If you’re looking to buy a voice-operated speaker how important is sound quality to you? Is it worth buying the new $129 Google Home, or the $179 Amazon Echo, on the strength of sonic performance alone? Amazon Echo has been out in the wild for two years now. We were never thrilled with its sonic …

YouTube is giving its creators new weapons to battle the trolls. Comments on YouTube have always been an important way for its stars to build a fan base. The direct connection viewers feel through comments and social media have been crucial to the rise of the “YouTuber” celebrity. But freedom of comments on YouTube, as well as on services like …

Now playing: Watch this: Samsung Gear S3 is a super-big superwatch 1:46 Samsung’s next-generation Gear S3 smartwatch, unveiled back in August, is arriving soon. Both the Gear S3 LTE-connected and Bluetooth-only versions will arrive in time for the holidays, hitting US shelves on November 18. Preorders start November 6. According to Samsung’s press release, the watches will be available at …

Now playing: Watch this: Start chatting with Google Assistant 3:33 Google Assistant (which replaced Google Now) is like Siri, but a lot more helpful, carrying full-fledged conversations and taking notes about your likes and dislikes. It taps into Google’s huge database of apps (like calendars, email and so on) as well as restaurant reviews, weather, travel, maps and a whole …

The FBI is investigating the recent activity of one of its Twitter accounts, Think Progress reported Thursday. On October 30, the FBI Records Vault account tweeted a slew of tweets, including about Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump‘s father, and then on November 1, tweeted documents relating to President Clinton’s pardon of commodities trader Marc Rich in 2001. The tweets drew …

Get yourself a tablet that can do both — both Wi-Fi and 4G LTE, that is. If you take your tablet outside the comfort of your own Wi-Fi network, you know what it’s like to be at the mercy of whatever public Wi-Fi is available. Subscribing for data service on your phone is a no-brainer, but having the option on …

There’s no reason not to be using LastPass. The company on Wednesday announced that its popular password manager will now be free for all to use. LastPass previously charged a fee of $12 per year to sync passwords across multiple devices, such as a computer, tablet or phone. To entice newcomers, the service allowed you to access select features for …

The lithium battery is being blamed for grounding yet another product, this time a skateboard. Boosted, a maker of electric skateboards, on Wednesday urged customers to stop using and charging its second-generation boards due to two incidents in which lithium ion batteries overheated. The company said it had suspended sales and shipping pending the results of an investigation. No injuries …

Can text messages get kids to read more? We’re about to find out. Amazon introduced on Wednesday a new mobile app called Amazon Rapids, which offers hundreds of original bite-size stories for kids for a monthly subscription of $2.99. The twist is that each piece is told as a series of text messages between characters, like the one about two …

How do you convince more people to record themselves and post videos on your social network? If you’re Facebook, you do it with scuba masks and pumpkins. In the last few weeks, CEO Mark Zuckerberg has added new weapons to Facebook’s online video arsenal. They include masks, which allow people to add digital images — like scuba gear and pumpkins …