Photo: Natalia Bostan (Shutterstock)

Even in standby mode, your game console could use 25 times the minimum power it needs – and this could silently drive up your utility bills. Idle power usage is also less environmentally friendly, which is another reason to check and fix your console’s power usage. The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) has said that Xbox owners in particular could be collective pay an additional $ 500 million in energy bills based on the default energy mode settings.

To be fair to Microsoft and Sony, the Xbox Series X | S and PS5 are more energy efficient when you’re streaming movies or doing less intense tasks when compared to older consoles. However, it is best to check your power settings on these consoles so as not to strain your wallet and waste energy.

Here’s how much power your consoles are using and what you can do to reduce energy bills.

How to reduce the power consumption of the Xbox Series X | S

The Xbox Series X | S ships with Instant On Power mode enabled in most regions. This allows you to use the console to stream games to your smartphone, and to update and install games when the console is in standby mode. However, the Xbox Series X | S consumes 10-13 W of energy in Instant-On mode – compared to 0.4-0.5 W when you activate the energy-saving mode.

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If you haven’t bought the console yet and saving electricity is an important factor, then the S Series has an advantage. Even when gaming, the S series (74 W) only uses half as much power as the X series (153 W). according to Microsoft. Obviously, no one buys a console just with energy savings in mind, and there are other factors that need to be considered.

Regardless of which version of Microsoft’s latest game consoles you are using, a simple adjustment of the power settings can save you a lot of money. Go to the settings on your Xbox and navigate to General> Power Mode & Start.

Power mode and startup settings on an Xbox Series X. Screenshot: Pranay Parab

Under Power mode, choose save energy to make sure your console is not using more power than it needs.

Energy saving mode on an Xbox Series X. Screenshot: Pranay Parab

This settings page is also where you can choose how long you want to wait for the Xbox to turn itself off. The minimum is 1 hour of inactivity when gaming and 2 hours of inactivity when streaming music or movies.

Of course, you can go to “Power Mode & Start” in the settings and select it Complete shutdown to turn off your Xbox completely. Once you’ve done this, you can unplug it just to be absolutely sure no electricity is wasted.

How to reduce power consumption on PS4 and PS5

On the PlayStation 5, you can reduce the console’s power consumption by using the settings and go over to System> Energy saving mode. On the PlayStation 4 you can also find these options under Settings> Energy saving settings.

Both the PS4 and PS5 have a menu called Set the time before the PS5 (or PS4) goes to sleep. By default, this is set to put your console to sleep after one hour of inactivity while gaming and four hours of inactivity while streaming movies. You can shorten the time to reduce power consumption.

Both Sony consoles also have an option called Features available in idle mode. Here you can choose whether you want to allow the console to charge your controllers via the USB ports when you have kept the PS5 in sleep mode. You can also choose whether the console can connect to the Internet while in sleep mode. If you turn off Internet access, games or updates cannot be downloaded when not in use.

With the PS5 you can Set the time before the PlayStation controllers turn off. You can quickly choose how long to wait for the DualSense controller to turn off. If you shorten the time here, the battery life of your controller will be extended.

Finally, you can shut down the PS5 by pressing the PS button on the controller once and selecting Power> switch off PS5. The corresponding option on a PS4 can be accessed by holding down the PS button on the controller and then selecting Turn off PS4. This initiates a full shutdown, as opposed to Hibernation, which puts the console in a low-power state that still uses a small amount of power.

Screenshot: Brendan Hesse

Internet users increasingly want more anonymous surfing experiencewhich is having a huge impact on advertising, e-commerce and the online economy as a whole. When a company cannot track you with third-party cookies, it’s harder to make money. Google is testing a new cookie replacement technology called Federated Learning of Cohorts (FLoC), which Google says will help protect user privacy and current business models for online businesses.

You can Read Google’s overview of the technology here, but the essential thing is that users have a unique FLoC ID. Your ID is technically anonymous, but you are grouped with other users with similar internet history – your “cohorts”. Instead of selling someone’s data, companies like Google sell cohort data to advertisers.

But while “private” on paper, there we explained it before, that is not completly correct. In fact, FLoC is likely just as intrusive – if not more – than third-party cookies. Depending on the size of a cohort and the number of cohorts to which a person belongs in the database, a person could plausibly be identified under other serious concerns.

The good news is that FLoC is only implemented in Chrome – no other browser will use FLoC, not even other Chromium browsers like Brave, Edge, or Vivaldi. It’s also not ready for full implementation just yet. In fact, Google delayed the introduction of FLoC for Chrome. However, it is currently in its early testing phase and may just be available as a new feature called Privacy Sandbox in your browser. To be fair, less than 1% of Chrome users take the Privacy Sandbox test, but the test can expand over time, and it’s possible you signed up for this new form of tracking without it to notice.

Fortunately, it’s easy to check that Privacy Sandbox is enabled and if so, you can block it or log out.

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How to check and disable Privacy Sandbox (FLoC) in Chrome

Privacy Sandbox is only active for a tiny fraction of Android and desktop Chrome users in the US, Australia, Brazil, Canada, India, Indonesia, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, and the Philippines. It’s not (yet) on iOS devices.

Screenshot: Brendan Hesse

Nevertheless, it is worth checking whether the function is active. These steps apply to Android, Windows, Mac, and Linux versions of Chrome:

1. Open Chrome and go to Settings> Privacy & Security> Privacy Sandbox.
2. This will open the Privacy Sandbox landing page even if you are not participating in the trial.
3. If the “Privacy Sandbox Trials” Switch is on, FLoC is activated. Click / tap to disable it – just don’t turn it on if you don’t want Chrome to use FLoC.

Screenshot: Brendan Hesse

Alternatively, the “Am I FLoCed?” The website quickly searches for the Privacy Sandbox trial in Chrome. If the test is positive, use the steps above to turn off FLoC tracking.

If you don’t see the option in Chrome settings, then you’re not taking the test. However, that does not mean that you will no longer be added to the Privacy Sandbox trial in the future. Fortunately, Chrome users can preventively block FLoC tracking using this DuckDuckGo browser extension.

[ZDNet]

Photo: Photographee.eu (Shutterstock)

Stress and depression can look and feel very similar to one another. The most common symptoms for both include sleeping, eating, concentration, and mood problems, as well as difficulty performing everyday tasks. Physically, there is a lot of overlap between stress and depression as both affect the immune system, leading to increases in certain markers of inflammation.

For depressed patients this is Changes in your brain are similar to those seen in chronic stress. And chronic stress, if left untreated, can lead to depression. For example, adults who experienced high levels of adversity in their childhood leading to toxic stress have a lot higher rates of depression.

“The biology is not the same, but they have a lot in common,” says Philip Muskin, Professor of Psychiatry at Columbia University.

How to Tell the Difference Between Stress and Depression.

Stress is phasic

There are significant differences when it comes to stress versus depression, especially when it comes to effective treatment options. One of the main differences between stress and depression is that stress can come and go.

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“For most people, stress is something that is phasic. You have a stressful time and you come back out, ”says Muskin. “Depression isn’t like that. Depression lasts for years in some people. It can spontaneously decrease in some people, but not in everyone. ”

For example, when a happy event occurs, such as visiting friends or loved ones, a stressed person may feel happy in that moment, although the stress is likely to return after they have left. A depressed person will not be able to be happy at this moment, even if they know they should.

“If you can get home from work and still recharge, it’s not a major clinical depression,” says Sheryl Ziegler, a psychologist and author of the book Mommy Burnout: How to Reclaim Your Life While Raising Healthier Children. “Clinical depression doesn’t come and go.”

So what’s the treatment for stress? To reduce it, Muskin advises through measures such as exercise, meditation, and mindfulness, as well as reducing the source of stress.

Depression is a disease

For a depressed person, taking measures to reduce stress – such as exercise or going out into nature – can help, but not cure them.

“Only medication can help with certain types of depression,” says Muskin.

At its core, depression is a brain disease. Just like we treat an infection with antibiotics, depression often requires medication. For someone with severe depression, “mind over matter” or “wanting it away” will not work. Instead, a person with depression needs medical treatment.

“Depression is no different from any other illness,” says Muskin. “It’s a medical disease.”

The most important thing to know when you are experiencing stress or depression is that help is available and that it can get better. For stress, this means reducing the source of stress and finding ways to deal with it. For depression, this includes treatment such as therapy and medication.

Whatever the right solution, you know there is one, and that the first step to getting the help you need may be the most important of all.