If you’re tired of paying an accountant to do your taxes, just ask the Internal Revenue Service. Their partners might do it for free.

If your income is $84,000 or less, regardless of your tax situation, you can get free tax software and step-by-step assistance. First, go to IRS.gov, and click “IRS Free File options.” Then click “IRS Free File.”

You can get free help in person in your own community if you’re 60 or older, or earn $67,000 or less, or need language support, or have a disability. Click on the button that says: “IRS VITA/TCE.” It stands for “IRS Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) and Tax Counseling for the Elderly (TCE).”

If you don’t qualify for a free service, consider a low-cost offer from one of the IRS’s eight partners. Both TaxAct and TaxSlayer charge about $30. FreeTaxUSA will do your federal return for free and charge you $15 for the state version.

Never Go Dark in a Power Outage

Once, when the power went out in my old apartment in California, I went to the movies. I would have stayed home, if I’d had battery-operated light bulbs.

After you charge a battery-powered light bulb for 10 hours, the bulb gets topped off again every time you turn on the light. If the power goes out, the bulbs switch to battery mode, keeping your home lit.

Techlicious.com recommends the GE “LED Plus Backup Battery LED Light Bulb,” $28 on Amazon for two bulbs. It sounds pricey, but might be worth it if you have power outages fairly often or dislike candles. With it, you get three color temperatures, from warm white to daylight. On battery power, the bulbs run for up to five hours at 760 lumens, enough to light up a room. Look up “battery powered LED light bulbs” for more options.

Camping Phone

The Oukitel WP100 Titan is a monster-sized phone that charges your gadgets, projects movies and lights up your campsite, trail or cave. It can also be used to hit a nail on the head or pound in your tent pegs.

In length, the Titan is only an inch longer than the iPhone 16 Pro Max. But it’s four times thicker: a whopping 1.33 inches, compared to the iPhone’s third of an inch.

The features are amazing. With its 33,000 milliampere battery, the Titan can last six months on standby from a single charge. Its light is 1200 lumens. Its built-in 100-lumen projector can show a movie on the side of your car. Its camera is 200 megapixels, 150 more than my Android phone. You could talk on it nonstop for 12 days or continuously light up your campsite for over six days or watch six movies on a single charge. It has 512 gigabytes of storage, so you’re not going to run out of room for videos, photos and games. Its processor is lightning fast.

Unfortunately, it’s not out yet, unless you’re an early bird willing to take a chance on Kickstarter.com, the crowdfunding site. Once in a while, a Kickstarter project doesn’t pan out. But this one is listed for $599, a $200 discount. The company has already raised over $338,000, zooming past its $10,000 goal.

Learning Sign Language

You can learn sign language from a friendly robot online. The magic happens at signs-ai.com.

First, the site prompts you to use your laptop’s built-in webcam, or one that’s attached to your computer, to take a picture of your face. An outline of your face is used to match your gestures against those of your robot teacher. For instance, when you raise your hand to form a military salute, you’re saying “hello.” On the screen, you’ll see blue lines to show you exactly where to place your hand in relation to your face. Your robot rewards you with a ding if your hand is lined up correctly.

If you already know sign language, you can go to a higher level after completing the mini tutorial. I started at level one, earning 70 points for mastering such gestures as “hot” and “forgot.” Next I was ready to move on to level two. It’s fun.

Robot News

Tiny ant-like robots are working together to lift objects 350 times their own weight and climb over obstacles five times their height, thanks to researchers from Hanyang University in South Korea. According to a video on Mashable, the bots are made of tiny magnetic particles. Controlled by magnets, they connect, move and change shape. This creates a coordinated swarm, just like ants on a team. They sure look like ants to me.

If all goes well, they’ll be used inside the human body to deliver medicine and unclog arteries. In a video clip on the Mashable site, you can watch them clear blocked tubes and carry a pill that’s 2000 times heavier than a single bot.

Deleting Malware

The French security company Sekoia.io taught our FBI how to delete malware from 4,258 US-based computers without having to go near them. Instead, they sent a command to all those machines from a remote location and poof! Malware gone. The malware, “PlugX,” was invisible to many victims. But for the past 10 years, it’s snuck into thousands of computers worldwide. It even hit Chinese dissident groups.

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