Author Archives: Carol Edwards

We’re calling it now: Air fryers are the Instant Pot of 2019. 

We’re always on the lookout for new kitchen gadgets that will make cooking easier and more fun —so pumped was an understatement we first heard claims of a countertop appliance that can make our favorite greasy foods less unhealthy, all with speed similar to an Instant Pot. Air fryers started popping into mainstream eye in Spring 2017, and now that they’ve had their chance to marinate in the market (food pun intended), it feels like an appropriate time to compare the best ones.

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While we toil on travel sites looking to save a couple of bucks on a squishy flight, spare a thought (or your jealousy) for these people who snagged the travel deal of a lifetime.

Cathay Pacific sold premium business and first-class tickets from the U.S. to Vietnam for a fraction of the price, thanks to an error on the airline’s website.

Spotted by travel bloggers on New Year’s Eve, return first class fares between New York and Hanoi were going for $1,100, which would usually set you back about $16,000.

For the cost-conscious, you could’ve picked up a return business class flight to Da Nang from several U.S. cities from $675. These tickets usually go for around $6,000.  Read more…

More about Travel, Transportation, Cathay Pacific, Culture, and Transportation

Yikes! Talk about not starting 2019 off on the right foot.

After briefly halting trading of its stock on Wednesday, Apple CEO Tim Cook shared a letter with investors revising the company’s guidance for revenue for the first quarter of 2019. 

Cook pins the lower revenue projections on a number of factors, including “challenges in emerging markets” and “economic deceleration, particularly in Greater China,” as well as factors like “US dollar strength-related price increases” and customers choosing to replace their existing iPhone batteries instead of buying new iPhones. 

Of course, there’s no one reason why Apple’s making less money. But it mostly boils down to pricing. Read more…

More about Apple, Iphone, Smartphones, Tech, and Iphone

Sure, spiders are scary enough to send some people into a tizzy. 

For one Australian man with a serious fear of the arachnid, his rather intense vocal reaction resulted in multiple police units attending the scene.

On Wednesday morning in Perth, Western Australia, a bystander heard a man inside a property repeatedly shouting the words “why don’t you die,” with the sounds of a toddler screaming in the background,. They naturally called police. 

It turns out the man was only trying to kill a spider.

Western Australian Police posted a screenshot of the interaction on Twitter, however, the tweet was later deleted as officers aren’t meant to screenshot police systems. Read more…

More about Australia, Animals, Police, Spiders, and Culture

There’s still hope for Google’s gesture-sensing radar tech, Project Soli.

The project, which Google first showed off in 2015, uses a combination of radar and sensors to create gesture controllers for everyday objects. So instead of controlling a smartwatch by tapping on a display, for instance, you could quickly rub or tap your fingers together.

The product of Google’s secretive Advanced Technology and Projects (ATAP) lab, Google has teased a few prototypes over the years, but hasn’t said much about Soli publicly since its last update at Google I/O in 2016.

But now we know the project is still alive. Despite its relative silence over the last two years, Google has been working behind the scenes to get FCC approval in order to test its sensors at higher power levels than what’s currently allowed. That permission has now been granted, with the FCC giving Soli its sign-off last week in a filing that was first spotted by Reuters. Read more…

More about Tech, Gadgets, Google, Tech, and Big Tech Companies

General Motors’ electric goals are catching up to Tesla.

The American car company reportedly reached 200,000 electric vehicle sales in the U.S. since it started selling the zero-emission vehicles. A company spokesperson said official numbers would be released Thursday. That number is significant, because once a car maker reaches 200,000 electric vehicles sold, a hefty federal tax credit starts phasing out.

Tesla hit the threshold in July, so the $7,500 began to phase out on Dec. 31. As of Jan. 1, buyers can apply for the credit for only $3,750. For GM, the subsidy will fully disappear in April 2020, according to Reuters. For would-be GM car buyers, now’s the time to buy an electric vehicle to apply for the full $7,500 tax credit. It will be halved by July. Read more…

More about Tesla, Electric Vehicles, Gm, Tax Credit, and Tech

Start your year off with a dose of wholesomeness. 

Redditor u/bork1138 took a picture of their parents’ heartwarming tradition of competing in Mario Kart 64 to decide who has to make the daily tea. According to bork1138, they’ve been doing this “religiously” for the past 18 years. 

Here’s a photo of the couple in an almost identical position in 2014:

The OP says their father’s go-to character is always Toad, and their mother mains Wario for battle and Yoshi for Grand Prix. 

“Just a collision can lose a balloon,” bork1138 wrote about their mother’s love for Wario.

The parents usually play a round of Grand Prix and then a “best of 3” on Battle before choosing who has to make the tea. Read more…

More about Games, Reddit, Culture, and Web Culture

In 2009, Disney paid $4 billion to acquire Marvel. Less than 10 years later, in 2018, Marvel movies accounted for more than half of Disney’s $7.3 billion box office haul.

I’d say that was a good investment, wouldn’t you?

In Disney’s final box office tally of 2018, just three movies accounted for slightly more than $4 billion in global ticket salesAvengers: Infinity War and Black Panther account for the lion’s share with $2.05 billion for the former and $1.35 billion for the latterAnt-Man‘s global box office of $623 million brought in the rest. Read more…

More about Entertainment, Disney, Marvel, Star Wars, and Box Office

New year, new you. Or, in the case of Apple, new drastically reduced revenue projections for the first quarter of 2019 — leading to a temporary pause in the trading of Apple stock. 

In a Jan. 2 letter to investors, Apple CEO Tim Cook explained that things aren’t exactly going as the company had hoped. Specifically, it expects to rake in a smaller pile of cash, and says that the Chinese market is partly to blame. 

“While we anticipated some challenges in key emerging markets, we did not foresee the magnitude of the economic deceleration, particularly in Greater China,” writes Cook. “In fact, most of our revenue shortfall to our guidance, and over 100 percent of our year-over-year worldwide revenue decline, occurred in Greater China across iPhone, Mac and iPad.” Read more…

More about Apple, Iphone, Tech, and Big Tech Companies

Filing your taxes can be complicated and tedious. While April 15 may still feel like the distant future, the truth is that many people will wait until the last minute to finish their taxes just under the wire. 

However, there are some people who finish their taxes within weeks of the new year so they can get their tax return in the mail as soon as possible. This is a smart move — especially when you consider all the early deals on tax software that are already floating around.

We know doing your taxes isn’t the most glamorous way to spend your time, but we found amazing deals on tax software from Quicken, Intuit, TurboTax, H&R Block, and more to guide you through the mind-numbing process. The faster you submit your tax return, the faster you’ll get your money back. Read more…

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