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What’s New in Windows 10’s Fall Creators Update, Arriving Today

Windows 10’s Fall Creators Update, codenamed Redstone 3, will be released on October 17, 2017. Here are all the new features you’ll see in the latest version of Windows—and some big, splashy features Microsoft announced that never arrived.

How to Take Good Photos of the Starry Sky

The night sky is breathtaking. If you go somewhere reasonably dark and let your eyes adjust, you can look up and see thousands of pin pricks of light, each one a star or galaxy that’s millions of years old. I find it completely humbling.

How to Call and Message Friends Using Your Amazon Echo

Alexa is great to have for controlling your smarthome and asking various questions, but she can also call and message your friends and family. Here’s how it works and how to set it up.

How to Disable Notifications During Video Playback on an Xbox One

Notification pop-ups can get annoying when they appear over a video you’re trying to watch on Netflix. The Xbox One allows you to hide notifications while watching videos, preventing such distractions.

Your Wi-Fi Network Is Vulnerable: How to Protect Against KRACK

Today, security researchers published a paper detailing a serious vulnerability in WPA2, the protocol that keeps most modern Wi-FI networks secure—including the one in your home. Here’s how to protect yourself from attackers.

How to Download Games to Your PlayStation 4 From Your Phone or PC

PlayStation 4 games can be huge, and take hours to download. Thankfully, you can start downloading games even when you’re away from home. All you need is Sony’s official smartphone app, or a web browser on any PC.

How to Invert the Colors of Your iPhone’s Screen

Apple goes to a lot of effort to make their iPhones as accessible for everyone as possible. One system option allows you to invert all the colors on the phone’s display, which is useful if you’re sensitive to brightness, have certain kinds of color blindness, or just are in the dark. Here’s how to enable it.

The Amazon Prime-ification of Windows, and Everything Else, Is Coming

Microsoft has been pushing Office 365, the $100-per-year Microsoft Office subscription, for years now. But the Windows Fall Creators update goes further. For the first time, non-Office Windows features will live behind the Office 365 paywall.

The Best Ways to Scan a Document Using Your Phone or Tablet

Sure, a dedicated scanner is still great to have if you frequently need to scan a large handful of documents, but using your phone also works great if you only have a couple documents to scan every now and then. Here’s what we recommend for Android and iOS.

What Are Planar Magnetic Headphones?

The world of audiophile hardware is dense and hard to parse… and to be perfectly honest, audiophiles seem to like it that way. Even so, a technology called “planar magnetic drivers” is making its way into cheaper and more accessible headphones as of late, promising audio fidelity much greater than conventional cans. What makes planar magnetic headphones different—and allegedly better—than normal ones? Let’s have a listen.

How to Scan Documents with the iPhone’s Notes App

In the past, iPhone users had to download a third-party app in order to scan documents and save them in a digital format on their phone. However, with the release of iOS 11, you can now scan documents natively using the built-in Notes app.

Your Mac Is Tracking Your Location in High Sierra, Here’s Why (and How to Disable It)

You probably didn’t notice, but macOS High Sierra keeps an ongoing list of recurring locations. The feature is called Significant Locations, and according to Apple is used by Maps, Calendar, and Photos to “provide useful location-related information.”

How to Control Your Smarthome Products with Cortana on Windows 10

Cortana can do a lot of stuff, but she’s not quite as powerful as more mature voice assistants like Alexa or Google Home. But Microsoft has finally added support for smarthome devices, so you can control Philips Hue, Samsung SmartThings, Nest, Insteon, and Wink devices right from your PC.

How to Convert a PDF File Into an Editable Text Document

Adobe’s PDF standard is handy whenever you need to distribute some information and be sure that it’s seen the same way by all recipients. But PDF files are also infamously tough to edit.

How to Create Custom Ringtones for Your Android Phone

So you got a shiny new Android phone. You changed the wallpaper, bought a case that you like, arranged your home screens…you know, made it yours. Then someone calls. Why on earth are you still using a stock ringtone? Get that out of here—it’s time to not only make it look like yours, but sound like it too.

How to Take Polls With Your Instagram Story

Instagram, in their continuing quest to eat Snapchat’s lunch, has recently added a way to take simple polls through your Story. Here’s how.

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Is It Worth Upgrading to the iPhone 8 or iPhone X?

As summer turns to autumn, the leaves turn brown and the new iPhone is announced. At How-To Geek, we don’t get outside much, so we’re obviously more interested in the new iPhones than whatever trees are doing. Apple introduces the iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus, and the iPhone X. We’re not going to address the profoundly weird start to the keynote, so the big question is: should you upgrade?

Equifax Got Hacked: How to Stop Identity Thieves from Opening Accounts in Your Name

Everybody is getting hacked left and right. Anthem lost 80 million records in 2015. The US government got hacked and lost personal data for millions, all the way down to fingerprint data. Now Equifax, a credit bureau, got hacked. So how can you protect yourself from criminals opening accounts in your name?

Should You Get an “Ultra HD” 4K TV?

Walk through any electronics showroom and most TVs you see will be some form of “Ultra HD” 4K. There are plenty of models available, and they’re cheaper than ever. But should you buy one?

What’s the Best Antivirus for Windows 10? (Is Windows Defender Good Enough?)

Windows 10 won’t hassle you to install an antivirus like Windows 7 did. Since Windows 8, Windows now includes a built-in antivirus called Windows Defender (which used to be available separately as Microsoft Security Essentials). But is it really the best for protecting your PC–or even just good enough?

18 Things You May Not Have Known Google Photos Can Do

Google Photos may seem like a simple image hosting service, but it’s actually quite powerful. Google Photos bridges the gap between cloud storage, image hosting, and image sharing services, giving stiff competition to Flickr, iCloud, Dropbox, and OneDrive.

Wi-Fi Security: Should You Use WPA2-AES, WPA2-TKIP, or Both?

Many routers provide WPA2-PSK (TKIP), WPA2-PSK (AES), and WPA2-PSK (TKIP/AES) as options. Choose the wrong one, though, and you’ll have a slower, less-secure network.

How to Fix Windows Update When It Gets Stuck

Windows Update is supposed to work silently in the background, but it may refuse to continue if it can’t install an individual update.

10 Handy Uses for Your Old iPad or Android Tablet

Tablet sales are slumping at the moment, probably as a result of big smartphones and convertible laptops chip away at a tablet’s usefulness. But if you have one or more tablets at home gathering dust while you happily poke away at your giant smartphone, there are probably some good ways to put them to use rather than selling them or recycling them. Here are a few ideas.

How to Change Microsoft Edge to Search Google Instead of Bing

Microsoft’s new Edge browser uses Bing as its default search engine, but if you prefer something else you can change that. Edge can use any search engine that supports OpenSearch as its default.

How to Turn Your Windows PC Into a Wi-Fi Hotspot

Windows can turn your PC into a wireless hotspot, allowing it to share its wired or wireless Internet connection with other wireless devices. But how you set it up that depends on what version of Windows you’re running. Here’s how it all works.