Personally, the best thing I’ve done for my sleep is banishing my phone from the bedroom, so it may seem ironic to add a smartphone app to this list. Headspace, however, has the opposite effect on sleep that social media does. Like the Hatch Restore, this iOS and Android app has an extensive library of meditations and exercises to help you relax and fall asleep.

I prefer the shorter, wind-down segments that last a few minutes and help you do a full body scan to relax. Longer “Sleepcasts” run around 45 minutes and tell you stories in calm voices – there are even a few Star Wars-themed tales, but those just made me want to get up and watch more Mandalorian. Sleep music and soundscapes combine ambient sounds with tones and melodies, lasting up to 500 minutes. And perhaps most critically, there’s a “Nighttime SOS” page, with guided exercises to help you get back to sleep if you wake up with bad dreams, work stress or something else.

The yearly subscription is $70 or you can pay $13 a month. In addition to sleep content, you also get daytime meditations and sessions that help you breathe, manage stress and focus, which can also help with sleep. If you do decide to bring Headspace into the bedroom, make sure you have your phone’s sleep focus or bedtime mode turned on before you do, otherwise nighttime spam emails and Messenger alerts will undo all of the good work your sleep app just rendered.

Riot Games has teamed up with Fenty Beauty to create beauty products based on the Arcane animated film series based on League of Legends.

The parties are teaming up to celebrate female beauty and empowerment. Fenty Beauty, led by CEO Robyn Rihanna Fenty, is a partnership between Rihanna and LVMH.

“We’re always finding ways to continue to expand our Fenty Family and empower people to find their inner strength, confidence, and beauty. I love how we’ve done that with Arcane and Fenty Beauty, merging the virtual with the real, creating beauty looks for powerful women and then translating that into real products that everyone can get their hands on,” said Rihanna, in a statement.

This fall, Fenty Beauty is taking its bad-ass, female-powered beauty to the next level with a first-of-its-kind partnership with Arcane, Riot Games’ first animated series based on the globally renowned video game League of Legends. Fenty Beauty designed each character’s makeup looks seen throughout Season 2, and will release a groundbreaking collection of limited-edition Arcane-inspired products for players and fans debuting November 2, 2024. Season 2 of the show debuts on Netflix starting November 9.

To embody the powerful and dynamic auras of the female characters in Season 2, Fenty Beauty’s collaboration with Arcane went beyond skin deep.

Priscilla Ono, Fenty Beauty Global Makeup Artist, worked alongside Fortiche Production, the animation company behind the series, to create and bring to life the makeup in-show, merging artistry with storytelling in a whole new way in both the physical and digital worlds.

The makeup featured in Season 2 of Arcane highlights the strength, resilience, and individualism of the leading women, and the limited-edition collection of products will enable Arcane fans everywhere to create their own looks.

Through this partnership, Fenty Beauty is proliferating Rihanna’s founding mission of “Beauty for All,” by continuing to redefine beauty standards and placing a spotlight on the beautiful uniqueness, individuality, and power of each of the characters.

Featuring a lineup of Fenty Beauty products inspired by the women of Arcane, this limited-edition collection is where fierce glam and formidable women collide. Full of never-before-seen shades and products that include shade-shifting hues, bold metallics, and shimmering glosses, the entire collection is designed to evoke the vibes of four powerful femmes from the series: Jinx, Vi, Mel, + Caitlyn.

An example. Fans can supercharge their lips with main character energy with five new shades of lip gloss, inspired by the strong women and magic of Arcane: Mel shade (Risky Rulin’ – warm golden shimmer), Caitlyn shade (Rogue On Riche$ – peach nude shimmer), Vi shade (Rebel Rais’r – vibrant holographic pink shimmer), Jinx shade (Kaboom – black holographic shimmer), and Anomaly shade (Morphic Melt – clear holographic shimmer). Each Gloss Bomb features the same nourishing formula you know and love with new inspired colors and finishes, all housed in special Arcane packaging for the collector or newbie.

The Fenty Beauty x Arcane Collection will be available for a limited time on FentyBeauty.com beginning November 2, 2024. Fenty Beauty x Arcane Gloss Bomb Universal Lip Luminizers and Diamond Bomb All-Over Diamond Veil in Golden Rul’r will also be available on Sephora.com

Rihanna created Fenty Beauty “so that people everywhere would be included,” focusing on a wide range of traditionally hard-to-match skin tones, developing formulas that work for all skin types, and pinpointing universal shades.

Google is updating Chrome on Android next month to greatly improve how password mangers operate inside the mobile browser. Chrome on Android will allow third-party password managers to natively autofill forms on websites, improving the experience of apps like 1Password, Dashlane, and others.

Google offers its own password manager in Chrome, alongside passkeys and autofill support for information like your address and payment card data. While you can set a preferred autofill service on Android, it uses a compatibility mode inside Chrome that makes it feel super glitchy for third-party password managers. I regularly swap between iOS and Android devices, and using 1Password on iOS feels like a far better experience in Chrome even though it still doesn’t match the superior integration into Safari.

Google admits its current Chrome on Android offering results in “janky page scrolling” and potential duplicate suggestions from Google and a third-party password manager. “With this coming change, Chrome on Android will allow third-party autofill services to natively autofill forms giving users a smoother and simpler user experience,” says Eiji Kitamuram, a developer advocate on the Google Chrome team. “Third-party autofill services can autofill passwords, passkeys and other information like addresses and payment data, as they would in other Android apps.”

You can start testing this new functionality in Chrome 131 and later. After setting up a third-party password manager as your preferred autofill service you’ll need to toggle a Chrome flag to get the new autofill experience. All Chrome on Android users will get this new experience on November 12th when Chrome 131 is scheduled to enter the stable channel.

OpenAI’s ChatGPT app is now available for paid users on Windows as the company begins testing a PC version of its successful Mac app.

The dedicated ChatGPT app allows you to ask the chatbot prompts from its own window in a well-designed, streamlined interface. Best of all, the ChatGPT app gives Windows users access to the incredibly useful keyboard shortcut that activates AI with Alt + Space.

The New York Times has introduced the next title coming to its Games catalog following Wordle’s continued success — and it’s all about math. Digits has players adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing numbers. You can play its beta for free online right now. 
In Digits, players are presented with a target number that they need to match. Players are given six numbers and have the ability to add, subtract, multiply, or divide them to get as close to the target as they can. Not every number needs to be used, though, so this game should put your math skills to the test as you combine numbers and try to make the right equations to get as close to the target number as possible.

Players will get a five-star rating if they match the target number exactly, a three-star rating if they get within 10 of the target, and a one-star rating if they can get within 25 of the target number. Currently, players are also able to access five different puzzles with increasingly larger numbers as well.  I solved today’s puzzle and found it to be an enjoyable number-based game that should appeal to inquisitive minds that like puzzle games such as Threes or other The New York Times titles like Wordle and Spelling Bee.
In an article unveiling Digits and detailing The New York Time Games team’s process to game development, The Times says the team will use this free beta to fix bugs and assess if it’s worth moving into a more active development phase “where the game is coded and the designs are finalized.” So play Digits while you can, as The New York Times may move on from the project if it doesn’t get the response it is hoping for. 
Digits’ beta is available to play for free now on The New York Times Games’ website

OpenAI, the artificial intelligence powerhouse behind ChatGPT, has taken another step in its quest for ubiquity by releasing a Windows desktop application for its popular AI chatbot. The move, announced Thursday, follows the earlier launch of a macOS client and marks a significant push by OpenAI to embed its technology more deeply into users’ daily workflows.

The new Windows app, currently available in preview to ChatGPT Plus, Enterprise, Team, and Edu subscribers, allows users to access the AI assistant via a keyboard shortcut (Alt + Space) from anywhere on their PC. This seamless integration aims to boost productivity by making AI assistance readily available without the need to switch to a web browser.

OpenAI’s desktop strategy: More than just convenience

OpenAI’s strategy of platform expansion goes beyond mere convenience. By creating native applications for major operating systems, the company is positioning ChatGPT as an indispensable tool in both personal and professional environments. This move serves multiple purposes: it increases user engagement, facilitates more extensive data collection for model improvement, and creates a sticky ecosystem that could be challenging for competitors to displace.

The desktop app approach also reveals OpenAI’s ambition to become the de facto AI assistant for knowledge workers. By integrating ChatGPT more deeply into users’ workflows, OpenAI is not just improving accessibility but potentially reshaping how people interact with computers and process information.

Enterprise ambitions: ChatGPT as the new office suite?

The Windows release comes at a critical juncture for OpenAI, as the company faces increasing competition in the AI space and scrutiny over its rapid growth and influential position. Recent reports suggest that OpenAI is exploring partnerships beyond its well-known Microsoft alliance, including discussions with Oracle for AI data center infrastructure and pitches to the U.S. military and national security establishment.

OpenAI’s aggressive expansion into desktop environments signals a potential shift in the enterprise software landscape. The company appears to be positioning ChatGPT as a fundamental productivity tool for businesses, potentially disrupting traditional enterprise software providers. This move, coupled with the recent partnership expansion with Bain & Company to sell ChatGPT to businesses, suggests OpenAI is not content with being merely an AI research lab but is actively pursuing a dominant position in the commercial AI sector.

The implications of this strategy are huge. If successful, ChatGPT could become the new “operating system” for knowledge work, fundamentally changing how businesses operate and potentially displacing or absorbing functions currently served by separate software suites.

Balancing Act: Innovation, ethics, and commercialization

However, OpenAI’s rapid growth and increasing influence have not been without controversy. The company’s AI models have faced scrutiny over potential biases and the societal implications of widespread AI deployment. Additionally, OpenAI’s dual status as a capped-profit company with significant commercial interests has raised questions about its governance and long-term objectives.

As OpenAI continues to expand its reach, the company faces a delicate balancing act. It must navigate the tensions between its stated mission of ensuring artificial general intelligence benefits humanity and its increasingly commercial focus. The Windows app release, while a seemingly straightforward product expansion, represents another step in OpenAI’s complex journey of shaping the future of AI in both consumer and enterprise contexts.

The success of this desktop strategy could cement OpenAI’s position as the leading AI company, but it also increases the urgency of addressing ethical concerns and potential monopolistic practices. As ChatGPT becomes more deeply integrated into daily work and life, the stakes for getting AI right — in terms of safety, fairness, and societal impact — have never been higher.