MakeUseOf

ChatGPT's image editor is hiding in plain sight, and it changes everything

Judy Sanhz — Tue, 15 Sep 2026 14:30:14 GMT

I thought editing an image in ChatGPT meant giving it another prompt and hoping it would change the right thing without messing up something I already liked. Change this, leave that alone, don’t touch the background. Rinse and repeat if I didn’t like the results.

6 Samsung phone apps you've probably never heard of, but should download today

Tashreef Shareef — Tue, 15 Sep 2026 14:00:13 GMT

When you buy a Samsung phone, it's as much for One UI as it is for the hardware. And Samsung takes that further with a set of standalone apps built for the niche workflows that One UI itself doesn't handle.

You can use these 5 smart TV apps without Wi-Fi

Pankil Shah — Tue, 15 Sep 2026 13:30:13 GMT

One of the key features of any smart TV is its apps. You fire up the TV and all of your favorite streaming and entertainment apps are there waiting for you.

Philips' Ambilight TV QLED Series transforms your room into part of the experience

Sponsored — Tue, 15 Sep 2026 13:26:12 GMT

Most TVs are judged on what happens inside the screen. Resolution, contrast, color accuracy — all the usual specs that usually get compared side by side. Philips takes a slightly different approach with its Ambilight lineup, which offers a feature that has nothing to do with the panel itself: a ring of intelligent LEDs built into the back of the TV that projects light onto the wall behind it, in colors that move with whatever is happening on screen.

I tried an open-source alternative to Zoom, Google Meet, and Teams and it didn’t even ask me to make an account

Afam Onyimadu — Tue, 15 Sep 2026 13:00:14 GMT

These days, video calls are often tied to accounts, and since it's the norm, almost no one questions it. Whenever I get a meeting link, I already expect some sign-in steps, permissions, apps, or setups even before I start the call.

I finally found a good use for my TV’s USB 2.0 port, and it fixed its worst problem

Pankil Shah — Tue, 15 Sep 2026 12:30:13 GMT

If there's one thing I've never enjoyed about owning a TV, it's using the remote for anything beyond pressing play. I put up with it for years, mostly because I never thought there was a better way other than using my phone as a remote in between. Then I hooked up an old portable keyboard I had lying around to my TV's USB 2.0 port, and it fixed my biggest complaint with my TV.

These are the registry tweaks I make before anything else on Windows 11

Pankil Shah — Tue, 15 Sep 2026 12:00:13 GMT

Besides installing apps, setting up a new PC is mostly all about changing the right settings. But the Windows Settings app doesn't cover everything. Microsoft doesn't make it easy to disable annoying features like Copilot or web results in the Start menu, which means you have to rely on the good, old Registry Editor to get the job done.

I filled my home with smart bulbs when I should've bought this instead

Jonathon Jachura — Tue, 15 Sep 2026 11:01:14 GMT

When I started wiring my house for smart lighting, bulbs felt like the safe bet. You screw them in, pair them in the app, and you're done. I ended up buying piles of them, and my wallet noticed. Fast forward three years: the dimmer switches I tacked on almost as a side project are what run my house now, and the bulbs are the part I babysit. Later I patched the worst bulb headaches without touching a single fixture. The cheaper fix, though, had been in front of me the entire time. Skipping it cost a few hundred dollars and a couple of genuinely annoying years.

The neatest place to hide your Wi-Fi access point could be ruining your coverage

Jonathon Jachura — Tue, 15 Sep 2026 10:30:13 GMT

Tucking a Wi-Fi access point into a cabinet or a closet looks clean, and that instinct is exactly what starves your signal. The material around the device does the damage. Metal doors, thick shelving, and masonry walls soak up and bounce the radio waves before they reach your phone.

Someone just vibe-coded an operating system from scratch, and it can actually run DOOM

Hamed Paydarfar — Tue, 15 Sep 2026 10:12:02 GMT

Although many are skeptical about apocalyptic scenarios of powerful AIs, the real-world progress the industry has been making is certainly noticeable. A Redditor has just revealed a full operating system they built using Claude Code with Fable 5.1, reportedly without writing a single line of its code by hand.