KL Techs

There are a lot of gaming handhelds to choose from right now , but the Steam Deck is undoubtedly a fan-favorite . Just as the Nintendo Switch introduced the world to console gaming on the go, the Steam Deck was the pioneer in bringing PC gaming to a handheld form factor—even if it pushes the definition of "handheld." Part of the initial appeal of the Steam Deck is its price: While you could choose a souped-up model with an OLED display and expanded internal storage, you could also pick up an LCD model with a 256GB SSD at a reasonable $399. For less than the price of a Switch 2, you could have something that plays the entire Steam library, with its huge variation in games. It's a great deal—perhaps too great. If you go to Valve's official Steam Deck site , and scroll down to see your hardware choices, you'll notice something interesting: While there appear to be many 512GB and 1TB OLED Steam Decks in stock, ready to buy, the entry-level LCD model is "out of...

We may earn a commission from links on this page. When I reviewed the Whoop 5.0 and MG (and, earlier, the Whoop 4.0 ) , I kept it to the basics—how the strap looks, works, and charges, and what activities it can track. But that's only part of it: Now, I’m going to dive in to all the metrics Whoop reports and offer a reality check on what I've found most useful and what isn’t worth paying attention to.  I haven't worn the Whoop band as regularly as I do the Oura ring, for which I was able to give a four-year retrospective . But to research both this article and my reviews, I’ve worn the Whoop for a couple of stints of at least a few weeks each, tracking my workouts and sleep regularly. With that said, here's a deeper dive into what it’s actually like to wear the Whoop strap on a daily basis, using it to judge and guide your habits and performance.  (I'll leave out the activity tracking features here, since I covered them in more depth in the re...

My concentration is shot. I know this because I've checked my phone four times while writing this opening paragraph. I'm addicted to my phone in a way that feels both embarrassing and completely normal, which is perhaps the most damning part. My phone feels essential for everything: my job requires Slack and email responsiveness, my hobbies live in apps and group chats, and even my downtime involves scrolling through feeds I don't actually enjoy. These days, we tend to think of upgrades (in life, in tech, wherever) as adding features, but sometimes the real upgrade is eliminating. So I did something a little radical this year: I bricked my iPhone. Well, sort of. And it's been the best tech decision I've made in years. What I actually did to fix my concentration We talk about phone addiction like it's a personal failing, but cut yourself some slack. Every app, every notification, every infinite scroll is designed by engineers whose job is to keep us locked in. ...

There are warning signs that your home network may have been compromised, such as unusual traffic patterns and slowdowns in system performance, but now there's a simple tool to help determine if your router or connected devices are being used to conduct malicious activity . IP Check , from threat monitoring firm GreyNoise, will alert you if your IP address has been observed scanning the internet as part of a botnet or residential proxy network. As GreyNoise outlines , residential IP compromise often isn't obvious to the user because you're still able to conduct business as usual, such as streaming, emailing, and web browsing. All the while, though, threat actors are routing malicious activity through your home IP address and can potentially exploit your network for everything from account takeovers to malware distribution. Check your IP address for suspicious activity To use IP Check, you simply need to open the tool in a browser window, and you'll get one of several...

Earlier this year, OpenAI announced ChatGPT apps. Not the ChatGPT app, mind you: That's been out for more than a couple years now . ChatGPT apps, on the other hand, are programs that work within ChatGPT. You can access them in any given conversation with ChatGPT—in fact, they may appear based on the context of the conversation. These aren't necessarily apps that OpenAI builds itself, either; rather, you'll find options here based on apps you may use yourself. The initial batch of apps included with the feature's rollout included Booking.com, Canva, Coursera, Figma, Expedia, Spotify, and Zillow—big apps you've likely used before. While in a conversation with ChatGPT, you could ask the bot to help you book a flight to Paris via Expedia, find a particular listing through Zillow, or create a slide for a presentation with Canva. From OpenAI's perspective, this adds a host of additional functionality to ChatGPT the company couldn't offer itself. OpenAI doesn...

The AI wars continue to heat up. Just weeks after OpenAI declared a "code red" in its race against Google , the latter released its latest lightweight model: Gemini 3 Flash. This particular Flash is the latest in Google's Gemini 3 family , which started with Gemini 3 Pro, and Gemini 3 Deep Think. But while this latest model is meant to be a lighter, less expensive variant of the existing Gemini 3 models, Gemini 3 Flash is actually quite powerful in its own right. In fact, it beats out both Gemini 3 Pro and OpenAI's GPT-5.2 models in some benchmarks. Lightweight models are typically meant for more basic queries, for lower-budget requests, or to be run on lower-powered hardware. That means they're often faster than more powerful models that take longer to process, but can do more. According to Google, Gemini 3 Flash combines the best of both those worlds, producing a model with Gemini 3's "Pro-grade reasoning," with "Flash-level latency, efficie...

Remodeling your house can be an exciting experience. It can also be an expensive one , which is why a lot of homeowners opt to go the DIY route. But any DIY remodel can also be daunting, even if you’re relatively comfortable with home maintenance and repair tasks. Whether you’re contemplating a DIY remodel for the cost savings or because it’s a fun challenge , there are a lot of online tools that can make the planning and execution of your project a lot easier. The 10 apps below can help you find inspiration, identify furniture and other items that will support your vision, and even show you how to tackle the entire project, step-by-step. Best apps for DIY inspiration Every home remodel starts with a need for change: you're bored with your current look or you feel a sense of dissatisfaction with the flow or functionality of your house. But that feeling that something isn't quite right doesn’t mean you immediately know what you want. These apps can help you get ...

Just three days after Apple released iOS 26.2 to iPhones everywhere, the company is back at it with a new update. iOS 26.3 is official, though only for beta testers. Those brave enough to install Apple's unfinished software on their devices won't find an update packed to the brim with new features and changes, but they will stumble upon two key new features. The thing is, we already knew both of them were on the way. This isn't the end all be all for the update, however: Since iOS 26.3 is so new, it's possible testers will discover additional features hidden within the update. In addition, Apple may add new changes in subsequent beta versions. I'll continue to update this article to reflect any new features that reveal themselves, but, until then, here are the two new features we know about. Notification forwarding Back in September , we learned that Apple was quietly working on some type of notification forwarding feature, but other than that basic functionality...

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. You've probably heard of Sonos smart speakers and soundbars , which offer some of the best audio quality in the market. What you may not know, however, is that Sonos also makes the excellent Sonos Ace headphones, which were released last summer. Right now, they're on sale for $279 (originally $449), the lowest price they've ever been, according to price-tracking tools . Sonos Ace Noise Cancelling Wireless Over-Ear Headphones with Bluetooth, 30-Hour Battery Life, Spatial Audio. $279.00 at Amazon $399.00...

Whether you're a teacher, a parent, or just someone with a big family, you know how difficult it can be to keep a room full of kids quiet for any amount of time. One trick I've used is offering to time how long kids can stay quiet. For reasons I don't understand, kids love it when something is being timed. But that only work a few times at the most, so it's good to have as many other tricks on hand as possible. That's why I was fascinated to learn there are multiple websites that use the microphone on your laptop to motivate kids to be quiet. Some put children's curiosity to work, having animated characters show up if the group is quiet for long enough. Others combine animation with good old-fashioned timers. Here are a few you can check out—all of them are completely free and don't require anything more than your browser. Silent Forest: Animals emerge if the room is quiet ...

Once again, there is a new feature available on Google's NotebookLM , the AI tool that functions like a personal assistant and only references material you provide for it. This one is a slide deck generator, which can be useful if you need to make a presentation in a hurry, but I've been using it a little differently to help myself retain new information. Generating a slide deck in NotebookLM First, you should know how to generate a deck. In case you're unfamiliar with NotebookLM, it's basically just like ChatGPT, but instead of pulling answers from the big, wide Internet, it only relies on PDFs, links, videos, and text you input as resources. This makes it the perfect tool for working on a specific project or studying for a class, since you don't run the risk of inadvertently getting misled by some random, unrelated source. You can use the chat bot feature the way you would ChatGPT, asking questions and getting summaries of your materials. You can also automati...

The pace of AI technology is so rapid, it's tough to keep up with everything. At Google I/O back in May , Google rolled out an AI-powered shopping feature that let you virtually try on clothes you find online. All you needed to do was upload a full-length photo of yourself, and Google's AI would be to dress you up in whatever article of clothing you liked. I still can't decide whether the feature sounds useful, creepy, or a little bit of both. Google's virtual try on feature only needs a selfie to work What I can say, however, is that the feature is getting a little creepier. On Thursday, Google announced an update to its virtual try on feature, that takes advantage of the company's new AI image model, Nano Banana . Now, you don't need a full-length photo of yourself: just a selfie. With solely a photo of your face, Nano Banana will generate a full-length avatar in your likeness, which you can use to virtually try on your clothes. I'm not exactly sure wh...

We may earn a commission from links on this page. RAM, also known as random-access memory (or just memory for short), is an important part of most electronics these days. It essentially allows programs to keep key information at the ready so they don't have to dig through your storage (like your hard drive or solid state drive) to find it. RAM is in laptops, phones, tablets, gaming consoles, and even cars, and all apps rely on it at least a little bit. Essentially, if your device has a computer in it, it probably comes with RAM equipped, or it'll want you to install some before it'll boot up. But that dependency has become a big problem recently. While RAM has historically been one of the cheaper components for home techies to buy, over the past few months, RAM has gotten much more expensive, going from an afterthought on many people's budgets to something you have to save for. There are a few reasons for that, but even if you're not a hardcore PC builder and you...