Only a few months after they first came out, the Beats Studio Buds + are down to an all-time low price. The company's latest noise-canceling headphones are 24 percent off at Woot, dropping from $170 to $130. While you shop, it's important to keep in mind that, though Amazon owns Woot, it has a different return policy.

We gave the Beats Studio Buds + an 84 in our review when they launched. A few of the new features impressed us, but the price increase from $150 to $170 seemed a bit steep for the product — something this deal more than makes up for. Updates rolled out with the Beats Studio Buds + included 16 percent more battery life, three times bigger microphones and acoustic vents added to the front and side. As a whole, the sound quality and noise canceling are both better than its predecessor. Plus, the placement of the headphones' control button has moved to avoid accidentally pressing it while adjusting their fit (a big problem plaguing the originals).

At the same time, a few things are lacking from the Beats Studio Buds +, such as automatic pausing, wireless charging and a sound that — while improved — doesn't measure up to competitors like AirPods. But, if you want solid headphones for a decent price, these are certainly a good option. The markdown will be available on Woot for the next four days or until they sell out of their stock.

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Have you ever gone to use an extension and suddenly been unable to access it without warning? Google is attempting to make this a little less of a surprise by notifying you when it removes an extension from the Chrome Web Store. Of course, this will only be for ones you currently have installed, not just anytime the store's offerings change.

With this new update, you should receive a notification if one of three things occurs: A developer unpublished an extension you use, if it's marked as malware or if it's removed from the Chrome Web Store due to policy violations — such as hate speech or spyware. You won't receive a notification if Google has given a developer time to fix or appeal a possible violation. Google already had steps in place to protect users if the company found an extension to be malware. As before, once marked as such, the extension should be automatically disabled and unable to cause harm.

These new notifications will appear in the "privacy and security" tab of Chrome's settings under a section called "safety check." You'll be told how many extensions Google removed from the store and have the option to review more details. The new feature will be available in Chrome 117, which is set to come out in early September. Other updates will accompany it, such as a tune icon replacing the current lock symbol next to the search bar.

If you missed out on grabbing one of Amazon's Fire TV devices during Prime Day, then you're in luck: Most of the lineup is currently marked down, and they're each only a tiny bit more than they were during the site's big sale. The cheapest option is Amazon's Fire TV Stick Lite, with a 33 percent discount cutting its price from $30 to $20. 

Amazon's Fire TV Stick Lite is a great entry point into the series, giving you all the basics for the price of two movie tickets (or, let's be real, basically one at this point). It works with TV streamers like Netflix and Disney+ alongside Spotify and Amazon Music. You can also watch live TV and have Alexa Voice Remote Lite control your smart home devices to dim the lights. 

On the more technical side, The Fire TV Stick Lite has 8GB of storage, HDMI passthrough of Dolby-encoded audio and Wi-Fi 5 compatibility. However, unlike the classic Fire TV Stick, the remote doesn't include TV controls like volume. The Fire TV Stick is $5 more than its Lite counterpart thanks to the sale dropping its price from $39 to $25. It also includes Alexa Voice Remote and Dolby Atmos. Both devices have a quad-core CPU 1.7GHz and a GPU 650MHz. 

The Fire TV Stick 4K Max has the biggest sale of all, with a 51 percent discount bringing its price from $55 to $27. For $2 more than the classic, you can get 4K Ultra HD, Dolby Vision and Wi-Fi 6 support. It also has live view picture-in-picture and a quad-core CPU 1.8GHz and a GPU 750MHz. Then there's the big one, the Fire TV Cube, which has a 14 percent discount cutting its price from $140 to $120. It's significantly more expensive than its counterparts but also comes with many more features, like an octa-core 4x 2.2GHz 4x 2.0GHz and a GPU 800MHz. Plus, Amazon's Fire TV Cube has 16GB of storage, hands-free control with Alexa and Wi-Fi 6E support with an Ethernet port. Oh, and you can connect all your devices to it, like game consoles and webcams. 

Are you just looking for some high-tech control? Amazon's Alexa Voice Remote Pro is also on sale, dropping from $35 to $30. This device is a good option if you tend to lose things as you can tell Alexa, "find my remote," and it will ring. 

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You know when a certain song comes on and it encompasses your whole being for a few minutes? Music has a way of causing a unique and engaging stimulation in your brain, one that scientists are working to understand and mimic. Such was the case in a recent study published in PLOS Biology in which researchers successfully implemented technology that recreated Pink Floyd’s Another Brick in the Wall, Part 1 solely using brain activity. It utilized a technique known as stimulus reconstruction and built on previous innovations allowing researchers to recreate a song akin to the one a person had heard.

The 29 participants had pharmacoresistant epilepsy and intracranial grids or strips of electrodes which had been surgically implanted to aid in their treatment. Researchers utilized these electrodes to record activity across multiple auditory regions of the individuals’ brains that process aspects of music like lyrics and harmony — while the participants actively listened to Another Brick in the Wall, Part 1. The entirety of the recordings took place at Albany Medical Center, in upstate New York.

Scientists used AI to analyze then create a copy of the words and sounds participants had heard. Though the final product was quite muffled, but the song is clear to anyone listening so you can check it out for yourselfa. The researchers are also confident that they could increase its quality in future attempts.

The listening experience primarily engaged the right side of participants’ brains, mostly in the superior temporal gyrus and especially when absorbing unique music. There was also a small level of stimulation in the left side of the brain. Researchers further found that a point in the brain’s temporal lobe ignited when the 16th notes of the rhythm guitar played while the song played at 99 beats per minute. 

This finding could provide more insight into the part that area plays in processing rhythm. It could also aid in restoring people who have lost their speech ability, through conditions like amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Instead of creating a monotone, almost robot-like response, better understanding the way a brain processes and responds to music might lead to more fluid prosthetics for speech.

A storm often evokes a desire to feel safe inside your home and able to communicate with loved ones or emergency personnel — yet, electric and landline connections are often the first systems to go down. Comcast is attempting to solve this problem with the release of Storm-Ready WiFi, a connection backup device — one they claim is the first of its kind built by an Internet Provider. It's powered by Xfinity's 10G Network, has WiFi 6 compatibility and works as a WiFi extender during better weather.

As another reminder of the terrifying impact of climate change, Comcast cites the increase in storms nationwide as to why this extra device is necessary. Yes, you can file Storm-Ready WiFi under how to be more comfortable as the world burns — extremely dark, to say the least.

The service is designed to seamlessly transfer your connection over to Storm-Ready WiFi in the case of a power outage. Storm-Ready WiFi's battery lasts about four hours at a time (an average power outage in the US lasts about two hours). Of course, it's not much good if your phone or computer run out of battery, but otherwise, you can work (or better yet, watch all the movies you want) while the sky opens around you. Storm-Ready WiFi is available to buy now for $7 per month for 36 months, both in-store and online.

The internet is a source of many things, such as yummy recipes, tech deals and horrible misinformation. The latter often spreads through social media sites, something they have to combat (or usually choose to ignore). Right now, YouTube is choosing to fight, announcing a new long-term policy plan to grapple with medical misinformation, especially about cancer.

YouTube's new guidelines for health content will fall under three categories: prevent, treatment and denial misinformation. Prevent will allegedly review and remove videos that oppose guidelines set out by trusted authorities or contradict vaccine safety and efficacy (the platform banned content with vaccine misinformation in 2021). Treatment should center on taking down any misinformation about — unsurprisingly — treating medical conditions, including unproven remedies. The platform claims that denial will focus on removing any content that makes a false claim, such as that people didn't die due to COVID-19.

"To determine if a condition, treatment or substance is in scope of our medical misinformation policies, we'll evaluate whether it's associated with a high public health risk, publicly available guidance from health authorities around the world, and whether it's generally prone to misinformation," YouTube's Director and Global Head of Healthcare and Public Health Partnerships Dr. Garth Graham and its VP and Global Head of Trust and Safety Matt Halprin said in the joint release outlining the new policies.

Starting now, YouTube says it will be removing videos specifically about cancer which violate any of these policies — an effort it claims will ramp up more in the coming weeks. For example, if a video states that garlic cures cancer, it's coming down. YouTube is also sharing a playlist of science-backed cancer-related videos and teaming up with Mayo Clinic to create even more informational videos about cancer.

These policies come less than two months after YouTube announced it would "stop removing content that advances false claims that widespread fraud, errors, or glitches occurred in the 2020 and other past US Presidential elections" because it curtailed political speech. So misinformation is allowed when it threatens democracy, just not across every category on the site — cool. Though, YouTube does say that it will allow some health videos with falsehoods to remain if the context is right, such as public interest. The platform says in some cases, content will be allowed to stay up but will be given an age restriction.

No matter how old you get, something happens inside your brain in mid-August that signals it's time to buy new supplies. As a child preparing to go back to school, this might have been notebooks and erasers. As an adult, it can be a little bigger — especially if sales are going on — like a new iPad. Currently, Apple's 64GB ninth-generation iPad is back down from $330 to its all-time low price of $250 in both Space Gray and Silver. Now this deal is a little tricky in that you will initially see a markdown to $269, but when you head to checkout, it will drop further to $250. 

Apple's ninth-gen iPad isn't the newest model, having first come out in 2021 and followed by a 10th-gen version the following year. We gave the earlier model an 86 in our initial review and, while it wasn't a massive upgrade from its predecessor, found it to be a great option if you're looking for a well-working device with all the basics at a solid price — even on sale, the 10th-gen iPad is $150 more. 

The 10.2-inch iPad has a retina display, A13 Bionic chip and 12MP Ultra Wide front camera. It's compatible with the first Apple Pencil and the Smart Keyboard. The ninth-gen model still has a lightning connector versus the newer model's USB-C port and has a physical home button. 

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There is something so great about when a device you really want — but don't want to fork up the money for — goes on sale. If you've been eyeing an Amazon Kindle Scribe, then, for you, that time is now. Currently, the 16GB Kindle Scribe is 18 percent off, with its price dropping from $340 to $280 — the best deal for it we've seen outside of Prime Day. 

Amazon's Kindle Scribe is the most premium option of the series, providing the benefits of its counterparts while also allowing you to read and write on a 10.2-inch screen with 35 front-light LEDs. It includes a basic pen for note-taking or marking up one of the millions of books available on Kindle. Plus, you can send notes to friends or yourself through email or text. 

Adults aren't the only ones who can benefit from Amazon's current Kindle sales. The Kindle Kids is 29 percent off right now, dropping from $120 to $85, and comes with one year of Amazon Kids+, a two-year warranty and parental control. It features a 6-inch screen, 300 ppi resolution, four front-light LEDs and Audible via Bluetooth. Plus, it comes with a cover and 16GB of storage. 

If you're looking for a few more features for the child in your life, the 16GB Kindle Paperwhite Kids is also 29 percent off, in this case dropping from $170 to $120. It has many of the same features as the Kindle Kids but with a 6.8-inch screen, 17 front light LEDs, an adjustable warm light and — potentially most importantly — a waterproof design. 

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Since its 2015 release, a new model of the Apple Watch has made its way into stores every year — often with minimal upgrades. Well, that might change when the Apple Watch X rolls around as the company is reportedly working on more substantial changes for its tenth-anniversary model, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman.

The Apple Watch X upgrades could include a magnetic band attachment, replacing the slide-in design currently in use and allowing space for a larger battery. It might also have a thinner watch case and a microLED display, providing a better picture than current OLED screens. On the health front, the Apple Watch X will reportedly include a blood pressure sensor alongside the heart rate monitor, sleep tracking and blood oxygen detection already present in current models.

This updated Apple Watch won't likely hit the market for another year if it follows the annual release schedule or two if Apple wants to wait a whole decade after its first release. The Apple Watch Series 9 is on its way first (and expected to be unveiled at an event this September), bringing with it a faster processor for the first time since the Series 6 and some new colors. It's expected to stay the same size as the Series 8 across its models and, overall, will be a limited upgrade.

YouTube knows that it has a spam problem, particularly when it comes to its two-year-old Shorts feature. In an attempt to do something about it, the streamer has announced it's deactivating links in Shorts descriptions, comments and the vertical live feed. YouTube is also taking away the ability to click on social media icons on any desktop channel banners. The new changes will start to roll out on August 31st. 

Though YouTube claims it won't continue its "unclickable" crusade, but it adds, "Because abuse tactics evolve quickly, we have to take preventative measures to make it harder for scammers and spammers to mislead or scam users via links." At the same time, YouTube is adding new links on creators' channels, with a big clickable link appearing by the Subscribe button starting August 23rd. The link can bring users to anything from merchandise sites to social media accounts. The platform also recently introduced more creator tools for Shorts, like voiceovers. However, it won't be until at least the end of September that the streamer introduces "safer" ways to guide people from their Shorts back to the rest of their content. 

YouTube

Aside from links, YouTube is working on reducing the number of impersonation accounts by reportedly improving the strategies it uses to find these accounts and subsequently remove them. According to the platform, over 35 percent more accounts were removed because of impersonation in Q1 of 2023 compared to Q1 of 2022 (though if this is because of better policies or simply more fake accounts is unclear). The streamer is also holding more comments for review through its recent Increase Strictness feature.