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With this live blog, you can keep up with the best deals the Lifehacker team finds every day—all in one place. Bookmark this page to keep an eye on what we're finding. As always, we use price-tracking tools to suss out the deals that are actually worth paying attention to, not just hype designed to instill a false sense of urgency.
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In the smart glasses era, the Ray-Ban Meta Wayfarer is known as one of the most natural-looking options—they blend into your daily style with ease, looking and feeling like normal glasses. They’re also the ultimate hands-free assistance with built-in AI. Plus, they reduce the need for phone dependence, which is a major convenience. Right now, the first-generation Ray-Ban Meta Wayfarer Smart Glasses are 25% off on Amazon, bringing them down to their lowest price ever of $224.25 (originally $299.00)
Available in clear and green-tinted lenses, these AI glasses combine chic eyewear with open-ear headphones and a built-in camera. They let you capture photos and videos for social, listen to music, or take calls. Compared to their predecessor, the Ray-Ban Stories, they have a sharper 12MP camera, louder speakers, and an additional mic for a total of five. They’re also water-resistant, making them ideal for workouts or rainy days.
The 12MP camera shoots video footage at 1080p resolution and frames both photos and videos vertically for a social-friendly format. That said, if you want to shoot horizontally, this may be a downside. Glasses are set up via the Meta View app on Android and iOS and sync easily with social media. According to PCMag, the frames hold around four hours of battery life with an additional eight charges in the case for a total of 36 hours. At 15%, users get an audible low charge warning. It’s worth noting that you can’t shoot video with less than 15% of a charge.
If you want a natural way to take photos, record video, or answer calls without fumbling for your phone, the Meta Ray-Bans are a reliable option. While you can do some by tapping the button near your temple, you can take photos or record using the built-in AI voice assistant, which also translates text and identifies surroundings. One potential pitfall is that if you have longer hair, it may partially cover the lens during shots. They also don’t offer zoom or manual focus controls, so photography enthusiasts may want something more advanced.
That said, if you want a general combination of useful features, the Ray-Ban Meta Wayfarer Smart Glasses are the perfect choice for travelers and social media users, or anyone looking to be a bit less reliant on their phone. While they’re not built for serious photography, they’re a stylish and convenient upgrade that makes it easier to capture moments and stay connected while going hands-free.
Welcome to our trip inside the culture of young people. This week, we've got the usual slang definitions of phrases like "you the birthday," and "catch a fade," and we're also talking about AI. You might be about to lose your job to artificial intelligence, but younger generations are in danger of losing their reality to it. From viral "AI or animals" memes to the rise of AI detectives, the youth are engaged in a high-stakes game of "Spot the Bot" just to feel like they still have a grip on the truth.
A new slang metaphor is blowing up TikTok this week. People are saying "you the birthday," a phrase that means "you're awesome" or "you're great" in the way a birthday is great: fun, exciting, extra, etc. It's usually meant in positive way, but it could be applied negatively to someone who is doing too much or trying to hard, like, "sure, you the birthday."
The phrase seems to have originated in a song called "Birthday Girl" by Huncho. The song doesn't actually include the phrase, "you the birthday," but Huncho sings, "She eat, she the birthday—girl" and the pause was long enough that people started just saying, "you the birthday."
"You the birthday" is inspiring a subgenre of birthday-related spin-off slang too. If you're dressed funny, you the birthday clown. If you have a point, you the birthday hat. If you're ugly, you the halloween. You get the idea.
To young people, "fade" means fight. To "catch a fade" means to have a fight. (If you'd like more definitions of slang words that kids use, check out Lifehacker's Gen Z and Gen A slang glossary.)
Last week, I predicted Hulu's Pizza Movie will be Generation Z's defining druggie-comedy movie. There's more evidence this week in the form of a growing trend online of making videos with random footage and labeling it "Pizza Movie (2026)." The joke is that the scenes presented in Pizza Movie's trailer are so without context and so strange that you can put any bizarre clips together and they might be from Pizza Movie.
Here are a couple of examples:
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"That's AI" is rapidly emerging as a way of saying "I don't believe you" or "I doubt it" to members of Generations Alpha and Z. They obviously heard the phrase a lot in connection with videos and pictures online, so it only makes sense to apply it to anything.
Speaking of "that's AI..." Bespectacled 30-something filmmaker Jeremy Carrasco is an unlikely hero to the teens and tweens of TikTok, but the videos he posts on Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok regularly rack up millions of views. Carrasco's calling is identifying synthetic media; he's an AI detective, and dude is great at separating the real from the phony. He calls out AI-generated influencers:
discusses the difference between real and AI videos of animals on trampolines:
explains the difference between "deep fakes" and "AI videos":
and points out videos that people think are AI, but are actually real:
The popularity of Carrasco's content speaks to young people's desperation to just know what's real—a challenge that no other generation has ever faced. Carrasco presents some great tools for spotting slop, but sadly, it's a Sisyphean task: AI content generation is only getting better, and the "tells" more subtle.
You might not be aware of the debate about AI going on among younger people online, because it's being conducted largely through "Animal or AI" meme videos. Videos dramatizing this choice have tens of millions of views on TikTok. Here's how they work: Over a music bed from Hamilton, these videos present competing clips of AI and animals, leading to an eventual conclusion where one is chosen over the other.
Animal choosers are in the majority by huge numbers, both among the videos' creators and the commenters. The irony is that many of the clips that illustrate that animals are better seem to have actually been generated by AI.
Not everybody has the same reaction to noticing a new muscle pop up on their body. Some love it: “Great, I’m getting jacked!” Some are discouraged: “Oh no, I’m getting bulky.” But everyone should know that building muscle has its benefits, both beyond looks and in spite of looks. Here are seven ways your newfound muscle is a big plus, both for your health and your fitness goals.
Being strong makes us more athletic, more functional in everyday life, and may help to prevent injury, as I'll talk about shortly. So if you notice some muscle growth, that tells you you're making progress in strength.
And, yes, size and strength are linked. We’ve all met people who are stronger than they look, and this has led to a myth that there are different “kinds” of muscle or strength, as if bodybuilders’ muscles are full of water or fat instead of contractile tissue. (I’m not sure exactly where this myth comes from, but it’s absolutely not true. Muscle is muscle.) Think of it this way: The bigger the muscle, the harder it can contract. But what you do with that muscle is a matter of skill. Gymnasts are strong, but not every strong person can do a backflip. Boxers are strong, but not every strong person will be able to deliver a knockout punch.
If you train to build muscle size, you will end up increasing your strength. And if you train to build strength, chances are you will end up increasing your muscle size. That doesn’t mean you have to become huge if you don’t want to be; your diet is the main thing that determines whether you look “bulky” or not. But it's reasonable to expect at least a little bit of muscle gain anytime you're challenging your body to get stronger and fitter.
Muscle’s effect on our calorie burn is one of the most frequently-cited benefits of gaining muscle mass, and honestly, I think it’s one of the least important. But let’s dive in, because I know you’re wondering about it.
The more muscle you have on your body, the more calories you burn, even at rest. Muscle is a metabolically “expensive” tissue, using a lot of your food as fuel, which means that you can eat more food. Besides just being able to enjoy more food, this also improves your nutrition! The more you burn, the better you can eat. You have the calorie "budget" to fit in lots of vitamins, protein, fiber, and other useful nutrients.
Every pound of muscle you gain will burn an extra 10 or so calories at rest each day—so if you gain 10 pounds of muscle over the course of a few years’ strength training, you’re burning an extra 100 calories each day. This may not make a huge contribution to your daily calorie burn, but it’s something. What’s less appreciated is that the more muscle you have, the more likely you are to take on harder workouts, thus burning even more calories.
I burn about 500 more calories each day now than I did years ago, when I was sedentary, and I certainly haven’t gained 50 pounds of muscle. But the more muscle you have, the more work you can do, and that snowballs. Remember, exercise is good for your health, so the more of it your body can handle, the healthier your heart and your metabolism can become.
Losing weight is often said to benefit our health, especially for people who have diabetes, other health conditions, and/or a high BMI. Losing weight can be tough, but gaining muscle can help some of those same health outcomes whether you end up losing weight or not.
For example, this study found that having more muscle mass is associated with lower mortality rates, lower body fat, and a lower likelihood of having diabetes. People with high BMIs and high muscle mass were, in this study, healthier than people who had similarly high BMIs but low muscle mass. So even if gaining muscle doesn’t come with reduced body fat, it’s still helping you to be healthier. The researchers also speculate that some of the health outcomes we associate with high body fat may actually have more to do with low muscle mass.
It’s dangerous to be weak and frail as you age. An extreme loss of muscle mass is called sarcopenia, and it’s a known factor in all kinds of things you want to avoid. The less muscle mass you have, the greater your risk of falls, fractures, being unable to live independently, and generally poorer health. Older adults with less muscle are more likely to die when they have conditions like kidney disease and heart failure, and they may have a harder time withstanding treatments like chemotherapy.
This isn’t just an issue for the grey-haired crowd: We lose 3-8% of our muscle every decade starting around age 30, if we don’t train to keep it. The rate of loss typically speeds up after age 60—but, again, people who strength train tend to hang onto their muscle. If you start strength training when you're older, you might even build more muscle than you had in your youth.
Even if you haven’t hit age 30, think of yourself as putting muscle in the bank that you can use later. Somebody who is strong at age 25 is building the muscle (and the habits that keep them exercising!) that will keep them from being frail at age 75.
Besides sarcopenia, osteoporosis (a loss of bone mineral density) also contributes to the risk of devastating fractures and to a loss of independence, especially as we age. Muscle loss and bone density loss have been referred to as “musculoskeletal aging,” a phenomenon that is at least partially preventable with strength training.
Bone grows stronger when you put stress on it, which is why “weight bearing” activities are commonly recommended for people at risk of osteoporosis. That doesn’t refer to weight training, but rather to activities where you’re supporting your own weight. Walking, running, and jumping are weight bearing. Swimming is not weight bearing.
But weight training does also improve bone density. Unless you’re great at walking or even jumping on your hands (which, I must note, requires a lot of strength and muscle), a good way to get healthy stress on the bones of your upper body is to do plenty of resistance training. That could include training with barbells, dumbbells, resistance machines, or other tools.
Injury prevention is a big and nebulous topic, so it’s hard to point at specific evidence that strength training in general reduces injuries in general. But ask any good coach, or any good physical therapist, and they’ll tell you that they encourage their players and patients to build strength to prevent injuries and to recover from them when they happen.
Strength training gives you stronger muscles, bones, and connective tissue like tendons. In a sports context, stronger athletes seem to be more resistant to injury. And even in everyday life—let’s say a person who might slip and fall—being strong and agile makes it easier to avoid unexpected obstacles. You may also have an easier time catching yourself when you begin to fall. There’s also evidence that exercise, including strength training, is a useful tool in managing back pain, arthritis, and other conditions.
Maybe you’re cool with exercise, but still a bit skeptical of the benefits of strength training specifically. You just want to run the trails, take a barre class, maybe do some yoga. Well, muscle helps with those things, too.
If you’re a runner, for example, strength training helps to prevent injuries (including those nagging “overuse” injuries like shin splints and achy knees). More muscle in your legs also means a better ability to run up the hills of those trails and dodge rocks and tree roots on the way down. Stronger runners tend to be better runners.
Or let’s say you’re more into yoga. More strength and muscle will help you to be able to do more advanced poses, to do the medium-difficulty ones more confidently, and to do the easy ones with true ease. Or to put it another way: nobody ever thinks, in the middle of a yoga class, “I wish I had less core strength.”
You get the idea. Rock climbing is more fun when you’ve got more upper body muscle. Cycling is more fun when you have powerful legs. Even outside the formal sports world, muscle helps you to carry mulch in your garden, to load your suitcase overhead without endangering your fellow airplane passengers, and to help a friend move without spending the next two days on the couch popping Advil. So when you notice your body gaining a little bit of muscle, just think of all the opportunities it opens for you—not just how it looks.
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As Lifehacker's tech deals writer, I'm always looking for the best bargains on TVs, speakers, laptops, and other tech. Now that it's Friday, I've gathered together this week's sales highlights, all of which I've vetted using my favorite price-tracking tools to make sure they are actually good deals.
This week, you can find great deals on the new M5 MacBook Air, the Pixel 9 Pro XL, AirPods Max, and more.
If you're interested in the new M5 MacBooks, Amazon is the place to buy: It's the only major retailer offering both sizes with a $150 discount. The 13-inch MacBook Air is $949.99 ($1,099), and the 15-inch MacBook Air is $1,149.99 (originally $1,299).
Right now, the open-box Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones in sandstone are down to $242.49 on Woot, compared to about $329 for a new pair on Amazon. The catch is the “open box” label—these units may have been returned, tested, or repackaged (but they’re cleared to work like new).
The Fitbit Ace LTE is a kid-friendly smartwatch that's massively discounted right now—it's currently $99.95 (originally $229.95 at launch in 2024), the lowest price it has ever been.
The QM7K is last year's mid-tier QD-Mini LED smart TV, and it offers great value for your money. Right now, the 65-inch QM7K is marked down to $777.99 (originally $1,499.99 at launch). Its highlights include a bright panel, making it great for sunlit rooms. It has deep blacks and almost no light bloom, giving it that premium picture quality.
The Google Nest Doorbell has dropped to $139.99 (originally $179.99), and that’s the lowest price it's ever been. The design is familiar if you’ve seen Nest cameras before, with a single camera module up top and a lit doorbell button below in an IP65-rated body that handles rain and dust without issue.
The Pixel 9 Pro is the most premium and biggest model in the Pixel 9 lineup. It was released in August 2024, and the unlocked 128GB Google Pixel 9 Pro XL is discounted to $699 (down from $1,099), but only in the hazel color. This Pixel 9 Pro XL comes with 16GB of RAM, 128GB of memory storage, a 120 HZ refresh rate, and the Android 14 operating system.
The unlocked Motorola Razr+ (2025, 256GB) is currently down to $379.99 on Woot, a notable drop from its usual $999.99 price on Amazon and below its previous low of $599.99, according to price-trackers. This is a limited-time offer running for eight days or until stock runs out. Prime members get free shipping, while others pay $6. At this price, what you’re getting here is a mid-tier foldable from Motorola’s 2025 lineup, slotting between the base Razr and the pricier Ultra.
The 2024 AirPods Max are just $399.99 (originally $549.99) and offer a fantastic all-around experience for Apple users, but they're also one of the most expensive pairs of headphones you can buy, normally running more than half a grand. They are among the best ANC headphones you can buy, they provide good ambient awareness so you can hear your surroundings as you listen, and they offer adaptive EQ and spatial audio that adjusts levels automatically based on your environment, according to PCMag's "excellent" review. This updated model also now support lossless audio, low-latency audio, and USB-C audio.
Last summer, Nothing released its newest smartwatch, the CMF Watch 3 Pro, which incorporates AI features powered by ChatGPT, and you can currently pick it up at a major discount. Originally $99, you can get the CMF Watch 3 Pro for $44.99 at Woot. The catch is that it's only available at that price in the light green color.
The JBL PartyBox 520 is the kind of speaker you buy when you have money to spend and want your neighbors to know you have good taste in music. It’s currently $579.95 at Woot, a steep drop from its usual $879.95 price. Price trackers show its previous lowest price was $699.95, so this is the best deal yet.
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Calling it a step towards "super intelligence," Meta announced it is releasing Muse Spark, an overhauled and improved AI. This "natively multimodal reasoning model" goes way beyond a chatbot, and it will soon live in your glasses and your social feeds. It's available now in the Meta AI app, with plans to roll out with a smart glasses update in the next few weeks.
Instead of a one-size-fits-all approach, there are three levels to Muse Spark's "thinking," and users will be able control how deep the intelligence goes.
Instant Mode: For quick questions and everyday chats.
Thinking Mode: This mode is designed to solve more complex problems, so if you need some help with math, science, or logic, this is the mode.
Contemplating Mode: Muse Sparks' highest level engages multiple AI agents that work in parallel and collaborate to complete complex, multi-step tasks.
Meta says Muse Spark's performance compares to or exceeds their Llama 4 Maverick model while using over an order of magnitude less computing power. That means, theoretically, high-level reasoning without excessive server use.
While Muse Sparks will be accessible in a variety of places, it seems like Muse Spark's ground-up integration of visual material is made for smart glasses. Here are some of the ways Ray-Ban Meta and Oakley Meta users will be able to use the new AI.
One of the Muse Spark main improvements over Meta's previous model is the way the new AI will integrate visual information across different tools. So, theoretically, you could point your glasses at a mess of wires and electronic boxes and say "how do I hook up this home theater system?" Or get step-by-step coaching on assembling a piece of IKEA furniture without opening the booklet. The AI would read the instructions and make sure you're not screwing anything in upside down.
Meta said its Meta Superintelligence Lab collaborated with over 1,000 physicians to develop the AI's health reasoning capabilities. Users will be able to do things like generate an interactive display that unpacks the nutritional information about food, and maps out what muscles are activated during a workout.
All of the above is "in theory." Artificial intelligence hasn't always lived up to its hype, even when it's being hyped in front of a massive audience. It's one thing to perform well in laboratory benchmark tests, but how the tech works in the real world, where lighting is spotty, wi-fi is slow, and furniture instructions can be extremely complicated, is the real challenge.
While I haven't dug deeply into the tech, I did give it a quick test by turning on "thinking" mode and sending Meta AI the below picture of a random assortment of audio gear:
It not only correctly identified everything in the picture, it gave me a couple different options for possible ways to hook it together, and told me (correctly) what cords I needs. So I look forward to having it on my glasses. If you want to test it yourself, Muse Spark is already running on meta.ai and the Meta AI app, and smart glasses firmware and social media integrations are expected to follow shortly.
