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I’m Obsessed With the ‘Conversate’ App on These Smart Glasses


I am obsessed with the “Conversate” app in my Even Realities G2 smart glasses. Overall, the glasses are sci-fi cool—they project a small, monochrome HUD in front of your eyes but look like normal glasses—but Conversate is essential. The AI-driven productivity tool is designed for work meetings but it’s fun in social settings too, and you can use it to scam free drinks from bartenders. Use Conversate and never take notes in a meeting againIf you’ve ever left a work meeting thinking, “wait, am I supposed to file the TPS reports, or is it Gary’s week?” consider Conversate. I don’t multi-task well, so listening while taking notes can be difficult. Conversate solves that problem.Here’s how it works: You hit the start button on the app, and the AI listens and transcribes everything anyone says in real time. The text is just out of your eyesight unless you glance up at it, so it isn’t distracting but if someone asks a factual question, you’ll get a silent answer in a pop-up window in your glasses. If you share this fact, it can make you look very smart. Or like a know-it-all, so use wisely. If someone says a person’s or a company’s name, you get a pop-up that tells you who/what they are too. Usually this is useless (I already know what Google is and who Jesus Christ is), but occasionally, it gives needed context.

Credit: Stephen Johnson

When the meeting is over, you can check out a summary of what was discussed, and Conversate will highlight anything that looks like a task for you. You can then take those tasks and migrate them to your glasses’ to-do list with a click, so you have a checkable list of action items floating before your eyes whenever you want it. I realize that all of these functions could be done with a number of smart phone apps, but with Conversate, you keep your phone in your pocket—much more unobtrusive. How to use Conversate to win bar bets and fake being smartI used the last generation of Even Realities smart glasses to win a drink from a bartender, and Conversate makes this kind of skullduggery even easier. It’s constantly listening for questions and feeding you answers, so if you’re a dishonest person, you can totally rule at trivia night, impress your friends with your human calculator skills, or tell everyone the day of the week they were born. An added trickery bonus: G2s don’t look like smart glasses, and if you pair them with the ring controller, no one will ever know that you are cheating your way through life. How to have fun at parties with ConversateThis last use really depends on who you hang out with, but in the right crowd, Conversate becomes a hilarious party game. It’s funny to read the AI’s stilted definitions for common terms back to people, a beat behind the conversation. It’s fun when your friends start saying obscure names to see whether your spectacles will tell you who they are. It’s fun for people to invent “action items” that you will supposedly have to do later too. Everyone at the party will call you a nerd, but they will still want to try out your glasses. Are they secretly jealous of your cutting-edge techness? Probably not, to be honest. Anyway, when you are finished hanging out with your friends, Conversate will translate the party’s banter and small talk into “corporate-speak” summaries, which I find delightful.

What do you think so far?

Later in your life, you can remember the barbecue you went to like this:Meeting Summary: : Retrospective on Social Logistics and Lifecycle Events1. Resource Management & Historical Social ModelsContext: Discussion regarding the evolution of “barbecue social gatherings.”Key Point: Participants compared current hospitality standards to a legacy “Bring Your Own Meat” (BYOM) model.Outcome: The BYOM framework was noted for its ability to facilitate social gatherings with zero capital expenditure from the host.2. Asset Utility: Off-Road PlatformsContext: Review of 4-Wheel Drive (4WD) Jeep performance.Key Point: The group discussed the long-term viability and “fun” ROI of Jeep vehicles.Outcome: High consensus that the mobility benefits of 4WD systems outweigh the mechanical maintenance requirements.



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This 10th Gen iPad Is on Sale for $240 Right Now



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Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication.

A discounted tablet from a couple of years ago usually comes down to one thing: how much performance you actually need. The 2022 Apple iPad is currently on sale for $239.99 in Grade-A refurbished condition on StackSocial—the 10th-generation model with 64GB of storage and wifi. Since it’s a 2022 release, it doesn’t have the latest hardware or the longest update runway ahead, but for basic, predictable use, the lower price can outweigh those trade-offs.In regular use, this iPad feels familiar in a way that works to its advantage, with apps opening quickly, streaming staying smooth, and video calls running without friction. Its A14 Bionic chip may not be the latest, but it still handles everyday tasks comfortably, whether that’s switching between a few apps, editing documents, or keeping a YouTube video playing in the background while you browse. It has a 10.9-inch display that is sharp and bright, and the front-facing camera sits in landscape mode, which makes a noticeable difference when you use it on a table for Zoom or FaceTime. Battery life holds up through a workday of mixed use, too.

What do you think so far?

Where you might start to notice its limits is in storage. With just 64GB, you have to be mindful about what stays on the device, especially if you download shows or large apps instead of relying on cloud storage. File transfers over USB-C are also slower than those on newer iPads. And while it still runs current iPadOS versions, it won’t receive updates for as long as newer models do. None of this makes it a bad buy, but it helps set expectations: this 10th-gen iPad works well as a secondary device, a student tablet, or for everyday browsing and streaming.

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10 Hacks Every DuckDuckGo User Should Know


DuckDuckGo has been my default search engine for years. Its big selling point is that it doesn’t track you nearly as much as Google does, but there’s more to DuckDuckGo than that privacy claim. You can use DuckDuckGo to anonymously try AI chatbots (including ChatGPT and Claude), filter out AI-generated images from results, and shorten URLs without leaving the site. If you’re using DuckDuckGo, try these 10 hacks to make the most of the search engine.Turn off AI features to simplify your search experienceDuckDuckGo recently added a bunch of AI features, but, luckily, you can turn off most. To disable AI-related features in DuckDuckGo, go to the search engine’s settings page. Next, select AI Features, then turn off Search Assist and Duck.ai. This will eliminate AI results and prompts to try using chatbots from the search engine’s home page.Use AI chatbots anonymously to preserve your privacyOn the flip side, let’s say you’re interested in AI chatbots, but are worried about your privacy. You can use DuckDuckGo to use ChatGPT, Claude, and other AI services anonymously. To get started, head to Duck.ai. A drop-down menu below the search box allows you to choose which LLM you wish to use, and once you’ve selected that, you can use your preferred AI service without creating an account. This service is free, but there’s a daily limit to how many AI searches you can perform. The same service also lets you generate images and perform basic photo edits, such as removing a background from your image.
Use “bangs” to search other websites and search enginesDuckDuckGo is a pretty competent search engine, but it doesn’t always show you the same results as Google. If you’re using DuckDuckGo as your default search engine, you can still ask it to send the search query to Google. To do this, add !g to your search query, and you’ll see that the search results appear on Google. This is called a bang, and you can use bangs in DuckDuckGo to search via other search engines and websites, too. For example, !gi searches Google Images, !w looks for something on Wikipedia, and !r does a Reddit search. You can see the full list of DuckDuckGo bangs on this page.Hide AI-generated images from results to focus on real pictures

Credit: Pranay Parab

DuckDuckGo ships with a filter that removes AI slop from image search results. The filter is decent at the job, but be aware that it can’t remove every single AI image from the results. You can enable it by going to DuckDuckGo settings > AI Features > Hide AI-Generated Images.Use this option to block certain sites from your search resultsIf you’ve come across sites with low-quality content on the web, and you wish to block them from your search results, you can do that with DuckDuckGo. The next time you search for something on the site, click the three dots to the right of any result, then click Block this site from all results. That domain will no longer appear in search results. You can go to DuckDuckGo settings > General to see a list of blocked domains. You can unblock domains too at any time.Get rid of DuckDuckGo’s ads to clean up the experienceYou can also disable DuckDuckGo’s search ads, and all the mentions of the company’s other products on the home page. Head over to DuckDuckGo settings > General, and turn off Advertisements. This will turn off search ads, but note that the company says it doesn’t track you to serve these ads. To remove prompts to use other DuckDuckGo products, scroll to the bottom of the same settings page, and turn off the following:Install DuckDuckGoPrivacy NewslettersHomepage Privacy TipsHelp Improve DuckDuckGoYou can also go to the Appearance section in DuckDuckGo settings, and turn off the last option: ‘Protected’ Reminder. This will hide the notice that says your searches are protected.

What do you think so far?

Change this setting to see more information under search results If you prefer to see more information about a particular search result, this search engine allows you to expand the length of the descriptions that appear below each link. I’ve expanded mine from three lines to five, which gives me enough information to decide if a link is worth clicking. You can set this up by going to DuckDuckGo settings > Appearance > Max Snippet Length. Use the drop-down menu to change this to 5 lines.Use this shortcut to shorten URLs

Credit: Pranay Parab

DuckDuckGo has a built-in URL shortener, too. Copy a URL and use the shorten command in the search engine to use it. For instance, type “shorten https://lifehacker.com/tech/15-of-the-best-iphone-privacy-hacks-everyone-should-know” in the search engine, and click the search button. The first result will be a shortened URL, which uses the is.gd URL shortener. Similarly, you can also expand shortened URLs via DuckDuckGo. Just type “expand” followed by the shortened link, and the search engine will show you the full URL in the search results.Hide your email address when signing up for new accountsIt’s common security advice to use a password manager and a unique password for each of your accounts. The idea is simple: If one account is breached, the hacker doesn’t gain access to all your other accounts. You can apply the same logic to your username, which is your email address on most websites. If you’re using the same email ID to sign up for each site, it could also be a potential attack vector for hackers. This is where services like DuckDuckGo’s Email Protection step in. You can use it to sign up for a Duck email address, which generates a unique email address for each account you create. If an account gets breached, you don’t have to worry about your email address being sold on the dark web. Similarly, if a shady website sells its data to advertisers, they’ll only get an anonymized email address, and not your real one. You can use that to identify who sold your data, and block that alias quickly.Search “cheatsheet” to see keyboard shortcuts for popular appsDuckDuckGo also has “cheatsheets” for multiple apps and services, which show you commonly used keyboard shortcuts for a given app. For example, go to DuckDuckGo, then type “cheatsheet Excel,” and the search engine displays a list of Microsoft Excel keyboard shortcuts at the top of the results. The initial result shows five to 10 keyboard shortcuts, but you can click the “Show More” button to reveal hundreds of shortcuts. This feature doesn’t work for every app, but you can try it for popular apps such as Photoshop, Lightroom, and Chrome. Be sure to verify the information on this page, since keyboard shortcuts sometimes change when an app is updated.



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