You get good magnification, with a waterproof (IPX7 rating) and fogproof design in a lightweight package (11.8 ounces). These also have two things that specifically make them great for kids: rugged construction and a nice, rubberized grip. I can’t tell you how many trees and rocks these have bashed into while around my son’s neck, and they’re still as good as new.

Stargazing Binoculars

When you think stargazing you probably think telescopes, but binoculars can work too, especially larger, higher-magnification models like these Celestron Skymasters. The first thing to know is that these are huge—most of the time you’ll want to use them with a tripod, which is not included in the price (they do include an adapter, which I used to put them on a photo tripod, which worked fine). The Porro prism design (see above), with 15x magnification and 70mm objective lenses, make these nice and bright, perfect for getting good views of the moon. They also work for larger clusters and nebulae. They do work for birding as well, but it’s more like using a spotting scope. They’re nice for digiscoping, though if you’re viewing something reasonably stationary, like water birds.

As with all Celestron binos there’s a nice big, smooth focusing knob, and they also have long eye relief which makes them easy to use with glasses. There is a fair bit of chromatic aberration, especially with bright stars or the moon, but I didn’t find it distracting. In fact, for the price, these provide surprisingly great views.

Image-Stabilizing Binoculars

Image-stabilized binoculars use electronics to smooth out your view, similar to what action cams do to get rid of jittery video. There are quite a few models out there, and we are still testing, but here are a few that have stood out from the pack so far.

Photograph: Caramel Quin

Canon

8×20 Image Stabilization Binoculars

Image-stabilized binoculars tend to be expensive, but Canon has quite a few budget models worth considering. They’re simple to use. You just tap the button on top for five minutes of stabilization, or tap again to turn it off sooner. The tech detects your movement and adjusts for it optically, in real-time. The Canon 8×20 IS, its smallest, is doubly pocket-friendly: They’re surprisingly affordable and fit in a large pocket. At 15-ounce plus battery, they won’t weigh you down.
The 8X magnification is good for wildlife and sports, as is the 10X magnification of the only slightly larger Canon 10×20 IS. The 6.6-degree field of view is narrow but wide enough for most situations.

Last week, the Social Security Administration (SSA) quietly updated a public notice to reveal that the agency would be sharing “citizenship and immigration information” with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). This data sharing was already happening: WIRED reported in April that the Trump administration had already started pooling sensitive data from across the government for the purpose of immigration enforcement.

This public notice issued by SSA makes that official, months after the fact. The notice is known as a system of record notice (SORN), a document that outlines how an agency will share the data it has, with whom, and for what purpose. This notice is required under the Privacy Act of 1974. Normally, SORNs are issued before any data is shared between agencies, giving the public and government officials sufficient time to offer comment. But WIRED found that the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) was pulling in data from across DHS, SSA, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), and state voter data, among other sources, based largely on the US Citizenship and Immigration Service’s (USCIS) Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) database.

“There are laws that require the government to inform the public about their use of various kinds of databases and other surveillance technologies,” says Adam Schwartz, privacy litigation director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit focused on digital privacy and free speech. “If the government starts using the database and does not put out the appropriate disclosure and then later does put out that appropriate disclosure, they still have violated the law.”

The Trump administration has gone to drastic lengths to remake the government in its image. A core component of this has been an effort to vacuum up large swathes of data from across federal agencies, many of which were never meant to be comingled. This has frequently happened regardless of the laws, norms, or procedures that normally govern the access and sharing of sensitive data. The SORN from SSA is just the latest confirmation of exactly how much data is being shared in ways experts tell WIRED is “unprecedented.”

Much of this data sharing begins with misinformation about the data at hand. In the early days of the Trump administration, Elon Musk seized on a misunderstanding of SSA’s data to spread the claim that 150-year-old people were receiving benefits. They weren’t, but DOGE capitalized on the idea that the SSA’s systems were inefficient and fraudulent to burrow into the agency’s data and technology systems. In April, reporting from The New York Times found that in an effort to force immigrants to self-deport, the administration was adding them to the SSA’s database of dead people, effectively meaning that their Social Security numbers could not be used to get jobs or access government services. As part of the effort to combine disparate data across the government to verify citizenship and surveil immigrants, DHS recently published a different but related SORN that effectively transforms SAVE into a voter verification system, which experts also warned could be bypassing the requirements of the Privacy Act.

Leland Dudek, who served as acting commissioner for the Social Security Administration between February and May 2025, led the agency when members of DOGE first appeared. Dudek says he was initially supportive of DOGE and acted as a bridge between SSA staff and members of the DOGE team before becoming disillusioned.

When you flip the Lick around, things look more complicated—especially if you’re new to suction play—but if you take your time to understand these features, you’ll be a happy camper. On this end, you have a suction cup and a tongue-shaped clitoral stimulator. Remove the cup—just a quick twist and it’s off—you can easily access the flicking tongue. The tongue has three speeds that, with a bit of water-based lube, are meant to mimic the sensation of oral sex.

It didn’t feel much like oral sex to me, which probably says more about my partners than the Lick, but it felt great against my clitoris. So much so that this was my favorite function of the Lick. However, I want to stress the importance of lube. To truly experience the incredible sensations, you want it to glide seamlessly over your clitoris. Because your clit doesn’t naturally lubricate, the best way to make that happen is with your favorite water-based lube.

Finally, we get to the suction feature. While not as intense as sex toys that market themselves as bona fide pussy pumps, the suction on the Lick is pretty strong. Before I used it on my vulva, I used the pump of my hand to get an idea of what I was up against, and there was some major sucking happening. If you’re unsure why this might be an asset when dealing with pleasure, it comes down to sensitivity.

With the suction cup on your vulva, each time you press the corresponding button, it tightens its grip, essentially demanding that more blood come into the vulva. When this happens, sensitivity in the area is heightened, which, for some, can lead to stronger and longer orgasms. While not a sensation that everyone may be into, it is one that, if you haven’t tried it, is worth giving it a whirl at least once—if only to prove to yourself it’s not (or absolutely is) for you.

Some Initial Finagling

As much as the Lick’s features deliver on the pleasure front, the four control buttons are a bit difficult to navigate at first. When you hold the Lick in your hand with the suction cup at the top, the buttons descend in order down the shaft. The on/off button is second-to-last—most sex toys give this button its own spot, or at the top or bottom of the layout of buttons. That way, you won’t push it accidentally in the heat of the moment and kill the vibe. Sadly, that exact thing happened to me. The buttons just didn’t make sense in my brain.

Battery life is very much dependent on how you use the Lick. It takes about two hours to fully charge, and with that, you can get anywhere from 80 to 180 minutes of run time. I didn’t exhaust the vibrator by trying to get 180 minutes out of it, but that’s a broad spectrum of time that should be taken into consideration.

Ultimately, the Le Wand Lick 3-in-1 does exactly what it promises: gets you off. It’s waterproof, has a unique look, and its trio of options keeps things interesting. I’ve only used the Lick solo, but I can definitely see the pussy pump feature being a fun little addition to partnered play.