CATEGORIES

listening to trees

MARIANO MORALES, ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENTIST AT THE ARGENTINIAN INSTITUTE OF SNOW SCIENCE, GLACIOLOGY, AND ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES

home stretch

A HARD WORKOUT SHOULDN’T LEAVE YOU WITH LINGERING PAIN. THE RIGHT RECOVERY TOOLS WILL HELP INCREASE BLOOD FLOW AND FIGHT FATIGUE TO SOOTHE YOUR ACHES.

Behind The Cover

Butterflies may seem delicate, but they are surprisingly tough.

Tales From the Field – A cold one on mars

Kellie Gerardi, bioastronautics researcher at the International Institute for Austronautical Science

They Might Be Giants

A photographer-and-ecologist team are on a mission to document the forests’ mightiest members.

Droplet Stoppers

Covid-19 made face masks a crucial part of every outfit, and we’re likely to don them in the future when we feel ill. Fortunately, there’s a style for every need.

Boston Dynamics' Spot Robodog Finds Work on a BP Oil Rig

Boston Dynamics’ four-legged canine-inspired Spot is by no means an old dog, but that doesn’t mean it can’t learn new tricks. The 55-pound robot, unveiled in 2016, has boarded BP’s Mad Dog oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, where it will master tasks including reading gauges, finding corrosion, mapping the facility, and sniffing out methane, according to Reuters.

CAN THIS AI HELP SMOKERS QUIT?

While COVID-19 remains an occupying force in our world, and a viable vaccine is still out of reach, dealing with the pandemic comes down to mitigating health risks while coping with stress. If you’re a smoker, that’s going to be tough on both accounts. This isn’t the Mad Men era; everyone knows the risks of tobacco use, but cessation of addictive substances isn’t easy.

Assassin's Creed Valhalla (for PC): Another Winner

The Assassin’s Creed series has taken us to numerous historical settings since its 2007 debut, including Ancient Greece, Renaissance Italy, and Revolutionary War-era America. The newest installment, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, details the Viking invasion of 9th Century England from the perspective of history’s most notorious raiders. Though Valhalla doesn’t introduce anything wholly new to the series, it’s an excellent PC game that follows in the footsteps of its equally exceptional predecessors, Origins and Odyssey.

Microsoft Xbox Series X: An Impressive Console

The newest Xboxes are here, packing plenty of power into boxier frames than ever. Microsoft’s entries into the latest console generation are the Xbox Series X, reviewed here, and the Xbox Series S ($299).

2020's Most Common Passwords Are Laughably Insecure

Chances are that if a password is easy for you to remember, a hacker can easily crack it. And despite years (and years) of tech companies warning consumers to use hard-to-crack passwords, plus two-factor authentication, people are still using laughably insecure codes.

THE BEST PRODUCTS OF 2020

It’s been a weird year.

Virtual Movie Night: How to Watch Netflix With Friends Using Teleparty

Many of us are facing a long winter indoors, thanks to the ongoing pandemic. And though we have video streaming to distract us, watching shows and movies is more fun with friends. You could get everyone on Zoom and press play at the same time, but there’s an easier way: Teleparty (formerly known as Netflix Party).

SteelSeries Rival 3 Wireless Gaming Mouse: A Real Value

If, at first, you don’t succeed...make a wireless mouse? SteelSeries’ budget gaming mouse, the Rival 3, fell short of the competition earlier this year thanks to a small design flaw. You’d assume that a wireless version would fall into the same trap, but the Rival 3 Wireless stands out among basic wireless gaming mice thanks to a rich feature set. Like its predecessor, the Rival 3 Wireless has an imperfect shell, but the mouse’s upgraded sensor, incredible battery life, and multiple connection options make it a good choice for people looking to go wireless on a budget.

Apple Mac mini (M1, Late 2020): Most Polished, Potent Tiny Desktop

The Mac mini doesn’t get upgraded often, but when it does, it makes an impact well out of proportion to its trim dimensions. The 2018 Mac mini was a PCMag Editors’ Choice pick for its pep, connectivity, build quality, and limited upgradability. A slight variation on the same sheet music, played with little fanfare earlier this year, pumped up the two base models’ SSD capacity. The real update of this iconic little desktop is this one, and it’s a big-band extravaganza. Apple’s own highly integrated system-on-a-chip (SoC), the M1 brings the Mac mini to new performance highs, and while a few fundamentals have changed, the peppy performance, the reasonable mix of connectivity, and a new lower $699 starting price combine to make it one of the best values in compact computers, period. It easily earns our Editors’ Choice nod.

Apple iPhone 12 mini: The Best iPhone

The iPhone 12 mini is the smallest and most affordable phone in Apple’s late-2020 iPhone quartet. It’s sure to appeal most to owners of older iPhones (particularly the iPhone 5 through 8) as well as anyone fed up with a handset that doesn’t fit into their pocket.

GEAR GUIDE

Outdoor+Adventure Tech

hungry hungry hippos

IN 1981, NOTORIOUS drug lord Pablo Escobar imported four hippos from Africa to his estate near Medellín, Colombia. After his death in 1993, the herd meandered into the nearby Magdalena River.

the bulb that won't burn out

TOM BRAMELL, FORMER DEPUTY FIRE CHIEF FOR LIVERMORE-PLEASANTON FIRE DEPARTMENT

THE SWITCH

WHEN A NEW YORK CITY POWER PLANT SWAPS ITS DIRTIEST GENERATORS FOR BATTERIES, THE SURROUNDING NEIGHBORHOOD WILL BREATHE EASIER.

spacing out is good for you

A WANDERING MIND REAPS BENE- FITS YOU MIGHT NOT IMAGINE.

in remission

FOR MUCH OF THE 20TH CENTURY, cancer was an unspeakable diagnosis.

DYNAMIC DUO

HUMANS AND EARTH ARE OFTEN AT ODDS, BUT WHEN DISASTER STRIKES, THEY CAN COMBINE THEIR POWERS TO BRING NEW LIFE TO LANDSCAPES.

Headtrip – Your brain on video chat

Dating, Catching up with family, and going to happy hour are best in person.

Life On The Line

On the Western edge of Borneo, a novel conservation-minded health-care model could provide the world with a blueprint to stop next pandemic before it starts.

The Needs Of The Few

Designing with the marginalized in mind can improve all of out lives.

Optoma HD39HDR: Bright, Low-Lag Projector

Designed for gaming and for watching movies and TV, the Optoma HD39HDR is one of a growing number of 1080p home projectors that can accept a 4K UHD (3,840-by-2,160-pixel) HDR signal and downconvert the resolution to 1080p. Some projectors in this category accept the input without really offering any of the benefits that high dynamic range promises for a wider color gamut or range of brightness levels. Others, including the Optoma, make good use of HDR. In my tests, the HD39HDR delivered more-vibrant color and far better shadow detail when I played the 4K HDR versions of movies on my Blu-ray player than when playing the 1080p SDR versions of the same titles.

Samsung Galaxy S20 FE 5G Review: Perfect Balance of Power and Price

The Samsung Galaxy S20 FE is everything you need and nothing else. Samsung pared down its flagship S20 series to a more palatable price, and the result is a value-minded standard-bearer to properly face up against the forthcoming iPhone 12 line. With fast performance, solid cameras, and often substantial discounts at major wireless providers, the S20 FE 5G becomes our default Android phone recommendation for 2020 as well as our Editors’ Choice.

Lenovo ThinkPad X13 (AMD): A Solid Contender

The celebrated ThinkPad X1 Carbon isn’t the only compelling ultraportable in Lenovo’s business lineup. If that 14-inch premium laptop is a bit too rich for your blood, consider the ThinkPad X13, a 13.3-inch model available with either Intel or AMD CPU silicon under the hood. The AMD Ryzen-based system we tested starts at just $683 and is $1,004 in our specific test configuration—much more affordable than the Carbon, which is compensation for the X13 weighing more (2.8 versus 2.4 pounds) despite its slightly smaller screen. The X13’s six-core Ryzen 5 Pro 4650U processor gives it impressive performance, though we could wish for a couple more hours of battery life. And the X13’s keyboard and construction quality are up to ThinkPad standards—faultless. If your budget doesn’t stretch to the Carbon or a Dell XPS 13, this is a first-class option.

How to Avoid Running Out of Storage Space on Any Device

With storage space costing so little these days, it’s easy to forget about it until you get a warning that your phone, computer, or cloud storage account is nearly full. Our accounts always seem to run out of storage at the most inopportune times, though, so keeping an eye on your storage usage is a good idea. Even checking in on it only once or twice a year can help you make sure you’re not close to the limit. If you are, set aside a few minutes to check the files that are taking up the most space and decide whether you want to move or delete them.