Technologies

Google Home can help make your grocery shopping easier

These tips and tricks can help make sure you always have food in the fridge.

Grocery shopping can be a nightmare. Crammed parking lots, rush-hour crowds, long lines, low stock and general nonsense that you don’t want to have to deal with. We can’t blame you. Google Home ($129 at Walmart) has some handy tools you can use — including the Google Voice assistant — to help make grocery shopping a little less hectic.

The two main ways to do this are through making shopping lists (you can save your fingers the work by using your voice), and through Google Shopping, formerly Google Express, which ties into your Google Home.

These tips may seem simple at first, but once you start using them, you’ll find that they can really take some of the hassle out of the shopping experience, especially if you’re the type of person who wants to get in, get out, and get on with your day.

Make a shopping list the easy way

Google can make a list for literally anything, but for now, we’ll stick with groceries. You can create a list through your Google Home device or with the Assistant in the Google Home app.

Through your Google Home device

Say «Hey, Google, start a grocery list,» or whatever you want to name it. Google should confirm that it’s made the list and ask what you want to add.

You can add stuff now, later or manually through the app, for example, if you forgot the eggs. Later you can say «Hey, Google, what’s on my grocery list?» and Google will tell you.

Through the Google Home app

Open the Google Home app
Tap the microphone
Say «start a grocery list» or «start a list» (Google will ask what you want to call it).
Add your items verbally, manually and ask Google what’s on your shopping list.

Deleting items

Sorry, but saying «Hey, Google, delete 10 bags of Cheetos from my grocery list» won’t work. You’ll have to access your shopping list in the Google Home app and check off the item manually.

A grocery list on the Google app is most useful to make sure you don’t forget something before your weekly shopping trip, although you can «shop» the list after you make it on the app.

To shop the list (without going to the store), open the list manually in the Google Home app. At the bottom of the screen, tap Shop This List and you’ll be taken to Google Express for in-app shopping and price comparisons.

Shopping with Google Shopping

You can buy almost anything through Google Shopping, Google’s shopping service formerly known as Google Express. There’s no membership fee, just know that if you order something you’ll have the store’s delivery fee tagged onto your bill. Sometimes a store might offer free delivery if your bill is a certain amount at checkout. You can shop it either by voice on your Google Home or on its website. It works about the same on each.

The Google Shopping website works like most shopping sites — search what you want, add it to the cart and check out. There are dozens of promo codes, discounts and personalized recommendations based on your shopping history (you can turn that off).

You also have easy access to any shopping list you made, the ability to reorder items, the status and history of your orders, and swapping between accounts.

Shopping with Google Home by voice

Start by saying «Hey, Google, buy paper towels from Target» (or whatever item you want from your preferred store). Google will list a selection of paper towels (different brands, prices and stores) that you can say «yes» or «no» to. After you’ve settled on your purchase, Google will ask if you need anything else. If you don’t, say «No, check out.» Google will send an order summary to your phone, so you can make sure everything is right. If it is, you can tell Google to place your order.

Shopping in the Google Home app

This mostly works the same as shopping with voice but with the visual of your order’s progression. Open the Google Home app and tap the microphone to start. You can either have a conversation with Google or tap the bubble responses. It’s all about your convenience.

More tips

Before you start ordering, make sure your ZIP code is right. This is mostly just if you’re using a desktop. Sometimes the IP address can say you’re in another state.
You can also familiarize yourself with the stores that work with Google Shopping so you get better voice search results on the fly.
Use your best judgment… I wouldn’t order a couch with just voice.
On top of the discounts, you can also link your loyalty (Costco and NikePlus) memberships and your Target account to Google Shopping.

Technologies

Major Amazon Prime Benefit Faces Crackdown Next Month

Amazon plans to end its Prime Invitee program soon. Here’s how this could affect your deliveries.

If you’re using a friend or family member’s free Prime shipping and you don’t live in the same household, you might need to pay another monthly cost. According to Amazon’s updated customer service page, first reported by The Verge, the retail giant is ending its Prime Invitee benefit-sharing program on Oct. 1.

Amazon isn’t the first company to prevent membership sharing between family and friends. The e-commerce giant is just the latest to follow Netflix’s account-sharing crackdown. We also saw it done with Disney-Plus last year. While it’s unclear whether this change will work for Amazon, Netflix gained over 200,000 subscribers following its policy change.

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Amazon’s Prime Invitee program is being replaced by Amazon Family, which includes many of the same benefits. However, Amazon Family only works for up to two adults and four children living in the same «primary residential address» — a shared home. While you’ll still be able to use free shipping to send gifts elsewhere, your Prime Invitees will no longer be able to use the perk.

Read more: More Than Just Free Shipping: Here Are 19 Underrated Amazon Prime Perks

What this means for you

If you’re the beneficiary of someone else’s Prime Invitee benefits, you have one more month to take advantage of the current program before the changes take effect.

Starting in October, you’ll have to get your own Amazon Prime subscription in order to benefit from the company’s free shipping program. First-time subscribers get a year of Prime membership for $15, but you’ll be stuck shelling out $15 a month to maintain your subscription thereafter.

Read more: Your Free Pass to Prime Day Deals (No Membership Required)

Why is Amazon ending the Prime Invitee program?

This move follows shortly after Reuters reported that Amazon’s Prime account signups slowed down recently despite an extended July Prime Day event. While the company reported blowout sales numbers, new Prime subscriptions didn’t meet internal expectations. In the US, they fell short of last year’s signup metrics.

According to Reuters, Amazon registered 5.4 million US signups over the 21-day run-up to the Prime Day event, around 116,000 fewer than during the same period in 2024, and 106,000 below the company’s own goal, a roughly 2% decline in both metrics.

By forcing separate households to have their own subscriptions, Amazon could be looking to attract more Prime accounts after previously failing to do so.

The new Amazon Family program (previously known as Amazon Household) offers Prime benefits to up to two adults and four children in a single home, including free shipping, Prime Video, Prime Reading, Amazon Music and more. The subscription also includes benefits for certain third-party companies, such as GrubHub.

Impulse Buys Under $25 on Amazon That Make Surprisingly Great Gifts

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Technologies

Premiere Pro for Free: How Adobe’s New iPhone App Will Let You Edit Videos at No Cost

Adobe Premiere users will only have to pay for extra AI credits and cloud storage.

Thanks to social media apps like TikTok and Instagram, everyone is an video editor these days. And soon you won’t have to sit down at a laptop to use one of the most popular video editors on the market.

Adobe announced on Thursday that it is releasing a new video editing iPhone app named Premiere on Sept. 30. You can preorder the app now in the Apple App Store, with an Android app currently in development.

The iOS app should feel familiar to Premiere users, with its multitrack timeline and preview screen. The app can be used for all your usual video editing: trimming clips, overlaying audio and adding synchronized captions. You can also use Adobe’s new voice-to-sound effects tool and record voiceovers.

Premiere should be a big upgrade for Adobe users who have only used Premiere Rush, a barebones version of its video editor. As more content creators become mobile-first, Adobe is hoping to draw them in with revamped mobile apps.

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You should be able to use the Premiere iOS app for free. Adobe says you may need to pay for generative AI credits and additional storage, like through Adobe Creative Cloud, though more pricing info is expected closer to the Sept. 30 launch. This is very different from the desktop app, which starts at $23 per month.

A truly free Premiere mobile app would be a win for content creators, especially for anyone who wants to explore editing in Premiere but doesn’t want to pay for another subscription.

In an era of mobile-first content creators, tech companies have raced to introduce user-friendly mobile editing apps. TikTok creators use the ever-popular CapCut, with Meta adding its own contribution, a new app called Edits. Adobe has long been the industry standard for professional content creation and editing, but its mobile offerings were usually less feature-packed versions of its flagship programs under different names.

That changed this year as Adobe released true mobile versions of Photoshop and Firefly AI. The new Premiere app helps Adobe make a competitive entrance in a crowded market, in addition to giving loyal Adobe users a new way to access their tools on the go.

Adobe has also been focused on integrating generative AI into its software. Premiere Pro got its first-ever AI tool, generative extend, which uses AI to add a few extra seconds to clips you upload. It’s meant to help smooth transitions between clips, particularly when you might have turned off the recording a smidge too early and need a few extra seconds of film.

AI is a contentious issue among creators, with some voicing concerns over the training and deployment of AI models. Adobe’s Firefly AI has been fully integrated into the new Premiere iOS app, though the company’s AI guidelines state that it never trains on customer data and that its AI-generated content is commercially safe.

For more, check out what to know about the iOS and Android Photoshop apps and good alternatives to CapCut.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Mini Crossword Answers for Saturday, Sept. 6

Here are the answers for The New York Times Mini Crossword for Sept. 6.

Looking for the most recent Mini Crossword answer? Click here for today’s Mini Crossword hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Wordle, Strands, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

Today’s Mini Crossword is extra-long, as usual on Saturdays. And a couple of the clues were stumpers! Need answers? Read on. And if you could use some hints and guidance for daily solving, check out our Mini Crossword tips.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: Tips and Tricks for Solving The New York Times Mini Crossword

Let’s get to those Mini Crossword clues and answers.