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The premise of Westworld rests on an uneasy relationship between a town’s residents and the “newcomers”: wealthy, oblivious visitors, convinced that a new cowboy hat gives them permission to do whatever they like. In other words, there’s no better allegory for what happens to Austin during South By Southwest. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

March is the perfect time to start your spring cleaning. Along with throwing open the windows, vacuuming the floors, and replacing your grody furniture, you might also want to think about updating your home's ancient networking hardware. With so many smart devices proliferating on the market, it’s more important than ever to keep your home Wi-Fi secure and your connection reliable. Learn more abou...

Say hello to the loosely bound galaxy of IC 4710, captured by the Hubble Space telescope. Unlike your average galaxy, IC 4710 has no central core or spiraled arms. Instead, this oddball is built out of a loose jumble of stars; on its outer edges are newly forming stars, shown here in the bright blues. This stunning infrared photo, captured by the Juno spacecraft, shows Jupiter’s north pole adorned...

We’re calling it: animated emoji are officially a “thing.” Now that Apple’s iPhone X has Animoji, Samsung’s Galaxy S9 has AR Emoji, and ASUS’s ZenFone 5 has ZeniMoji, the way to show off your status as a fancyphone owner is by sending all your friends cartoons made with your face. Not about to spring on the iPhone X or Samsung 9? Don't get left behind. Download one of these dupes instead. Learn mo...

Florence is a romance you unravel with your fingertips. Based on the first love of its titular character, the mobile game takes that most classic of coming-of-age tales and does something special. Using the touchscreen interface, it guides players through all the waxing and waning of Florence Yeoh's relationship: falling in love, learning about her creativity, understanding where she wants to be....

It’s been more than a year since Sony changed the game for consoles and decided to release a half-upgrade to its PlayStation 4. The PlayStation 4 Pro is a more powerful PS4. It plays every standard PS4 game there is, but has added horsepower to enable high-resolution 4K HDR output for high-end TVs—practically, that translates to prettier visual effects and frame rates. Before we go on, maybe I sho...

Maybe you listen to music every day. But when’s the last time you felt your music—let it pluck you out of this world and ferry you to the front row of your own personal concert hall? The right album can induce toe tapping and head swaying, but an amazing set of headphones make you want to shut your eyes and ride a great melody to a new land. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.c...

March Madness doesn’t just mean basketball (OK, maybe it does). March means it's spring! The snow and mush are thawing, the sun is shining, and it’s time to get on the road or get in the air. Whether you’re going on vacation, or just daydreaming about it, we consulted with our pals at TechBargains to pull together some of the best deals on the web. We love drones, and DJI’s Mavic Pro is one of our...

I don’t have a “Dog Mom” bumper sticker on my car, but I sure do love my pups. My two dogs have been my constant companions for almost a decade. They have top-of-the-line dog beds, toothbrushes, and even health insurance. The LINK AKC smart dog collar is ideal for a dog owner like me. It’s a handsome leather collar that is by far the most luxurious accessory my dog has ever donned. Learn more abou...

Like the smartphone or the television, the cordless stick vacuum is one of those products that has already arrived at something close to its ideal form. Dyson, the leading brand name in household products that suck or blow with vigor, standardized its signature take on the handheld cleaning machine about ten years ago. Centered around a brushless digital motor connected to a clear canister that ca...

If you want to properly understand the million-dollar McLaren Senna supercar, you've got to make the pilgrimage to Woking, just southeast of London. There, you'll find McLaren’s UK Technology Center headquarters. What looks like a science fiction movie prop dropped in the English countryside is in fact home to the factory hand-building road cars, and McLaren's Formula 1 team. Learn more about your...

The next time you feel like complaining about flying, (so, the next time you fly) a report this morning from a pilot landing at Dulles International Airport in Washington, D, should put things into perspective: “Very bump on descent. Pretty much every one on the plane threw up. Pilots were on the verge of throwing up. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Whether you're a well-established wordsmith or someone who's never written a song before, inspiration can strike at any moment. Could that phrase fit into the perfect chorus for a new song? Could that melody you've had stuck in your head be the next "Despacito"? Use these five apps to jot down your ideas, melodies, and lyrics to turn those seeds of inspiration into actual songs. Learn more about y...

It's a new month, and we've got an extra special weekend deals list for you. This week, Samsung's brand-new Galaxy S9 is available for preorder. With a little help from TechBargains, we've collected everything you need to know about the phone here. If Samsung's purple new Galaxy isn't your thing, we've highlighted a few more tech deals that we personally like. Samsung's 2018 flagship phone, the Ga...

Vacuuming is a chore that’s marked by the absence of acknowledgment, rather than the presence. Everyone notices and remarks on a fragrant and delicious Sunday meal. But you never walk into someone else’s house and say, “I noticed your floors are remarkably free from detritus today!”, unless you are a real jerk. That makes vacuuming an uninviting and thankless task. Learn more about your ad choices...

The Amazon Echo kicked off the smart speaker trend a few years ago, but it's no longer alone. There are dozens of smart speakers already on the market in 2018 and a ton more are coming. Picking the best smart speaker for your needs isn’t always simple, though. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Having to plug your phone in every night probably bums you out. Near-field wireless chargers like the ones Samsung sells are cool, but short-range. Like, the phone has to be sitting on the plate, at which point, you could just plug it in. And while some science is out there that says devices might be able to harvest electricity from ambient Wi-Fi, that just doesn't provide enough power. Learn more...

For the first week that I ran the Ecovacs Deebot M81 Pro, I kept finding it knocked off its base, its battery uncharged. It was aggravating, and mystifying. What could be happening? I’ve been testing robot vacuums for months by plugging them into this one location. After a day of observation, I figured out the problem. My eight-month-old son was crawling over to the botvac, and turning it on and o...

The newest gadget from Google is a camera. Though I admit, calling the pocket-sized Clips just a camera feels incomplete. Yes, it has a lens and a battery and it captures videos, but everything else about it is unique. You don't tap a shutter button or give it any command to take a picture or shoot a video. You just turn it on (by twisting its lens like a knob), set it down, and point it at whatev...

Smartphones are ridiculously expensive, and U.S. wireless carriers like T-Mobile and Verizon go out of their way to make them seem affordable. I mean, why not buy a $950 Galaxy Note 8 if you only have to pay $0 down and $30 a month for it? Let me list the reasons why: you’re still wasting hundreds of dollars you could use to buy or save for something else that may add value to your life. Learn mor...

The Xbox One X is the go-to console for enthusiasts, with its faster performance and 4K HDR support. Especially if you invested in a 4K TV recently, this console gives gamers a great, high-res experience on the big screen. If you don't have a 4K TV, it's also a great time to get the Xbox One S, Microsoft's affordable console for the rest of us. Both options have a great library of titles, 4K Blu-r...

Most of the President's Day Tech Deals have come and gone (though not all of them), but there are still a few impressive deals this week. With a little help from our friends at TechBargains, we've collected some fun gaming, home, and mobile deals for you to browse. Coway HEPA Air Purifier for $176 ($54 off): This Coway Mighty True HEPA Air Purifier has an Ionizer and Eco Mode. The reviews are soli...

The worst part about the end of February? We've had months and months of winter, with more grimly cold and slushy weather to come. But the best part about February is that boutique outdoor retailers like Huckberry are now putting a ton of cold-weather gear on sale, while you still have plenty of wet, chilly, or windy weather to enjoy it. Here are our picks from Huckberry's winter clearance sale. O...

Let's be clear—airplanes are complicated. Sure, it's entirely possible to get a piece of paper and fold it in a particular way so that it flies. But the physics of flight isn't trivial. It's even harder to give an explanation of the forces on a flying aircraft in a short video—which is what I did with my recent WIRED video on the physics of flying. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastch...