Rumor has it, Apple is working on a low-cost MacBook. And not “low-cost for a Mac,” but a proper cheap laptop, possibly as low as $599. For a company that traditionally targets the more premium end of the market, this would be something of an about-face.
Technology
5 best home inventory apps to protect your property in case of emergency
The recent disasters sweeping the nation, from the torrential floods in North Carolina to the fires still raging in Southern California, showed how vital it is to have an evacuation plan because you might only have mere seconds to determine which items to take with you as you evacuate.
While caring for your loved ones during this extremely stressful time should be a top priority, it is unavoidable that you must rebuild your home and life, which can mean having to provide detailed accounts of what you lost to your insurance provider.
Trying to figure out what to take when you are given seconds or minutes to evacuate or having to file detailed insurance claims afterward can be a painful and confusing process.
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Firefighters at a house fire (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)
Why keeping track of your home inventory matters
Home inventory and restoration apps can provide you with a tool to itemize and track every item in your home. Not only can these apps help you stay organized and fiscally responsible for everyday home projects, but they can also help you easily determine what you need to grab and where it would be when you have limited time to grab items to take with you when you evacuate. It is important to determine where and what to prioritize, especially if your home is at risk.
These apps can centralize all your home information so that you can stay within budget for home projects and maintenance work, and they can help you should you ever have to submit a claim after any disaster. It can also help you keep your home safer with routine maintenance. Additionally, creating a home inventory can help you determine if you have the appropriate amount of insurance coverage. Some apps allow you to upload important documentation for your home in general or specific items. This means if you ever deal with the worst-case scenario and cannot grab all the important home documents, your apps will have them stored for you and accessible by phone or computer.
Here are the top picks for apps that are best at keeping track of your home before or after a disaster.
A family watching their home go up in flames (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)
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Top 5 apps for home inventory & management
1. HomeZada
A comprehensive home management platform, HomeZada, helps homeowners manage all aspects of their home, including but not limited to: maintenance, finances, inventory and improvement projects. Because it acts as a central hub to organize and track important home-related information, it will help you track, locate, rescue important items and make filing insurance claims easier.
Key features of HomeZada
- Home maintenance tracking: Create and schedule maintenance tasks such as HVAC servicing or gutter cleaning; get reminders for routine upkeep so it is one less thing for you to have to remember and prevent early replacement costs, as well as keep your home running more safely and smoothly
- Home inventory management: Ability to categorize inventory for all your indoor and outdoor spaces in a streamlined fashion with its established template so you do not have to start from scratch; assign photos, videos, receipts and warranty information for inventory items by room; critical for insurance purposes and disaster recovery
- Home improvement projects: Helps you create a budget, organize and track the progress of projects of all sizes around your home; store ideas, costs and documentation in one place to assist with tax and resale purposes
- Finance and property insights: Track home equity and overall property value by monitoring mortgage payments, utility bills and other home-related expenses
- Document storage: Employs key security features in storing important documents like purchase agreements, blueprints and appliance manuals
- Mobile access: Access available via web and mobile app makes it easy to manage your home wherever you are and however you want
Pricing
HomeZada offers both free and premium plans. Premium plans features include providing additional tools for inventory management, financial tracking and project planning.
Website
For more information or to sign up, click here.
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2. Centriq
While not as comprehensive as Homezada, Centriq has a strong focus on home management, which centralizes everything you need to organize, troubleshoot, operate and maintain your home.
Key features of Centriq
- Manage paperwork: Scan barcodes of appliances and purchases in the home, which allows you access to manuals and warranty information; photograph product receipts along with photos and video
- Maintenance tracking: Add tasks with a reminder along with any item in the app
- Mobile access: Access available via web and mobile app makes it easy to manage your home
- Troubleshoot with ease: Input product name or barcode with Centriq and get relevant troubleshooting videos to help you solve your problem
- Replacement and repair ease: Centriq will lead you to the correct replacement parts and accessories by simply inputting your model number
Pricing
Centriq offers both free and premium plans. Some of the extra features of the Premium plan include interactions between multiple properties and shared access for multi-users.
Website
For more information or to sign up, click here.
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3. NAIC Home Inventory
NAIC Home Inventory app (NAIC)
The National Association of Insurance Commissioners created the NAIC Home Inventory app to help you if you need to file a claim, as well as provide expert tips. The app showcases a simple, clean design of the inventory section with built-in room suggestions. Though a bit more generic than some of its competitors, this app helps you create an itemized list of your home should you need to file an insurance claim in the future.
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Key features of NAIC home inventory app
- Pro-tip access: Access informative guides from experts regarding insurance claims and disaster mitigation
- Home inventory management: Add or delete rooms suggested under the inventory section; use the barcode scan feature to easily pull up an item’s serial number; add photos and video with items
- Mobile access: Access available via web and mobile app makes it easy to manage your home
- Information access: Allows you to export inventory as a .CSV file without photos or as a PDF with photos
Pricing
NAIC Home Inventory app is free.
Website
For more information or to sign up, click here.
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4. Itemtopia
Itemtopia app (Itemtopia)
Unlike its namesake, Itemtopia actually goes beyond itemizing your belongings. Available in over 170 countries worldwide, the app allows you to manage services, warranties as well as medical records. A rich and interactive app helps you start with ease by incorporating AI intelligence.
Key features of Itemtopia
- Home inventory management: Add or delete items under “Locations” or “Item Collections”; add photos and video with items along with warranties and receipts
- Life management tools: Add medical records by individual, receipts by service and even manage pet’s vet appointments through the app
- Mobile access: Access available via web and mobile app makes it easy to manage your home
- Information access: Allows you to share export inventory as a .CSV file without photos or as a PDF with photos via email, text and other channels
Pricing
Itemtopia offers both free and premium plans. Some of the extra features of the Premium plan include larger storage (up to 2 GB or approximately 3,000 items), the option to add more users and the ability to showcase items for sale with a shareable link.
Website
For more information or to sign up, click here.
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5. Encircle
Created originally for home restorers and insurance adjusters, Encircle is a professionally geared app that can help homeowners stay disaster-ready. This app helps you record items around your home quickly. Because of its focus on industry professionals, some of the features and terminology might be confusing or unnecessary for an average homeowner.
Key features for Encircle
- Home damage assessment: Document damage and progress of restoration jobs easily, collaborate with contractors and report a complete picture of a property loss
- Inventory management: Take photos, video and notes and organize by room; generate reports to instantaneously detail the story of loss; ensure the highest level of accuracy with time/date, user and GPS metadata info
- Mobile access: Access available via web and mobile app makes it easy to manage your home
- Information access: Share a link to your Encircle inventory through text or email; access spreadsheet view by logging into the web version of Encircle; create a PDF version of your inventory with photos by using the app’s “generate report” feature
Pricing
Encircle offers both free and paid plans. Users can use the home inventory app for free for up to two houses. Encircle’s restoration software has a free 14-day trial but is otherwise a monthly or annual paid membership.
Website
For more information or to sign up, click here.
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Kurt’s key takeaways
It’s easy to feel chaotic and overwhelmed when disaster strikes or when friends or family members are grappling with huge losses in home and security. There are, however, home apps that can help you create a plan before and after disaster strikes so you can have one less problem to manage while grieving your losses. While the hope is that disasters will not happen to you, these apps I mentioned will help you know, organize and restore your home should disaster strike. With some of the easiest and best ways to create a home inventory, it will give you peace of mind and a proactive way to respond during an emergency.
Are you prepared for possible evacuation in an emergency? Have you survived a disaster? What did you learn, and what would you do differently? Let us know by writing us at Cyberguy.com/Contact.
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When Jeff Bezos decided Amazon needed to get in the smartphone game, he went all in. And the resulting device, the Fire Phone, wound up more densely packed with big ideas than just about any gadget you’ll find anywhere. There was just one tiny problem: they were mostly bad ideas.
The Fire Phone shipped in 2014 with a feature list a mile long. The screen had a 3D effect! There were, like, 400 cameras! There was a whole home screen filled with something called “delighters!” But the Fire Phone was, above all, a way to buy things on Amazon. That was what Bezos wanted, after all. It’s just not what users wanted.
For this episode of Version History, we tell the story of the Fire Phone from beginning to end. (It doesn’t take that long.) David Pierce, Allison Johnson, and Sean O’Kane discuss how the success of the Kindle led to Amazon’s expanded hardware plans, the brewing fight with Apple over app store policies, the ways in which Bezos himself directed the product, and the astonishing speed with which the thing flopped. Only a few months after it launched, the Fire Phone could be had for less than a buck. People still didn’t want it.
Utlimately, the device that was supposed to be the beginning of something big for Amazon turned out to be very small indeed. But that doesn’t make its story any less interesting.
This is the fifth episode of Version History. (We’re more than halfway through season one!) If you want to find the show, there are three good places to go:
Thanks to everyone who has already watched or listened to the show, and has sent feedback! We’re already putting on the next bunch of episodes, and want to hear everything you think we should be doing or not doing or doing differently. What other huge product failures deserve their own episode? You tell us. In the meantime, if you want to know more about the Fire Phone story, here are some links to get you started:
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A new bipartisan push in Washington is shining a spotlight on AI’s impact on jobs. Senators Josh Hawley, R-Mo., and Mark Warner, D-Va., introduced the AI-Related Job Impacts Clarity Act, which would require major companies and federal agencies to report AI-related job impacts to the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL).
The legislation is designed to shed light on how artificial intelligence is affecting the U.S. workforce.
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Key requirements of the AI-Related Job Impacts Clarity Act
The AI-Related Job Impacts Clarity Act sets out several core obligations:
- Covered entities must quarterly disclose job effects tied to AI. This includes layoffs, hires and positions left open because tasks were automated.
- The DOL must compile those disclosures and publish a public report, including to Congress.
- Non-publicly traded companies may be included under certain thresholds.
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The goal is to create a clear, consistent data source on how AI changes employment.
Why the AI-Related Job Impacts Clarity Act matters
AI is already reshaping the American workforce, and lawmakers from both parties say the country needs a clear view of what that means for jobs.
Sens. Josh Hawley and Mark Warner join forces on a new bipartisan bill to track how AI is changing American jobs. (Valerie Plesch/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Hawley warned that the trend is accelerating.
“Artificial intelligence is already replacing American workers, and experts project AI could drive unemployment up to 10 to 20% in the next five years,” Hawley said. “The American people need to have an accurate understanding of how AI is affecting our workforce, so we can ensure that AI works for the people, not the other way around.”
Warner agreed, saying good data is key to good policy
“This bipartisan legislation will finally give us a clear picture of AI’s impact on the workforce, what jobs are being eliminated, which workers are being retrained, and where new opportunities are emerging,” he said. “Armed with this information, we can make sure AI drives opportunity instead of leaving workers behind.”
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Their shared goal is simple. The AI-Related Job Impacts Clarity Act would make AI’s workforce impact visible and accountable. It gives you and policymakers the hard data needed to guide smarter decisions about automation and employment.
Challenges in tracking AI-related job impacts
While the bill sounds promising, several hurdles remain. The biggest challenge is consistency. Each company decides what counts as an AI-related job impact, which could lead to uneven or incomplete reporting.
Smaller businesses might also escape the rules altogether if they fall outside the reporting thresholds. That could leave big gaps in understanding how automation affects local or niche industries.
Data quality is another concern. Even with reporting requirements, the system relies on companies to share accurate information. The Department of Labor will need strong verification to make sure the reports reflect reality.
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And while transparency is valuable, it doesn’t automatically protect jobs. The law can expose the problem, but real progress will depend on what policymakers and employers do with that data.
The AI-Related Job Impacts Clarity Act would make companies report when automation replaces, adds or reshapes jobs. (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)
What this means for you
If you work in an industry where AI tools are becoming common, this bill could directly affect you. It would make it easier to see how automation changes jobs across the country. You’ll be able to find out which roles are being replaced and which ones are being created.
This new level of visibility could also pressure employers to be more transparent about layoffs. Companies may start explaining whether job cuts are truly due to AI or part of broader business shifts. That accountability could help workers plan smarter for the future.
With clearer data, policymakers and training programs can step in faster. If large numbers of people in a certain field lose work because of automation, the government could push for retraining or job placement efforts. It may even help workers prepare earlier by learning new digital or technical skills before AI impacts their roles.
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Overall, this bill puts information in the public’s hands so workers can understand what’s happening to their jobs instead of being left in the dark.
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Kurt’s key takeaways
The AI-Related Job Impacts Clarity Act marks a major step toward tracking how automation changes the American workforce. It doesn’t stop AI from transforming industries, but it gives workers and policymakers the facts they need to respond. Transparency can’t stop every job loss, but it can help guide smarter policies, retraining programs and career planning.
The Department of Labor would publish regular reports showing where AI is creating challenges and new opportunities for workers. (Getty)
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If this new data shows your field is being reshaped by AI, would you start retraining now or wait to see how it plays out? Let us know by writing to us at Cyberguy.com
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Copyright 2025 CyberGuy.com. All rights reserved.
Of course, Apple takes great pride in its design and aesthetics. So the company isn’t going to simply take the innards of a MacBook Air, slap them in a cheap plastic case, and call it a day. Instead, Apple is supposedly building a smaller laptop, with a lower-resolution screen and an “entirely new design” around an iPhone processor.
That chip could be some version of the A19 found in the current iPhone lineup, but analyst Ming-Chi Kuo claimed earlier this year that the company was working on a laptop powered by last year’s A18.
If the idea of a small, low-cost laptop running on an ultralow-power chip feels familiar, well, it should — we used to call them netbooks. Netbooks erupted on the scene at a weird time in the late aughts, when we were transitioning to a web-first computing world.
What set netbooks apart from other laptops was their pursuit of portability, battery life, and rock-bottom prices at almost any cost. The original netbook, the ASUS Eee PC, came in two sizes (7-inch or 10-inch) and ran on Intel’s budget Celeron M processor. But even that slow, low-powered CPU was too demanding for the tiny Eee PC, and so ASUS underclocked it to just 630 MHz. (Yes, back in the halcyon days of 2007, we measured CPU speed in MHz, not GHz.)
Intel saw this emerging trend and built CPUs just for the netbooks called Atom. In many ways, Atom chips were Intel’s answer to the growing might of ARM, and even formed the basis for its tablet and smartphone efforts. It’s essentially the reverse of what Apple did, which took its mobile A-series processor and turned it into a powerful laptop chip. (And, now back again, it seems.)
As we all know now, netbooks were not long for this world. A number of things helped spell their demise. For one, most of them were just never particularly good. And the ones that weren’t awful tended to be a bit pricer. Sure, you could get a 7-inch Eee PC for around $200. But something more capable, like an HP Mini 210 HD, could set you back about $385 in 2010, depending on the configuration. When adjusted for inflation, that’s a hair over $577. As the prices of regular laptops came down, this didn’t seem like a particularly good deal anymore.
But two of the biggest culprits are undoubtedly the emergence of the Chromebook and the iPad. (We’ll save the discussion of the Chromebook for another day.) The iPad was introduced in 2010, and it immediately started eating into the netbook’s market share. By 2012, tablets had overtaken netbooks, and by 2013, netbooks were effectively dead. Sure, some still lingered around, and you had a spiritual successor in the Chromebook, but the iPad helped kill off the netbook in swift and spectacular fashion.
Many of the things that one might have used a netbook for — browsing the web, checking email, shouting into the void of what was then called Twitter — were now being handled better by the iPad. And, when paired with a Bluetooth keyboard, the iPad was actually a decent productivity machine, so long as your expectations were low.
And so, the netbook vanished.
But this new, cheaper MacBook, at least on paper, sounds like it might be borrowing a bit from the netbook blueprint. Some people will just never be able to adjust to the workflow of a tablet and keyboard combo. So Apple might be giving them a proper laptop form factor.
While we don’t know what the screen size will be, we do know it will be smaller than the current 13.6-inch MacBook Air. That could mean 13.3 inches, but perhaps Apple will bring back the 12-inch format or even revisit the 11-inch realm of its smallest Air model. That’s inching into netbook territory.
Pair all that with a mobile-first SoC that will handle everyday tasks and browsing with aplomb, but certainly won’t cut it for heavier tasks like video editing or gaming, and you have something that sounds like the original pitch for a netbook if you ask me. Apple will obviously never call its new affordable MacBook a netbook, but maybe by avoiding the name, it can make them cool again.
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