Going to offline stores to shop for clothes is a pain. It’s time consuming because you can spend hours you likely don’t have trying to find that hidden gem among the clothing racks. That’s why we prefer online shopping, and probably you do too with clothing subscriptions enter the scene. But finding the best online clothing subscription for your needs can be tricky. We’re here to help. There are plenty of options for spicing up your wardrobe, including many that are on trend for your specific lifestyle and fashion sense. Some of the best clothing subscription boxes focus on many varieties of clothing for all types of bodies.
A quick Google search returns dozens of clothing subscription services — many of which you’ve never heard of. Each one has its own unique features, but the services ultimately all work the same way.
Deciding on a particular service comes down to your needs, style preference and budget. Do you want a monthly box? Or will something quarterly do? Do you want to buy the clothes or use a rental service? Do you want a personal stylist or an algorithm? Do you want brand-new clothes or are you OK with curated thrift? Are you avoiding fast fashion in favor of something more sustainable? Do you have favorite brands you want to stick to?
These questions all matter, but the most important thing to know about any of these services is that even expert stylists can’t read your mind. The more information you can provide about your personal style and what you like (and don’t), the better your curated box of clothing will be.
I tried several clothing subscription boxes; here are the best of the bunch.
No summer adventure is complete without some tunes. And if you’re looking for a portable speaker that can handle just about anything you throw at it, then we’ve got a deal you won’t want to miss. The JBL Flip 6 is one of our overall favorite Bluetooth speakers of 2023, and right now you can snag one at a discount. Amazon currently has several color variants on sale for $90, which saves you $40 and matches the all-time lowest price we’ve seen on this speaker. But get your order in soon if you don’t want to miss out on these savings because there’s no telling how long this deal will last.
The JBL Flip 6 combines powerful audio with a compact and rugged design for versatile speaker that you can take just about anywhere. It boasts an IP67 weather-resistance rating, which means it’s fully protected against both water and dust, and the durable fabric and rubber housing help protect it against drops as well. Internally, it’s equipped with a 45mm driver and dual passive radiators for crisp, balanced audio with rich, full bass tones, and it’s easy to pair with Bluetooth 5.1 connectivity. And with an impressive 12-hour battery life, you can keep the party going all day or all night without having to worry about running out of juice.
NuPhy’s Air96 could be the one and only mechanical keyboard you’ll need for work and play, wherever you do those things. Its low-profile design makes it super easy to pack away, and its sturdy aluminum frame gives you peace of mind knowing it can survive a bumpy morning commute. This keyboard’s minimalistic design fits everywhere from your work-from-home setup to your office desk to a cafe table with a tablet.
The model I tested came with NuPhy’s Aloe linear switches that provide a smooth typing experience paired with NuPhy’s Ionic White keycaps. I swapped the original keycaps with the company’s shine-through keycaps to increase the visibility of the letters in low light; they were hard to see at times when gaming at night. This also created a nice contrast between the white base and black keycaps and grabbed the attention of more than a few people who saw it and asked about the keyboard with interest.
NuPhy offers a number of other keycap sets that I can see adding a touch of color while maintaining its simple aesthetic. The keyboard’s switches are hot-swappable, too, and NuPhy has a variety of switch options to mix and match with the keycaps to customize the Air96 to your liking.
But if you are looking to customize this keyboard with other keycaps, that’s where things get tricky. Technically, the keyboard is compatible with any keycap that uses a cherry stem, but this is a low-profile keyboard, which is why it’s so travel-friendly, and depending on the profile and height of the keycaps you choose, they might not be able to press the key down far enough for the keystroke to register.
When it comes to switches, the same low-profile hitch applies, and your options get even slimmer with only NuPhy’s selection of their own four switches, eight from Gateron and another six from Kailh. That’s a fair amount, but still more limiting than full-height switch options. Similar to standard switches, though, the slim selection of low-profile switches range from $26 to $54 to complete the 100-key Air96. Right now low-profile mechanical keyboards aren’t as popular — or plentiful — as standard-profile mechanical keyboards, so the variety in them is still very limited.
The keyboard is wireless via Bluetooth or 2.4GHz with the included USB dongle, and is powered by a 4,000mAh battery. It’s big enough that you’ll type a long time between charges. When you’re not actively using it, the Air96 disconnects after a few minutes of no use and reconnects quickly to allow you to resume whatever you’re doing.
I mainly used it wirelessly via Bluetooth for work, but it can be used wired with the provided USB-C-to-USB-A braided cable. Connecting wirelessly and switching from my MacBook for work to my Windows computer for gaming was easy with a key command and a flick of a switch.
One of the most enjoyable features of the Air96 is its dedicated MacOS shortcut keys. Most mechanical keyboards offer only a swappable Windows and Command key, so having dedicated keys like a screenshot and Launchpad key helped increase productivity. Sure you can customize macros with Nuphy’s Console software, but here it’s already given to you.
For $120, the Air96 is well worth it for its sturdy, low-profile design, battery life and features that are typically found in many other full-sized mechanical keyboards that start at $200.
With an estimated 220 million subscribers, Spotify is arguably one of the most popular music and audio streaming platforms in the world. CNET also ranks Spotify as one of the best music streaming services on the market and gave it a 2022 Editors’ Choice Award.
Spotify lets you listen to music wherever you are, recommends new songs based on your activity and provides fun, personalized streaming data at the end of every year in its Spotify Wrapped experience. You can also make and share collaborative playlists with friends on social media or with the whole world through the app.
If you feel like something is missing from your listening experience, though, Spotify lets you take control of various settings to make your music sound more superb. That way whether you’re in a quiet library, on your morning commute or pumping some iron in the gym, your music will always fit the mood.
Here’s how to adjust and perfect your Spotify listening experience no matter what the situation.
Adjust your base volume to match your environment
Volume is pretty easy to figure out, but did you know Spotify lets premium users adjust the base volume of the app depending on their environment? You can select either Quiet, Normal or Loud, and each has its own benefit.
Quiet will make songs a little quieter and sound cleaner, making it a good choice if you’re relaxing at home. Normal makes songs play at a medium base volume, and the sound is less crisp than Quiet. This is a good choice for most people and situations. Loud is — you guessed it — louder, but you might lose some audio quality because of the loudness. This option is good if you’re at the gym or other similarly noisy environments.
Here’s how to adjust the base volume on your iPhone:
1. Open the Spotify app and tap on your profile picture in the upper left corner. 2. Tap the gear icon to open the Setting and privacy menu. 3. Tap Playback. 4. Under Volume level there are three options: Loud, Normal and Quiet. Pick whichever option works for you, and Spotify will adjust the sound accordingly.
If you’re using the Spotify app on a Mac, here’s how to adjust the base volume:
1. Open Spotify. 2. Click on your profile picture, then select Settings. 3. Under Audio Quality, you should see Volume level. 4. Click the drop-down bar to the right of Volume level. 5. From here, you see the same Loud, Normal and Quiet options.
Here’s how to adjust the base volume if you’re using the Spotify app on an Android device:
1. Open Spotify. 2. Tap the gear icon to access Settings. 3. Under Playback you should see Volume Level. 4. Next to Volume Level you should see the Loud, Normal and Quiet options. Pick the one you want.
Finally, here’s how to adjust the base volume in Spotify while on a Windows computer:
1. Open Spotify. 2. Click your account name in the top-right corner. 3. Click Settings. 4. Under Audio Quality, you should see Volume level. Click the drop-down bar to the right. 5. Select either Loud, Normal or Quiet.
Use the Spotify equalizer for more control
If you prefer being more hands-on with how your bass and treble come across in each song, you can adjust the in-app equalizer. Adjusting your bass affects lower-frequency sounds, making your music sound deeper with increased bass or flatter with less bass. Treble affects the higher sound frequencies, making your music sound brighter and crisper with increased treble, or duller and kind of muddied with less treble.
Here’s how to access the equalizer on your iPhone:
1. Open Spotify. 2. Tap your profile picture in the upper left corner to access Settings and privacy. 3. Tap Playback. 4. Scroll down and tap Equalizer. 5. Read below about how to find the perfect fit.
Here’s how to access the equalizer on your Android device:
1. Open Spotify. 2. Tap the gear icon to access Settings. 3. Under Audio quality, tap Equalizer.
iPhones and Android devices both feature a manual equalizer slider and a handful of premade genre-based equalizers.
You should see the manual equalizer slider, which looks like a line graph with six dots. When you first get to this page, the equalizer should be flat.
Each dot on the graph can be adjusted for more or less sound. The far left bar represents your bass, the far right bar controls your treble and the middle bars control — you guessed it — your midrange. You can tweak the bars as you see fit.
There are also genre-based equalizers on this page. You can pick which genre you’re listening to and the app automatically adjusts the sliders to optimize for that style of music. After picking one, you can further adjust the sliders for the perfect listening experience.
If you want to reset the equalizer, there’s a genre-based equalizer called Flat. This will reset the equalizer to its default.
You can also access the equalizer on your Windows computer. Here’s how.
1. Open the Spotify app. 2. Click your profile in the top right corner of the window. 3. Click Settings. 4. Click the slider next to Equalizer.
Now you can adjust the equalizer slider as you see fit. You can also click the dropdown menu next to Presets to access the genre-based equalizers.
The Mac version of Spotify doesn’t have an in-application equalizer. But you can search for an equalizer application to help you in your journey to find the best sound.
Adjust the quality of your music for a clearer sound
You can also adjust the audio quality of your music. This is handy if you’re using mobile data and want to save money on your phone bill, as reducing the audio quality takes up less bandwidth and uses less data. Increasing the quality of your music should let you hear the finer details of the music and give you a clearer listening experience.
Here’s how to change the audio quality on mobile and tablet:
1. Open the Spotify app. 2. Tap your profile picture to access Settings. 3. Tap Audio Quality. 4. Under WiFi streaming and Cellular streaming, you can select Automatic, Low, Normal or High. The Automatic option adjusts the audio quality to whatever your signal strength is. If you’re a paid subscriber, you’ll see a fifth option under both WiFi streaming and Cellular streaming called Very high.
How to change the audio quality on your desktop:
1. Open Spotify. 2. Click on your profile picture to access Settings. 3. Under Audio Quality, click the drop-down menu next to Streaming quality. 4. Choose between Low, Normal, High or Automatic options, and paid subscribers also have the Very high option.
You can also adjust the audio quality of your music. This is handy if you’re using mobile data and don’t want to bump up your phone bill. Reducing the audio quality will use less data.
For more on Spotify, see which Spotify plan is best for you and how Spotify stacks up against Apple Music.
The pick of this weekend’s opening fixtures of the 2023-24 Premier League season sees Chelsea host Liverpool in a battle of the giants clash at Stamford Bridge.
The match sees former Spurs boss Mauricio Pochettino take charge of the Blues in the league for the first time, with a much-overhauled side set to take to the field on Sunday from the one which endured such a miserable campaign last term.
Thirteen players have left, while five signings have arrived at Stamford Bridge, including new 32million striker Nicolas Jackson.
There’s also been plenty of upheaval at Liverpool during the summer break, with inspirational skipper Jordan Henderson and the experienced Fabinho having left the club, while Dominik Szoboszlai and Alexis Mac Allister are two exciting new additions to the Red first team that are both likely to start here.
Sunday’s game looks set to have an added edge after it emerged on Friday that Chelsea had somehow managed to hijack Liverpool’s almost completed move for highly-rated Brighton midfielder Moises Caicedo.
Below, we’ll outline the best live TV streaming services to use to watch all of the action live wherever you are in the world.
Chelsea vs. Liverpool: When and where?
Chelsea host Liverpoolat Stamford Bridge on Sunday, Aug. 13. Kickoff is set for 4:30 p.m. BST (11:30 a.m. ET, 8:30 p.m PT).
How to watch the Chelsea vs. Liverpool game online from anywhere using a VPN
If you find yourself unable to view the game locally, you may need a different way to watch the game — that’s where using a VPN can come in handy. A VPN is also the best way to stop your ISP from throttling your speeds on game day by encrypting your traffic, and it’s also a great idea if you’re traveling and find yourself connected to a Wi-Fi network, and you want to add an extra layer of privacy for your devices and logins.
With a VPN, you’re able to virtually change your location on your phone, tablet or laptop to get access to the game. So if your internet provider or mobile carrier has stuck you with an IP address that incorrectly shows your location in a blackout zone, a VPN can correct that problem by giving you an IP address in your correct, non-blackout area. Most VPNs, like our Editors’ Choice, ExpressVPN, make it really easy to do this.
Using a VPN to watch or stream sports is legal in any country where VPNs are legal, including the US, UK and Canada, as long as you have a legitimate subscription to the service you’re streaming. You should be sure your VPN is set up correctly to prevent leaks: Even where VPNs are legal, the streaming service may terminate the account of anyone it deems to be circumventing correctly applied blackout restrictions.
Looking for other options? Be sure to check out some of the other great VPN deals taking place right now.
Livestream the Chelsea vs. Liverpool game in the US
Sunday’s Chelsea-Liverpool match is streaming on Peacock. You’ll need a Peacock Premium or Premium Plus account to catch the game live.
Livestream the Chelsea vs. Liverpool game in the UK
Premier League rights in the UK are split between Sky Sports, Amazon Prime Video and TNT Sports (previously known as BT Sport). The Chelsea-Liverpool game is exclusive to Sky Sports — showing on its Sky Sports Main Event, Premier League and Ultra channels. If you already have Sky Sports as part of your TV package, you can stream the game via its Sky Go app, but cord-cutters will want to get set up with a Now account and a Now Sports membership to stream the game.
Livestream the Chelsea vs. Liverpool game in Canada
If you want to stream Chelsea vs. Liverpool live in Canada, you’ll need to subscribe to FuboTV Canada. The service has exclusive rights for this Premier League season.
Livestream the Chelsea vs. Liverpool game in Australia
Football fans Down Under can watch this EPL fixture on streaming service Optus Sport, which is showing every single Premier League game live in Australia this season.
Quick tips for streaming the Premier League using a VPN
With four variables at play — your ISP, browser, video streaming provider and VPN — your experience and success when streaming EPL matches may vary.
If you don’t see your desired location as a default option for ExpressVPN, try using the “search for city or country” option.
If you’re having trouble getting the game after you’ve turned on your VPN and set it to the correct viewing area, there are two things you can try for a quick fix. First, log into your streaming service subscription account and make sure the address registered for the account is an address in the correct viewing area. If not, you may need to change the physical address on file with your account. Second, some smart TVs — like Roku — don’t have VPN apps you can install directly on the device itself. Instead, you’ll have to install the VPN on your router or the mobile hotspot you’re using (like your phone) so that any device on its Wi-Fi network now appears in the correct viewing location.
All of the VPN providers we recommend have helpful instructions on their main site for quickly installing the VPN on your router. In some cases with smart TV services, after you install a cable network’s sports app, you’ll be asked to verify a numeric code or click a link sent to your email address on file for your smart TV. This is where having a VPN on your router will also help, since both devices will appear to be in the correct location.
And remember, browsers can often give away a location despite using a VPN, so be sure you’re using a privacy-first browser to log into your services. We normally recommend Brave.
News flash: If you want the best TV, it’s gonna cost you. The LG G3 is the highest-performance television I have ever reviewed, and I’ve tested a lot of screens in my 20-plus years of reviewing. This TV balances the perfect contrast and black level of OLED with an image that’s brighter and more impactful-looking than other OLED TVs I’ve seen, including its chief rival, the Samsung S95C – which happens to be the second-best TV I’ve ever reviewed.
I compared the two side-by-side in CNET’s TV lab and both outperformed the other, less-expensive 2023 OLED TVs I had on hand – and in turn, OLED TVs have always looked better in my tests than non-OLED models, like mini-LED and QLED-based displays. The catch? The G3 is really expensive –and for most high-end TV shoppers something like the LG C3, which costs hundreds less, is plenty good.
If you happen to be that lucky TV shopper with extra money and a desire for world-beating images, however, the LG G3 is something special indeed. The secret is an entirely new display technology LG is calling “MLA,” which stands for micro-lens array. Billions of tiny lenses inside the OLED panel help focus the light, reduce scatter and improve efficiency. No other TV has this technology, and from what I’ve seen, it works very well to make OLED, the best TV screen technology, look even better.
LG G3 sizes, series comparison
I performed a hands-on evaluation of the 65-inch LG G3 OLED TV, but this review also applies to the other screen sizes in the series. The three smaller sizes have very similar specs and should provide very similar picture quality. The largest size, the 83-inch model, lacks LG’s MLA tech so it’s not as bright – LG claims it has the same brightness as last year’s G2.
OLED83G3PUA, 83-inch
OLED77G3PUA, 77-inch
OLED65G3PUA, 65-inch
OLED55G3PUA, 55-inch
The G3 series sits at the top of LG’s 2023 OLED TV lineup. Spending less for the C3 loses you the bump in brightness and the sleek “Gallery” wall-friendly design, but it has more screen size options, namely 42- and 48-inch options (which are, notably, dimmer than the 55-inch and larger C3s). The less-expensive B3 is in turn dimmer than the C3 and lacks the company’s latest-generation A9 processor. The most-expensive models from 2022, specifically the 97-inch G2 and the 8K resolution Z2 models, will remain on sale this year rather than being replaced by “3” equivalents (and speaking of expensive, LG is also selling its new wireless 97-inch OLED TV for $30,000).
Flat and flush for wall-mounting, stand optional
The G in G3 stands for “gallery,” which is LG’s way of saying the TV is designed foremost for wall-mounting. It includes a special bracket that lets it hang close to the wall with almost no gap, and combined with the cabinet’s thin depth, it looks basically flush when seen from the side.
The downside is that, unlike pretty much every other TV, it doesn’t include a tabletop stand in the box. You can’t put this TV atop a credenza or other piece of furniture unless you purchase LG’s optional stand ($150 for the 65-inch size), which is pictured in these reviews. That’s kind of a bummer, but I’m guessing most people in the G3’s price, um… bracket, will choose to mount it on a wall.
LG kept the same remote, unfortunately. In my old age I’ve grown annoyed by too many highfalutin buttons, and I much prefer the streamlined, simple layout of Samsung and Roku/TCL remotes. As always, you can wave LG’s remote around to move the cursor, or scroll quickly through menus with the built-in wheel.
Smart TV? Get a Roku instead
LG’s redesigned menu system is less cluttered than last year’s but only because fully half of the screen is occupied by a big promotional space, which was showing an ad for LG’s free TV app when I saw it. Me no like. Below that is the marginally more useful row of “cards,” new for 2023, that offer things like the TV’s input, a game section, music and “home hub.”
The most useful card is the one for games, but it’s worse than Samsung, with a less-polished design and no access to Xbox Game Pass; instead LG only has Nvidia GeForce Now, Utomik and Blacknut cloud gaming (there’s a reason you’ve never heard of the latter two) in addition to Twitch, YouTube and a quick link for connected consoles. The sports card lets you set up alerts for favorite teams’ scores, which feels kinda useful to me, but overall the card row still feels like more wasted space. Only the bottom row, with actual streaming app icons, would get any use in my household.
In other words, I think most users of this high-end TV should just connect an external streaming device, like Roku or Apple TV, and avoid using LG’s system altogether.
The G3 also has a couple notable features LG debuted last year, namely a multiview that puts two images side-by-side – which remains limited and can’t show two HDMI sources – and the always-ready screen saver that can show clocks, art and other widgets when the TV is turned “off.” Elements of the latter move around the screen to reduce the possibility of burn-in.
Here’s where I remind you that, like all OLED TVs, the G3 is more subject to both temporary and permanent image retention, aka burn-in, than LCD TVs. The risk is small, which is why I don’t consider burn-in a reason for most people to avoid buying an OLED TV. Check out our guide to OLED burn-in for more.
Well-connected, especially for gamers
LG continues to excel at connection options. Like its competition the G3 has the latest version of the HDMI standard: 2.1. That means their HDMI ports can handle 4K at 120 frames per second and variable refresh rate, as well as enhanced audio return channel and automatic low-latency mode (auto game mode). In other words, they can take advantage of the latest graphics features available from PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X and S consoles as well as high-end graphics cards. All four of the G3’s HDMI ports support 4K/120 –great for hard-core gamers with multiple next-gen devices.
Four HDMI inputs with HDMI 2.1, HDCP 2.2
Three USB ports
Optical digital audio output
RF (antenna) input
RS-232 port (minijack, for service only)
Ethernet (LAN) port
Picture quality comparisons: LG G3 vs. Samsung S95C
For my side-by-side image quality comparison I lined the LG G3 up against three other OLED TVs: the Samsung S95C, the LG C3 and the Sony A80L. The G3 looked the best of all of them, nosing out the Samsung and beating the other two a bit more handily – although all three looked excellent.
TV and movies: Not surprisingly the two most expensive TVs, the Samsung and the LG G3, also looked the best. I started my comparison as usual with the natural scenes of mountains, forests and flowers from the Spears and Munsil benchmark, and the extra brightness of those two OLEDs was evident, in particular during specular highlights like glints of sun and bright snow.
The G3 looked brighter than the Samsung to my eye in most scenes, however, an impression confirmed by spot measurements using a handheld light meter. The setting sun at 2:10, for example, measured around 680 nits on the G3 and 476 on the Samsung, for example. This extra brightness made the image stand out in the lineup and combined with the perfect black levels of OLED, delivered spectacular contrast and overall image quality.
The Samsung was incredibly dynamic and bright in its own right, however, and beat the LG in color saturation. Its reds in particular, for example in the fields of tulips, a pile of strawberries or the bulb of a cactus, looked richer than those of the G3 and the other OLED TVs. Not to say that the G3’s color looked undersaturated by any means, but next to the QD-OLED the difference was clear, and in very colorful scenes, especially ones with lots of red, I preferred the look of the Samsung.
In mixed bright and dark scenes, however, the extra brightness of the G3 and its handling of shadows outshone the Samsung. A scene of Seattle at night, for example, showed more detail in the dark trees and realism in the shadows that was missing from the S95C.
Watching more cinematic scenes, the differences between the G3 and S95C was more pronounced. Watching The Witcher Season 3 on Netflix, for example, the G3 looked brighter and more impactful in darker scenes, for example around a camp at night. Faces in the firelight looked more natural and distinct while still looking natural – a difficult balance. I also appreciated its improved shadow detail in the near-black areas like a cityscape around a castle or the recesses of the banquet hall. Although the Samsung’s red again looked a bit deeper, its color advantage wasn’t as noticeable as before.
Both sets looked excellent, but again I preferred the look of the G3 in most scenes. In terms of picture mode on the LG, I generally liked the look of Filmmaker mode better than Cinema for theatrical material, although I can see some viewer’s preferring the latter’s even-brighter cast.
Gaming: The G3 remains a superb gaming TV, with more options in its Game Optimizer menu than other televisions, including the Samsung. It gathers all of the gaming settings in one place and verifies refresh rate, VRR status and more at a glance. I also appreciated the ability to edit the gaming dashboard to swap in more status indicators (resolution, Dolby Atmos and so on), but I’m pretty nerdy like that. Samsung’s Game bar has a cleaner design, however.
The Dark Room mode is designed to reduce eye fatigue, but it also dulls the image so I’d avoid using it unless you need to. Among the various gaming image modes I liked Standard best for most games with its balance of shadow detail and contrast. FPS is best if you want more visibility into shadows, or you can just crank the Black Stabilizer control up (at the expense of a washed-out image).
Comparing the image quality of Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla between the two TVs, the colors on the Samsung popped more than on the G3, although the grass and other “natural” objects looked more natural, and less neon on the LG. As with standard, non-gaming video the G3 also looked brighter, and its shadow detail advantage would be a boon in some dark games for seeing enemies.
Buried within Game Optimizer is another setting labeled “Reduce input delay (input lag)” with two options, Standard and Boost. The former, which is the default for any game, serves up an excellent input lag result: just 13.5ms for both 1080p and 4K HDR sources. Engaging Boost cuts lag even further, to just under 10ms for both, similar to the Samsung. The catch is that Boost is only available for 60Hz sources, so you can’t use it with 120Hz games or VRR. And no, I don’t think many humans would notice the extra 3ms of lag.
According to my Xbox’s details screen the G3 supported 4K/120Hz and VRR as well as Dolby Vision gaming (which Samsung does not support).
Bright lighting: With its combination of extreme brightness and improved anti-reflective screen, the G3 is easily the best OLED TV I’ve ever tested for bright rooms.
Below are my measurements in nits for select comparison TVs in their brightest and most accurate picture modes, using both standard dynamic range (SDR) and high dynamic range (HDR) test patterns.
Light output in nits
TV
Brightest mode (HDR)
Accurate mode (HDR)
Brightest mode (SDR)
Accurate mode (SDR)
Hisense U8H
1,867
1,867
1,605
1,605
TCL 65R655
1,387
1,194
1,292
624
LG OLED65G3
1,378
1,378
725
724
Samsung QN65S95C
1,348
1,326
238
648
LG OLED65C3
861
817
501
464
LG OLED65C2
812
759
413
389
The brightest mode for SDR (Vivid) is horribly inaccurate. For the accurate results listed above on the G3, I used ISF Expert Bright picture mode. Note that with SDR, you’ll need to disable the Auto Energy Saving setting (General > Energy Saving > Energy Saving Step > Off) and engage Peak Brightness (Picture > Advanced Settings > Brightness > (Peak Brightness: High) to get full brightness. HDR is a different and much simpler story. Cinema is the brightest mode and the most accurate, so you can set it and forget it regardless of room lighting.
The G3 maintained its peak brightness over time. I ran a test pattern for a full minute and it stayed the same brightness.
Like all OLED TVs, the G3’s brightness was significantly lower when a larger percentage of the screen was white. With windows larger than 10% of the screen its brightness fell steadily, hitting 454 nits with 50% of the screen white and reaching a low of 219 nits with a full 100% white screen. I’ve rarely noticed this drop-off when watching normal TV shows or movies, however, so I don’t consider it a big deal.
Seen side-by-side with the screen off or very dark material, it was obvious the G3 and C3 have different reflective characteristics. Bottom line: The G3 is better for bright rooms, and in fact has the best antireflective screen I’ve seen on any OLED TV. That’s because it dims reflections, for example a coffee table or couch captured by the screen, much better than the C3 or the Samsung S95C, so those objects are less distracting (a good thing). On the other hand the screen finish of the G3 was very slightly brighter than that of the C3 (a very dark shade of gray to the C3’s pure black), but the difference was minimal. The finish of the S95B, meanwhile, was markedly grayer under bright lights.
Uniformity and viewing angle: Like most OLEDs I’ve tested the G3 was exemplary in this area compared to LCD-based TVs, with no significant brightness or color variations across the screen and nearly perfect image quality from off-angle. It matched the other OLEDs in my lineup, too.
Picture setting notes
LG made some improvements to its picture settings menu. My favorite is the ability to edit the top level, letting me surface different settings for easy access and move around others. In addition to the standard litany of picture modes – Vivid, Cinema, Game Optimizer etc. – LG has a new “Personalized Picture” mode. Setting it up steps you through a series of images and asks you to choose which one you like best, and in the end an “AI” analyzes your choices and applies the mode. I gave it a whirl and the wizard said I liked a “Clear” picture, which it applied to the image. Unfortunately it didn’t look very good to my eye, and when I measured it the image was horribly inaccurate, so my advice is to stick with one of the (accurate) preset modes rather than the wizard.
According to my measurements Filmmaker was the most-accurate preset mode with HDR, but Cinema and Cinema Home were both exceedingly accurate too. I chose Cinema for brighter HDR viewing, in part because it delivered a significantly brighter image than Filmmaker, but the latter was more balanced for darker, cinematic content. For SDR I also went with Cinema because it was quite accurate and targeted my preferred 2.2 gamma (Filmmaker targeted 2.4). Both ISF modes were also quite accurate.
Game Optimizer is best for gaming, thanks to its processing, but quite blue; for the best color accuracy for gaming you should adjust the color temperature control toward red (Picture > Advanced Settings > Color > White Balance > Color temperature).
Like most TVs the G3 offers settings that engage smoothing, aka the soap opera effect, as I prefer to turn it off for TV shows and movies (and it’s off in Game Optimizer mode because it increases input lag). You can experiment with the settings (Picture > Advanced Settings > Clarity > TruMotion).
Your streaming subscriptions for Netflix, Spotify, Disney Plus and other accounts are probably all on autopay. Because you don’t have to think about due dates, that may mean you’ve overlooked the monthly expense or who to contact if you want to cancel. You could be spending more money than you want by paying for a phantom streaming service.
Is Netflix billing you directly? Has your forgotten Hulu 30-day free trial turned into a paid subscription? Did you buy your Disney Plus subscription through a third party like Apple, Amazon or Verizon? With all the streaming price changes creeping in, unwatched content, and missed opportunities for deals, it’s a good idea to keep up with who’s billing you, when and for how much. Luckily, there are apps that can make keeping track of your streaming subs a lot easier.
Here’s our list of recommendations for apps that help you track payments for your streaming service subscriptions. Most of these offer a free option, but you can upgrade to a paid version if you want extra features.
Read more: Keep Up With What’s Streaming on TV Using These 5 Free Apps
Slack wants to make it easier for you to find all your work conversations and keep multiple workplaces organized. The chat app’s first major redesign in years has rearranged things, but if you’re concerned that it’s drastically changed, don’t worry — here’s where everything has shifted to a new and hopefully more convenient setup.
Slack last rearranged its layout in March 2020, ironically right as COVID spread to pandemic levels and lockdowns forced people to work from home and rely heavily on work chat apps. After gathering feedback from users since then, the new update is rolling out Wednesday to free users first, with paid users to follow.
The interface hasn’t drastically changed, but Slack user veterans will notice the difference. The left column has been reorganized to have centralized tabs for your channels (“Home”), direct messages (“DMs”) and notifications (“Activity”). There’s also a “Later” tab that appears only if you’ve tagged posts you want to return to later on. Toward the bottom on the left column is a search button and a new catch-all button to create a start a new direct message, huddle or canvas (a feature launched earlier this year as a sort of channel-wide sticky note).
The rest of Slack is still virtually the same. Tapping the “Home” tab shows a central column of channels and unread direct messages — click on any of those and they’ll expand in the main space on the right.
The color scheme has changed to help you distinguish between the leftmost column of tabs and the central channels column. (In a provided example, a darker purple for the former and a lighter purple for the latter. The update also brings more theme color choices.) And if you’re switching between multiple workplace Slacks, just click the button on the lefthand column above the “Home” tab.
Slack’s designers made these changes to help you stay focused and less distracted, said Slack senior director of product design Tina Chen. “We try to keep the interface as simple as possible and as intuitive as possible,” she said.
What else has changed on Slack?
There are quality-of-life updates too. If you hover your cursor over Activity notifications, a small preview will pop up to give you a peek at what’s going on elsewhere — to see if you need to address it now or come back to it later.
Mobile view is also getting an update. The bottom row of tabs has been simplified to just Home, DMs and Activity. Search has been relocated to a bar that sticks around at the top of the screen no matter which tab you’re looking at, while tapping your photo icon brings up your profile and preferences.
This big cross-platform update is an attempt to align mobile and desktop versions — indeed, most of the new changes were explored in part in the mobile app as well as in an iPad version update released last year. But since so many users depend on Slack for their day-to-day productivity, the company didn’t want to trickle in layout changes bit by bit on desktop. Instead, they dropped this big shift all at once to consolidate them for as short of an adjustment as possible.
The update also opens up design space for Slack to add features down the line, including artificial intelligence. While the company didn’t have anything specific in mind or anything to announce, Slack introduced its vision of AI integration back in May, which will allow you to add your choice of AI large language models, like OpenAI’s ChatGPT or Anthropic’s Claude, in your Slack workspace to help with day-to-day tasks.
I regularly shop at Target, in stores and online, especially now that I have an infant. But I didn’t always know about the retail giant’s loyalty program, Target Circle. Now when I shop, I first browse the Target app to check out offers, see how much money I’ve earned to use toward my purchase and download digital coupons.
If you’ve never used Target Circle, it’s easy to sign up and it’s free to use. There are some great perks that come with being a rewards program member — for instance, exclusive offers and savings.
I’ll explain how Target Circle works to save you money and how you can earn cash back while you shop — without a credit card. For more, check out these four ways to save on your next Target shopping spree.
What is Target Circle?
Target Circle is the retailer’s loyalty program, which lets you earn 1% cash back on all your purchases at Target. The program includes personalized offers and digital coupons that you wouldn’t normally get without being a Circle member.
Target Circle benefits
Having a Target Circle membership gets you benefits and deals that other shoppers don’t get. Here’s what they are.
1% earnings on every purchase you make at Target. You can use any cashback on future purchases. Even better: If you have a Target RedCard, you can earn 5% cash back.
Birthday gift of 5% off your purchase.
Digital coupons for specific store categories — 20% off baby clothes, for example, and 10% off beauty products.
Personalized bonus offers — for example, you may get a deal that lets you make two qualifying purchases of $60 or more to earn a $10 reward in Target Circle earnings.
You can use up to 75 offers at once. Note that all offers and earnings have an expiration date, so make sure you use them before it’s too late.
How to sign up for Target Circle
If you regularly shop at Target, there’s really no reason not to sign up for its loyalty program. To sign up, visit target.com/circle and click Create account, then provide your email address, name and phone number. You’ll also create a password at this time.
How to use Target Circle rewards
Once you’ve got a Target Circle account, you can begin using it at any time. Make sure you’ve activated any offers and coupons before you head to checkout. If you’re in the store, you just need to enter your phone number on the keypad at checkout or scan your Target Circle barcode.
If you forget to enter your phone number at checkout, enter the receipt numbers on the Target Circle dashboard or use the app to scan the barcode.
If you’re shopping online, just make sure you’re signed in to your account before checking out. You should see all your discounts applied in your cart.
How to redeem Target Circle earnings
After making purchases, you earn 1% cash back that you can use on future trips to the store. There’s no purchase minimum to redeem your earnings, and you can use them at any time on anything you’d like.
To redeem them in-store, head to the Wallet section in the Target app or online. Toggle the switch next to Target Circle earnings. It’ll show you how much you have available to use on a purchase. You’ll then select the box next to your earnings and click Save. Note that your earnings will expire if they aren’t redeemed within one year.
If using online, you’ll be given the option at checkout to apply your earnings.
Bonus: You can even use your Target Circle earnings at Starbucks inside Target.
Get these deals through these Target partners
Target has partnered with several other companies to give Circle rewards members additional deals. Here’s what they are.
Apple News free for three months.
Tripadvisor Plus free for one year.
MLS season pass free for one month.
AppleTV Plus free for three months.
Apple Arcade free for three months.
Apple Fitness Plus free for four months.
Apple Music free for three months.
iCloud Plus free for three months.
Earn Ultimate Rewards when you buy Ulta Beauty products.
For more Target shopping tips, here’s a Target clearance cheat sheet to help you get more and spend less. Also, if you’re interested in Target’s RedCard, read this.
Zoom was in the news this week, and not just because the videoconferencing company that helped popularize remote work decided that many of its employees need to return to the office two days a week (a new policy that inspired many memes).
The news that lands it in the top spot in this AI roundup is the backlash after Hacker News spotted that “an update to Zoom’s terms and conditions in March appeared to essentially give the company free rein to slurp up voice, video and other data, and shovel it into machine learning systems,” Wired noted.
So earlier this week, Zoom Chief Product Officer Smita Hasham said the company revised its terms of service, promising users that it “does not use any of your audio, video, chat, screen-sharing, attachments, or other communications like customer content (such as poll results, whiteboard, and reactions) to train Zoom’s or third-party artificial intelligence models.”
But it may in the future — if you give your consent, I expect. Consent is the operative word these days these days as authors, like Sarah Silverman and Margaret Atwood, call out AI chatbot makers including OpenAI and Google for slurping up their copyrighted content without permission or compensation to train AI systems and as the Federal Trade Commission investigates OpenAI about whether it’s mishandling users’ personal information.
Google isn’t as coy about what’s powering Bard, saying in a filing this week with the Australian government that “copyright law should be altered to allow for generative AI systems to scrape the internet.” I mean, that’s how Google Search came into being after all. But Google also said there should be “workable opt-out for entities that prefer their data not be trained in using AI systems,” according to reporting by The Guardian, which added “the company has not said how such a system should work.”
TL;DR: Expect many more lawsuits, licensing agreements and discussions with regulatory agencies in the US and around the world about how AI companies should and shouldn’t obtain the data they need to train the large language models that power these chatbots.
As Wired noted, in the US where there is no federal privacy law protecting consumers from businesses that rely on collecting and reselling data: “Many tech companies already profit from our information, and many of them like Zoom are now on the hunt for ways to source more data for generative AI projects. And yet it is up to us, the users, to try to police what they are doing.”
Here are the other doings in AI worth your attention.
AI as an expert shopping assistant
Preparing for her first marathon in November, CNET reporter Bree Fowler tried out AI-powered, shoe-fitting software from Fleet Feet, a national chain of specialty running stores, to help her find the right sneakers.
Despite her skepticism about its capabilities, Fowler found that the Fit Engine software analyzed “the shapes of both of a runner’s feet (collected through a 3D scan process called Fit ID) taking precise measurements in four different areas. It looks at not just how long a person’s feet are, but also how high their arches are, how wide their feet are across the toes and how much room they need at their heel.”
In the end, Fowler learned her feet were a larger size than she thought. And after trying on “many, many” shoes, she was able after an hour to narrow it down to two pairs (one of which was on sale). But if you think the AI software is the be-all, end-all in the speciality shoe selection process, think again. Even the retail experience manager for the Fleet Feet New York store she visited said the tool is there to just assist human employees and give them a starting point for finding shoes with the correct fit.
“It turns the data into something much more understandable for the consumer,” Fleet Feet’s Michael McShane told Fowler. “I’m still here to give you an expert assessment, teach you what the data says and explain why it’s better to come here than going to a kind of generic store.”
Disney sees an AI world, after all
As actors and other creative professionals continue to strike against Hollywood studios over how AI might affect or displace their jobs in the future, Reuters, citing unnamed sources, says that Walt Disney has “created a task force to study artificial intelligence and how it can be applied across the entertainment conglomerate.” The report adds that the company is “looking to develop AI applications in-house as well as form partnerships with startups.” The gist: Disney is looking to AI to see how it can cut costs when it comes to producing movies and TV shows, one source told Reuters.
Disney declined to comment to Reuters, but like many other companies, it has job postings on its site that suggest where its interests in AI lie.
Some interesting AI stats
In a 24-page, Aug. 1 survey called “The state of AI in 2023: Generative AI’s breakout year,” McKinsey & Co. said it found that less than a year after generative AI tools like ChatGPT were released, a third of survey respondents are already using gen AI tools for at least one business function.
“Amid recent advances, AI has risen from a topic relegated to tech employees to a focus of company leaders: nearly one-quarter of surveyed C-suite executives say they are personally using gen AI tools for work, and more than one-quarter of respondents from companies using AI say gen AI is already on their boards’ agendas,” the researcher found.
“What’s more, 40 percent of respondents say their organizations will increase their investment in AI overall because of advances in gen AI. The findings show that these are still early days for managing gen AI–related risks, with less than half of respondents saying their organizations are mitigating even the risk they consider most relevant: inaccuracy.”
Meanwhile, in a report called Automation Now and Next: State of Intelligent Automation Report 2023, the 1,000 automation executives surveyed said that AI will help boost productivity. “As we automate the more tedious part of their work, employee satisfaction surveys result is better. Employees are more engaged. They’re happier. That we can measure via surveys. The bots essentially do what people used to do, which is repetitive, low-value tasks,” a CTO of a large health care organization said as part of the survey, which can be found here.
That study was commissioned by Automation Anywhere, which describes itself as “a leader in AI-powered intelligent automation solutions,” so take the results with a grain of salt. But I will say those productivity findings are similar to what McKinsey, Goldman Sachs and others have been saying too.
And in case you had any doubt that gen AI adoption is a global phenomenon, I offer up this look at AI tech adoption by country by Electronics Hub, which says it analyzed Google search volumes for popular search tools. It found that the Philippines showed the “highest monthly search volume for AI tools overall.”
When AI systems go wrong
Besides hallucinating — making up stuff that isn’t true but sounds like it’s true — AIs also have the potential to mislead, misinform or just wreck havoc by misidentifying say, a respected researcher and Dutch politician as a terrorist, as happened recently.
To catalog the ways that AI can go wrong, there’s now an AI Incident Database, which says it’s “dedicated to indexing the collective history of harms or near harms realized in the real world by the deployment of artificial intelligence systems. Like similar databases in aviation and computer security, the AI Incident Database aims to learn from experience so we can prevent or mitigate bad outcomes.”
You’re invited to submit any AI errors, blunders, mishaps or problems you see to the database, which has already earned the nickname, “Artificial Intelligence Hall of Shame.”
Speaking of ways AI can go wrong, the Center for Countering Digital Hate released a 22-page report detailing “How generative AI is enabling users to generate harmful eating disorder content.” After prompting six AI platform and image generators, the center found that “popular AI tools generated harmful eating disorder content in response to 41% of a total 180 prompts, including advice on achieving a ‘heroin chic’ aesthetic and images for ‘thinspiration.’”
“Tech companies should design new products with safety in mind, and rigorously test them before they get anywhere near the public,” the center’s CEO, Imran Ahmed, wrote in the preface. “That is a principle most people agree with — and yet the overwhelming competitive commercial pressure for these companies to roll out new products quickly isn’t being held in check by any regulation or oversight by democratic institutions.”
Misinformation about health and many, many other topics has long been out there on the internet since the beginning, but AIs may pose a unique challenge if more people start to rely on them as their main source of news and information. Pew Research has written extensively about how reliant Americans are on social media as a source of news, for instance.
Consider that in June, the National Eating Disorder Association, which closed its live helpline and instead directed people to other resources including an AI chatbot, had to take down the bot named Tessa. Why? Because it recommended “behaviors like calorie restriction and dieting, even after it was told the user had an eating disorder,’ the BBC reported. NEDA now directs people to fact sheets, YouTube videos and lists of organizations that can provide information on treatment options.
Password protection starts with the mute button
All the care you take in protecting your passwords might be undone if you type in your secret code while you’re on a Zoom or other videoconference call while your microphone is on.
That’s because “tapping in a computer password while chatting over Zoom could open the door to a cyberattack, research suggests, after a study revealed artificial intelligence can work out which keys are being pressed by eavesdropping on the sound of the typing,” The Guardian reported.
In fact, the researchers built a tool that can “work out which keys are being pressed on a laptop keyboard with more than 90% accuracy, just based on sound recordings,” the paper said.
AI term of the week: Training data
Since this recap starts with the debate over where training data comes from, here’s a simple definition of what training data is — and why it matters. This definition comes via NBC News:
“Training data: A collection of information — text, image, sound — curated to help AI models accomplish tasks. In language models, training datasets focus on text-based materials like books, comments from social media, and even code. Because AI models learn from training data, ethical questions have been raised around its sourcing and curation. Low-quality training data can introduce bias, leading to unfair models that make racist or sexist decisions.”
