 |
|
|
|||||
No matter how flashy a smartphone might be, how many features it touts, it has a single piece of technology packed inside that is more important than any other: the battery. When it runs dry, your smartphone can no longer be the worlds best camera or the ultimate communication device. It is nothing more than a useless slab of glass and metal. Which is exactly why manufacturers do everything they can to prolong battery life. Over the past several years, Apple has been cramming higher-capacity batteries into its smartphones so that they last longer on a single charge. The company has also been optimizing its software to prolong the iPhones juice. In iOS 26, Apple has added four new features to the iPhone that can help users eek out as much battery life as possible. Heres how to use them. Enable Adaptive Power Adaptive Power is one of the best features of iOS 26, because it can help keep your iPhone going longer on a single charge. The feature utilizes machine learning, a form of artificial intelligence, to track your recent iPhone usage patterns. It then uses this data to predict whether you may need extra battery life for the day. If Adaptive Power determines that you are, in fact, going to need more battery life for the day, it will help conserve your iPhones power by lowering the screen brightness by 3%, limiting background activities, turning on Low Power Mode when your battery reaches 20%, and making other performance adjustments. It does all this automaticallyprovided that you have Adaptive Power enabled. Heres how to do that: Open the Settings app. Tap Battery. Tap Power Mode. Toggle the switch next to Adaptive Power to ON (green). Additionally, if you toggle the Adaptive Power Notifications switch to ON (green), your iPhone will also show you a notification whenever Adaptive Power mode kicks in. If this toggle is disabled, Adaptive Power mode will still engage; you just wont be notified of it. It should be noted that, while Adaptive Power is an iOS 26 feature, not all iPhones that can run iOS 26 can take advantage of this. Since Adaptive Power relies on artificial intelligence, it only works on the iPhone 15 Pro and later. Quickly enable Low Power Mode when the iPhone needs it most Low Power Mode is another feature that you can use to conserve your iPhones battery life. Low Power Mode has been available on iPhones for some time, but with iOS 26, Apple has introduced a new way to turn the mode on easily. If your iPhone has the Dynamic Island, a notification will now appear there, alerting you that your iPhone’s battery life is down to 20%. The notification will also show you a toggle that you can tap to turn on Low Power Mode quickly. Previously, you needed to turn on Low Power Mode by going into the Settings app or via the iPhones Control Center. Putting the toggle in the notification itself means that Low Power Mode is just a tap away when you need it most. What sets Low Power Mode apart from Adaptive Power is that it works on iPhones older than the iPhone 15 Pro. But to use the new Low Power Mode notification toggle, youll need an iPhone with a Dynamic Island, which is the iPhone 14 Pro and later. If youve got one of those supported phones: When the Low Battery notification appears in the Dynamic Island, tap the red toggle to turn on Low Power Mode. The red toggle will change to yellow when Low Power Mode is engaged. When Low Power Mode is on, your iPhone will reduce its brightness and some visual effects, turn off background app refresh and email fetching, pause iCloud Photos syncing, and implement other power-saving features. See how long your iPhone battery will take to charge Another welcome new feature in iOS 26 that can help you manage your battery life is a new charging time indicator on the iPhones Lock Screen. This indicator will tell you how long your iPhone will take to charge to 100% (or a lower percentage if youve set a battery charging limit). Its a convenient feature that takes the guesswork out of determining how long your iPhone needs to remain plugged in. Heres how to use it: Plug your iPhone into a charger. Once the screen turns off, tap it with your finger. Above the clock, youll see a notification that tells you what percentage of your battery is currently charged and how many minutes or hours it will take to charge your iPhone to its desired charging level (usually 80% or 100%, depending on your preferences). How to better understand your iPhones battery health Using the three tips above can help you conserve and manage your iPhones battery for longer. But these arent the only features Apple has built into iOS to help you understand your iPhones battery life. For years now, Apple has included a Battery Dashboard inside the Settings app. This dashboard gives you an overview of not just your batterys charge, but also which apps are using the most power. In iOS 26, the Battery Dashboard has received a visual makeover. To access it, open the Settings app and tap on Battery. On the next screen, youll see key battery metrics that can help give you a better understanding of how your iPhones battery is being used, including which apps and system activities are taking up the most power, how long ago your last charge was, and what remaining capacity your battery has left. Understanding this information, and taking advantage of the new iOS 26 battery features listed above, can help you keep your iPhone running longer.
Category:
E-Commerce
A quiet crisis is brewing in todays workforce, and its not about automation or AI replacing jobs. Its about the erosion of human skills that make teams work: communication, empathy, adaptability, and emotional intelligence. These so-called soft skills are proving to be among the hardest to teach and the most critical to get right. In fact, the lack of them is costing U.S. companies an estimated $160 billion a year in lost productivity, poor communication, and employee turnover. In 40-plus years of building a global technology company, the biggest performance gaps Ive seen havent come from a lack of technical skill, but from a lack of training in how people communicate, lead, and connect. Most employees will tell you its not the technical tasks that keep them up at night; its the hard conversations: effectively delivering feedback in performance reviews . . . negotiating sales with difficult buyers . . . calming irate customers . . . and even confronting toxic colleagues. These are the moments that may come with a script, and often do in big companies, but people and circumstances are dynamic and rarely proceed according to a preconceived linear scenario. Traditional training methods still treat them like they do; therein lies the challenge. The old ways of learning always had this Achilles tendon, and now they are just increasingly unfit for the way younger generations want to learn. Thats why were seeing a new generation of tools emergeones that dont just teach communication, but instead let people practice it. One of the most promising is immersive AI-powered roleplay, a training model that allows employees to rehearse unscripted, emotionally demanding conversations in a safe, dynamic environment. Think of it as a flight simulator for high-stakes conversations. Practice makes prepared Instead of passively watching videos or memorizing scripts, employees can now engage in realistic roleplay with virtual avatars powered by AI and behavioral science. These characters react in real time, based on an individual employees tone, word choice, mannerisms, and more. If a trainee delivers bad news with empathy, the virtual persona softens. If they deflect or escalate, the persona pushes back. With AI-roleplay, there are no canned scriptsonly authentic, evolving dialogue. These practice scenarios are designed to reflect the range of personalities we encounter in real lifefrom the highly agreeable to the more confrontationalgiving employees exposure to a wide spectrum of behavioral styles they may face on the job.This kind of immersive rehearsal builds what I call emotional muscle memory. It gives employees the range of experiences and repetition they need to confidently engage in real-world conversations where clarity and empathy matter most. Forward-thinking companies across diverse sectors, from healthcare and aviation to manufacturing and retail, are turning to AI-powered roleplay platforms to upskill their teams for unpredictable and often emotionally charged interactions: One global medical technology company recently integrated immersive roleplay into its sales and clinical education programs and saw measurable performance gains, including increased revenue and stronger confidence among reps navigating difficult conversations. A large national humanitarian organization used simulation-based training to cut training time from 45 days to 30, reduce employee wait times from two weeks to one day, save over $6.5 million annually, and train more than 13,000 professionals. In the airline industry, an international carrier trained flight crews using AI-driven roleplay to better manage conflict and de-escalation, leading to a 20% drop in passenger incidents. The common thread across these examples? Employees arent just learning what to say. Theyre learning how to listen, respond, and adapt in real time. Theyre not just memorizing scripts. Theyre building instinctive confidence for tough conversations. Why soft skills cant wait The need for emotionally intelligent teams has never been greater. Case in point: one study found that teams high in emotional intelligence outperform their peers by around 20% in productivity and achieve significantly higher cohesion and job satisfaction. As work becomes more global, remote, and fast-paced, the margin for miscommunication will only grow. Customers expect more. Employees expect more. And leaders are being asked to navigate uncertainty, conflict, and change 24/7. And yet . . . most enterprises still treat soft skills training as an afterthought relative to their other business priorities aimed at building organizational resilience: something optional, not essential. We often send people into literal make-or-break conversations without the proper rehearsal and then wonder why they fall flat.Whats different about immersive AI is that it allows teams to practice difficult questions as often as needed and in a safe environment. This kind of technology is available 24/7, can scale across geographies and languages, and delivers personalized feedback that helps people improve with every session. That kind of on-demand coaching was unthinkable even just a few years ago. And it’s needed now more than ever. In one widely reported case, a global technology company laid off 8,000 employees as part of an AI automation push, only to rehire just as many people shortly after, this time in roles requiring more creativity, communication, and leadership skills. Its a clear signal: AI may change what we do, but human skills still define how we do it.
Category:
E-Commerce
Every comedian on the path to stardom will inevitably have to do shows they arent proud of. Its sort of a rite of passage: the dreaded corporate gig orshudderthe mortifying improv class at a company off-site. Typically, though, those embarrassing shows tend not to be paid for and hosted by countries accused of staggering human rights violations, nor do the performers tend to already be superstars. Perhaps the fact that so many well-known and well-compensated comics signed on to Saudi Arabias Riyadh Comedy Festival can be read as both an indictment of the era of multimillion-dollar stand-up specials and its logical conclusion. Spread across two weeks, with the first shows taking place on September 25, the festival is a Comedy Coachella packed with performers who can sell out Madison Square Garden on their own. Dave Chappelle, Kevin Hart, and Bill Burr are among the highlights, along with Louis CK, Sebastian Maniscalco, Gabriel Iglesias, and many more. Its a regular whos who of ha-ha. Its also part of a broader effort, in the years since Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman allegedly approved the murder of U.S.-based Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, to shore up soft power in the region through reputation-laundering cultural efforts like the LIV Golf League, the animation studio Myrkott, and the worlds first Dragon Ball theme park. Given that job one for comedians is ostensibly speaking truth to power, rather than taking powers money, this festival lineup has proven controversial. The fiery backlash it has provoked is no laughing matter. Drips, Killjoys and Dweebazoids A lot of comedy fans have posted online about their disappointment with personal faves like Burr and Hannibal Buress, or cracked jokes about the festivals very existence. However, nobody seems more disappointed in or upset with the comics who signed on than the comics who didnt. If youre a comedian I know whos doing the RIYADH comedy festival, its not too late to drop out. The money you make will poison you. You have fucked up & you can correct the big bad mistake youre making. Also the ppl I know who are doing it are SO WILDLY RICH already. Christ.— Rob Delaney (@robdelaney.bsky.social) 2025-09-25T23:01:08.693Z Stand-ups reigning elder statesman Marc Maron, who would probably object to that title for multiple reasons, weighed in with an Instagram Reel that pulled no punchlines. I mean, the same guy thats gonna pay them is the same guy that paid that guy to bone-saw Jamal Khashoggi and put him in a fu*king suitcase, Maron said. But dont let that stop the yuks; its gonna be a good time. Silicon Valley star Zach Woods went a step further, with a satirical Instagram post pretending to be an ad for the festival. Now theres a lot of drips, killjoys, and dweebazoids who say, They shouldnt do comedy over there because theyre whitewashing a regime that, just in June, killed a journalist, and killed Jamal Khashoggi, and played a big role in 9/11, Woods says after detailing a list of further violations. Shut up! Name one comedian who hasnt whored themselves out to a dictator. How much money are the comics making the trip to Rayidh taking home for their efforts? Tim Dillon claims he was set to make $375,000 for his performanceand that other performers were to be paid far higher sumsat least before the shows producers dropped him from the lineup, supposedly for making fun of the regions labor practices. Beyond the general principle that suggests American comedians shouldnt perform on behalf of leaders famously hostile to free speech, many observers are bewildered as to why some of these particular comedians would sign on. Dave Chappelle, Louis CK, and Whitney Cummings have all embraced a sort of sociopolitical contrarian role in the comedy world and have little to lose, reputation-wise. But even Shane Gillis, who occupies a similar sphere, reportedly turned down a festival slot as an act of integrity. What are wealthy, mainstream, ideological free agents like Hart, Iglesias, and Chris Tucker doing on this lineup? Perhaps they were counting on the festival not attracting significant attention, which would indicate that they have not been on the internet in the past five years. Even so, the question remains: Why take a massive, conscience-challenging paycheck when you dont need the money? The answer may have something to do with how comedians have been conditioned over the last decade to expect enormous windfall paydays. How cash crushed comedy Its hard to remember now, but comedy specials used to be, you know, special. Comedy titans like George Carlin, Chris Rock, and Ellen DeGeneres would regularly put out a new hour on HBO that had a deep cultural impact. Making a small library of specials endlessly quoted by college kids is what used to catapult comedians to the next levela sitcom built around them, or a movie career. Either path once meant unfettered access to the money-printing machine. Those days are long gone, though. After the bottom dropped out of theatrical movie comedies somewhere in the early 2010s, and as sitcom money dwindled in the shift to streaming, Netflix started investing in stand-up specials. Heavily. The streaming service signed Rock to a reported $40 million deal for two specials and gave Chappelle a reported $20 million-per-special deal, which has produced eight hours of material to date. Suddenly, seven-figure Netflix deals became the new normal. The companys willingness to dig deep for high-profile comedy content inspired an arms race with HBO, Amazon Prime, and Hulu, all of which started spending big to secure top talenta trend that continues today. Hulu shelled out a reported $15 million for Burrs latest special last year, in a bidding war with the other platforms. The result of incentivizing comedians so heavily to produce an hour of suitable material is that comedy specials now feel less like tentpole events than ever, while more comedians now aspire to, or expect, astronomic sums for them. The most special thing about stand-up today seems to be that, at a certain level, it might be possible to get a gigantic check for doing very little of it. A side effect of comedy entering its Big Business era is that, once the Netflix or podcast acquisition money kicks in, some comedians seem to lose the perspective that made them interesting to listen to in the first place. The struggles of finding a date, after all, tend to be much funnier and more relatable than the struggles of finding the right sedative for a private jet ride to Dubai. Having that kind of money in the mix is how a superstar comedian might end up without even one person in their entourage who realizes that working the Riyadh Comedy Festival is, at minimum, a devastatingly bad look. Integrity: The funniest thing of all? In all likelihood, the Riyadh backlash wont have a sustained impact on any comics careers. Many of them dont have the kind of sponsors who could drop them the way that some brands have parted ways with LIV Golf bandwagon-hoppers like Dustin Johnson. Its also hard to imagine Andrew Schulz’s or Pete Davidsons fans making this particular gig their line in the sand. Perhaps theres even a case to be made that if the comedians taking Riyadh Fest money end up mocking their benefactors right to their faces at an away game, it would send a powerful message. Of course, making a public show of turning down the offer would arguably make a more powerful message. At a moment when U.S. comedians are being pulled off the air, seemingly at the presidents whim, comedians with a strong moral compass are in high demand. Americans are looking to them not only to stand up for free speech but also to use it to cut the worlds most powerful and oppressive forces down to size. If youre a high-profile comedian in 2025, youre either making fun of Trump for receiving a $400 million jet from Qatar or youre riding along inside of it. As far as true fans of stand-up are concerned, thats the worst seat in the house.
Category:
E-Commerce
All news |
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||