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How to quickly find out your Wi

Now playing: Watch this: Find out your current Wi-Fi speed in seconds 1:14 You have your laptop connected to a Wi-Fi network with full bars. That’s great. It’s not the bars that matter though, but the actual speed of that connection. Here’s a quick way to find how fast your computer’s current Wi-Fi connection is …

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Feeling clueless about Wi

Editors’ note: This story was originally published on Dec. 9, 2014, and has been updated frequently with latest information. When it comes to home networking, there’s a soup of technical terms, LAN, WAN, broadband, Wi-Fi, CAT5e, just to name a few. If you’re having a hard time with these basic terms, you’re reading the right post. Here I’ll (try to) …

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Turn a laptop hard drive into a portable drive

What’s the single best way to upgrade a laptop? Easy: Take out the mechanical hard drive and replace it with a solid-state drive (SSD). You’ll enjoy faster performance, longer battery life, cooler running temperature (which may extend the overall life of the laptop) and even quieter operation: SSDs have no moving parts and therefore run completely silent. Ah, but what …

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Should you buy a 55

Right now you can get LG’s OLED55B6P OLED TV for $2,000. It offers the best picture quality we’ve ever tested. For someone in that price bracket, it sounds like a no-brainer, right? Well, not necessarily. That’s because it’s a 55-inch TV, and for a lot of people, that’s just too small. If you haven’t been TV shopping in awhile, allow …

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Apple and Amazon were tablet standouts in 2016

The tablet industry continues to shrink, but not for everyone. Amazon boosted tablet sales by 99.4 percent last year, according to TrendForce. It sold over 11 million Fire tablets in 2016. However, total tablet shipments were down by 6.6 percent. Apple‘s iPad sales dipped 14.1 percent, but the company retained its top spot, selling 42 million devices to comfortably best …

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Popular encrypted messaging app Signal adds video calls

If you send encrypted text messages from your phone, there’s a decent chance you use Signal. Since the app made headlines in 2015 by offering encryption between Android and iPhone, it’s grown in popularity, to the point that it’s now one of the preferred ways to tip The New York Times on a story. As of today, Signal will do …

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Apple granted patent for fingerprint

The iPhone’s home button may not be long for this world. Apple has been granted a patent for an “interactive display panel with IR diodes” — a method that would let users activate a device through a virtual home button placed within the touchscreen. The technology, described in a filing made public Tuesday by the US Patent and Trade Office, …

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A passenger

A pilot-less drone designed to carry one passenger at a time is set to start making regular trips in Dubai beginning in July, the Associated Press reported Monday. The EHang 184 AAV (autonomous aerial vehicle) is a one-person, battery-powered pod designed to carry a passenger for 23 minutes at about 60 miles per hour. Eight rotors mounted in pairs on …

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Facebook app coming ‘soon’ to Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV

Now playing: Watch this: Facebook TV is happening, rivaling Netflix and YouTube 1:12 Facebook is releasing an app for TV set-top boxes. LOIC VENANCE/AFP/Getty Images Facebook wants to be a bigger part of your living room. On Tuesday, the social network said it’s launching an app for set-top boxes, including Apple TV, Amazon‘s Fire TV and Samsung Smart TV. The …

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