 5 minutes a day, and is powered by its high-capacity 20,000mAh battery. You can alternatively add a 6-watt solar panel (available separately), then never worry about recharging the camera again. As long as you get an hour’s direct sunlight every day, the Altas will draw enough power from the panel. This is an outdoor security camera, so it’s good to know it’s protected from the elements. The Reolink Altas has an IP66 rating, which means it will adjust to all weather conditions, be that rain or snow, or extreme temperatures ranging from -4°F to 131°F. You can use a microSD card up to 512GB in capacity for storage, or buy the Reolink Home Hub to unlock support for up to two 512GB microSD cards. Additional options include the Reolink Home Hub Pro, and Reolink WiFi NVR. Buy now and save The Reolink Altas retails for $149.99 at Amazon, but during the company’s 16th Anniversary sale you can enjoy an extra discount at Reolink.com when you use the code ALTASB5M. Act fast: this offer ends June 22. In celebration of its 16th anniversary, Reolink is offering up to 47% off a selection of its most popular smart cameras throughout June. Among the top deals: Altas PT Ultra – A 4K battery-powered camera with pan & tilt functionality and the same smart pre-recording tech as Altas, now available at a significant discount. Go PT Ultra – A 4G-enabled 8MP camera designed for remote monitoring, ideal for properties without Wi-Fi, also on sale. Save on Altas in Reolink`s 16th Anniversary Sale Use code ALTASB5M Read...

Large retailers such as Briscoes, Bunnings and Mitre 10 support the use of facial recognition technology to combat repeat offenders but concerns continue over potential privacy breaches. Read...

One NZ launches nationwide Satellite Internet of Things (IoT) service, powered by Starlink Direct to Cell technology. Read...

An apparent mix-up with the technology led to Danielle Horan being wrongly accused of shoplifting. Read...

ChatGPT is rapidly changing the world. The process is already happening, and it’s only going to accelerate as the technology improves, as more people gain access to it, and as more learn how to use it. What’s shocking is just how many tasks ChatGPT is already capable of managing for you. While the naysayers may still look down their noses at the potential of AI assistants, I’ve been using it to handle all kinds of menial tasks for me. Here are my favorite examples. Further reading: This tiny ChatGPT feature helps me tackle my days more productively Write your emails for you Dave Parrack / Foundry We’ve all been faced with the tricky task of writing an email—whether personal or professional—but not knowing quite how to word it. ChatGPT can do the heavy lifting for you, penning the (hopefully) perfect email based on whatever information you feed it. Let’s assume the email you need to write is of a professional nature, and wording it poorly could negatively affect your career. By directing ChatGPT to write the email with a particular structure, content, and tone of voice, you can give yourself a huge head start. A winning tip for this is to never accept ChatGPT’s first attempt. Always read through it and look for areas of improvement, then request tweaks to ensure you get the best possible email. You can (and should) also rewrite the email in your own voice. Learn more about how ChatGPT coached my colleague to write better emails. Generate itineraries and schedules Dave Parrack / Foundry If you’re going on a trip but you’re the type of person who hates planning trips, then you should utilize ChatGPT’s ability to generate trip itineraries. The results can be customized to the nth degree depending on how much detail and instruction you’re willing to provide. As someone who likes to get away at least once a year but also wants to make the most of every trip, leaning on ChatGPT for an itinerary is essential for me. I’ll provide the location and the kinds of things I want to see and do, then let it handle the rest. Instead of spending days researching everything myself, ChatGPT does 80 percent of it for me. As with all of these tasks, you don’t need to accept ChatGPT’s first effort. Use different prompts to force the AI chatbot to shape the itinerary closer to what you want. You’d be surprised at how many cool ideas you’ll encounter this way—simply nix the ones you don’t like. Break down difficult concepts Dave Parrack / Foundry One of the best tasks to assign to ChatGPT is the explanation of difficult concepts. Ask ChatGPT to explain any concept you can think of and it will deliver more often than not. You can tailor the level of explanation you need, and even have it include visual elements. Let’s say, for example, that a higher-up at work regularly lectures everyone about the importance of networking. But maybe they never go into detail about what they mean, just constantly pushing the why without explaining the what. Well, just ask ChatGPT to explain networking! Okay, most of us know what “networking” is and the concept isn’t very hard to grasp. But you can do this with anything. Ask ChatGPT to explain augmented reality, multi-threaded processing, blockchain, large language models, what have you. It will provide you with a clear and simple breakdown, maybe even with analogies and images. Analyze and make tough decisions Dave Parrack / Foundry We all face tough decisions every so often. The next time you find yourself wrestling with a particularly tough one—and you just can’t decide one way or the other—try asking ChatGPT for guidance and advice. It may sound strange to trust any kind of decision to artificial intelligence, let alone an important one that has you stumped, but doing so actually makes a lot of sense. While human judgment can be clouded by emotions, AI can set that aside and prioritize logic. It should go without saying: you don’t have to accept ChatGPT’s answers. Use the AI to weigh the pros and cons, to help you understand what’s most important to you, and to suggest a direction. Who knows? If you find yourself not liking the answer given, that in itself might clarify what you actually want—and the right answer for you. This is the kind of stuff ChatGPT can do to improve your life. Plan complex projects and strategies Dave Parrack / Foundry Most jobs come with some level of project planning and management. Even I, as a freelance writer, need to plan tasks to get projects completed on time. And that’s where ChatGPT can prove invaluable, breaking projects up into smaller, more manageable parts. ChatGPT needs to know the nature of the project, the end goal, any constraints you may have, and what you have done so far. With that information, it can then break the project up with a step-by-step plan, and break it down further into phases (if required). If ChatGPT doesn’t initially split your project up in a way that suits you, try again. Change up the prompts and make the AI chatbot tune in to exactly what you’re looking for. It takes a bit of back and forth, but it can shorten your planning time from hours to mere minutes. Compile research notes Dave Parrack / Foundry If you need to research a given topic of interest, ChatGPT can save you the hassle of compiling that research. For example, ahead of a trip to Croatia, I wanted to know more about the Croatian War of Independence, so I asked ChatGPT to provide me with a brief summary of the conflict with bullet points to help me understand how it happened. After absorbing all that information, I asked ChatGPT to add a timeline of the major events, further helping me to understand how the conflict played out. ChatGPT then offered to provide me with battle maps and/or summaries, plus profiles of the main players. You can go even deeper with ChatGPT’s Deep Research feature, which is now available to free users, up to 5 Deep Research tasks per month. With Deep Research, ChatGPT conducts multi-step research to generate comprehensive reports (with citations!) based on large amounts of information across the internet. A Deep Research task can take up to 30 minutes to complete, but it’ll save you hours or even days. Summarize articles, meetings, and more Dave Parrack / Foundry There are only so many hours in the day, yet so many new articles published on the web day in and day out. When you come across extra-long reads, it can be helpful to run them through ChatGPT for a quick summary. Then, if the summary is lacking in any way, you can go back and plow through the article proper. As an example, I ran one of my own PCWorld articles (where I compared Bluesky and Threads as alternatives to X) through ChatGPT, which provided a brief summary of my points and broke down the best X alternative based on my reasons given. Interestingly, it also pulled elements from other articles. (Hmph.) If you don’t want that, you can tell ChatGPT to limit its summary to the contents of the link. This is a great trick to use for other long-form, text-heavy content that you just don’t have the time to crunch through. Think transcripts for interviews, lectures, videos, and Zoom meetings. The only caveat is to never share private details with ChatGPT, like company-specific data that’s protected by NDAs and the like. Create Q&A flashcards for learning Dave Parrack / Foundry Flashcards can be extremely useful for drilling a lot of information into your brain, such as when studying for an exam, onboarding in a new role, prepping for an interview, etc. And with ChatGPT, you no longer have to painstakingly create those flashcards yourself. All you have to do is tell the AI the details of what you’re studying. You can specify the format (such as Q&A or multiple choice), as well as various other elements. You can also choose to keep things broad or target specific sub-topics or concepts you want to focus on. You can even upload your own notes for ChatGPT to reference. You can also use Google’s NotebookLM app in a similar way. Provide interview practice Dave Parrack / Foundry Whether you’re a first-time jobseeker or have plenty of experience under your belt, it’s always a good idea to practice for your interviews when making career moves. Years ago, you might’ve had to ask a friend or family member to act as your mock interviewer. These days, ChatGPT can do it for you—and do it more effectively. Inform ChatGPT of the job title, industry, and level of position you’re interviewing for, what kind of interview it’ll be (e.g., screener, technical assessment, group/panel, one-on-one with CEO), and anything else you want it to take into consideration. ChatGPT will then conduct a mock interview with you, providing feedback along the way. When I tried this out myself, I was shocked by how capable ChatGPT can be at pretending to be a human in this context. And the feedback it provides for each answer you give is invaluable for knocking off your rough edges and improving your chances of success when you’re interviewed by a real hiring manager. Further reading: Non-gimmicky AI apps I actually use every day Read...

Technology like smart watches can think metal fans in mosh pits have been involved in a collision. Read...