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It's easy to read Chris Sanders' The Wild Robot and Gints Zilbalodis' Flow — two of the best films of 2024 — as companion pieces. Both are animated, both feature little to no human involvement, and both center on unlikely animal allies (and one incredible robot) coming together against all odds. But the similarities between these films go further than skin-deep. The true connective tissue here is the unspoken calamity that's befallen the animals' worlds, hinted at in shots of flooded cities totally devoid of human activity.

SEE ALSO: The 25 best movies of 2024, and where to watch them

No one in either film will say the words "climate change" or "sea level rise." (No one in Flow will say anything, as all the animals communicate via natural animal sounds.) But no one needs to. As The Wild Robot and Flow unfold, it's impossible to deny the role climate change has played in shaping their worlds. Geese migrate over a submerged Golden Gate Bridge in The Wild Robot, while the entirety of Flow focuses on a band of animals trying to survive a flood of biblical proportions. These moments are enough to tell us that while climate change may not be the express message of either movie, it is an inextricable part of their settings — just as it's become an inextricable part of our own real-life experience.

By simply using climate change as a world-building element, The Wild Robot and Flow manage to speak volumes about it. That feat is doubly important given that the films will primarily reach younger audiences who will grow up with climate change and its impacts. For many young viewers, this might even be the first time they experience art that deals with climate change at all. Thankfully, they're in good hands. Sanders and Zilbalodis have created films that speak to these younger generations about climate change in a way that is accessible and honest, all without being bleak. Mashable spoke with both Sanders and Zilbalodis to learn more about climate change's vital, yet carefully understated, role in their respective films.

Flow and The Wild Robot communicate the realities of climate change to young audiences. The cat in "Flow" takes a swim. Credit: Sideshow and Janus Films

Thanks to clear, deliberate imagery, The Wild Robot and Flow establish the presence of climate change in their films in mere seconds.

The Wild Robot first gestures to climate change in a jokey brochure for Florida that pops up at the film's start. Boasting that the state now has "more shoreline than ever," the brochure implies that sea level rise has changed our world. The film pays that gag off later with the reveal of the submerged Golden Gate Bridge, whose roadway currently stands 220 feet above sea level. According to the Los Angeles Times, the idea for this imagery came about during director Chris Sanders' discussions with the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) about how to portray climate change in the film.

"If we were to show landmarks that had shifted, it had to be things that we would really recognize," Sanders told Mashable over Zoom. "That's where the Golden Gate Bridge came from. I figure that's a very iconic thing, not only in the United States but around the world."

SEE ALSO: Why the U.S. will get a whole lotta sea level rise

The use of well-known Earth iconography wasn't an option for Flow director Gints Zilbalodis, as Flow takes place in a fantasy world. Yet early scenes — before the flood hits — take a similar tact to The Wild Robot, by presenting something familiar jarringly out of place. Here, a glimpse of a rowboat caught in a tree's branches suggests that there has been a catastrophic flood before and that humans were once present.

"These environments are not decorative," Zilbalodis told Mashable on a Zoom call. "They're there to tell the story and help us understand these characters. So it's all there for a reason."

These environments are not decorative. They're there to tell the story. - Gints Zilbalodis

The Wild Robot and Flow don't stop at these environmental cues to indicate how climate change figures into the lives of their heroes. Instead, the characters who inhabit these environments become a key part of why the films' portrayal of climate change is so moving.

The Wild Robot and Flow's nonhuman focus asks, "Who will bear the brunt of climate change?" The geese begin their migration in "The Wild Robot." Credit: DreamWorks Animation

None of the characters in Flow and The Wild Robot are human. The Wild Robot focuses on robot Roz (voiced by Lupita Nyong'o) and her animal companions, while in Flow, a small black cat hops onboard a sailboat alongside a capybara, a lemur, a secretarybird, and a Golden Retriever. Though not human, their collective point of view offers up a new perspective on climate change — one that is primed for sympathy.

"I think we care more about a cat in this situation than a person," Zilbalodis said. "For better or worse, we care more about animals in film."

That statement rings especially true in Flow and The Wild Robot's moments of crisis. After all, when we're watching Flow's cat fight for its life on a flooding boat, or The Wild Robot's island animals struggling through an unusually intense winter storm, we're watching innocents bear the brunt of something they don't understand, and crucially, something they had no part in causing.

"When these events are happening to animals, it's poignant, because they had nothing to do with it," Sanders explained.

When these events are happening to animals, it's poignant, because they had nothing to do with it. - Chris Sanders

The same could also be said of younger generations in our current reality, who are inheriting a world that's been drastically altered by human-accelerated climate change. With this in mind, The Wild Robot and Flow don't just speak to young audiences about the climate crisis, they also speak for them. The innocent animals become stand-ins for young viewers for whom these images of flooding and intense storms are becoming the norm. Similarly, older generations who won't experience the full impact of climate change take on the role of the films' absent humans. They won't have to deal with the perils they've helped intensify, but those they've left behind certainly will.

The Wild Robot and Flow are honest but hopeful about a future defined by climate change. The cat from "Flow" tours a flooded city. Credit: Sideshow and Janus Films

Despite the daunting worlds they present, neither The Wild Robot nor Flow is all doom and gloom about climate change. Both instead present hopeful paths forward to their young audiences.

For Sanders, the humans' absence from the wider world in The Wild Robot is a sign of hope. In the film, they have sequestered themselves in smaller, high-tech cities to reduce their impact on the environment. "I like the idea that people concentrate themselves in some places so that other places can heal," Sanders explained, citing real-world incidents like the re-wilding of Chernobyl and the resurgence of animal life in urban areas during COVID-19 isolation as inspiration.

That sense of assurance comes through even in the Golden Gate Bridge scene. Whales swim over the bridge's submerged roadbed, proving that nature can adapt to and even thrive in a shifting world. Nature thrives similarly in Flow, with fish and whales floating through flooded cities and forests.

In Flow, hope surfaces as the floodwaters recede, allowing the cat and its companions to set foot on dry land once more. But their survival is bittersweet. The earlier image of the rowboat in the tree, coupled with a post-credits shot of a whale in an endless stretch of water, suggests that the world is locked in a cycle of flooding that won't be ending any time soon. That doesn't necessarily mean our heroes' journeys are over — it just means they'll have continue to live with these environmental challenges.

SEE ALSO: Is 'The Wild Robot' streaming? Here's how to watch it at home.

"We see these characters going through these ordeals, and growing together and overcoming their fears. But still, there are some problems that they can't solve about themselves or the world," Zilbalodis said of the ending.

This is true of both films. Roz and the film's many animals can't put a stop to the harsh winter storms that buffet their island, just as Flow's animals can't un-flood the world. Like in real life, the impacts of climate change in the films aren't an easy fix.

Still, these films' broader themes of cooperation point a way forward through a future defined by climate change. For all of Flow, animals from wildly different species put aside their differences to keep their little sailboat afloat. Even creatures as different as a cat and dog find a way to coexist. Then, during The Wild Robot's winter storm sequence, every animal on the island — predator and prey alike — comes together in Roz's home to ensure everyone stays warm and makes it through the intense winter.

That collaboration, both films tell us, is how we survive and mitigate the effects of the climate crisis. Not just for ourselves, but for all the generations to follow. That message of cooperation by itself might not be revolutionary, but The Wild Robot and Flow's subtle yet insistent delivery of it most certainly is.

Flow is now in theaters. The Wild Robot is now available to rent or purchase on digital.

NASA's Juno spacecraft zipped just 930 miles (1,500 kilometers) above the volcanic world Io in 2024. The extraterrestrial vistas, including a view of the most powerful volcano known to humanity, didn't disappoint.

"It's absolutely stunning, stunning imagery," Ashley Davies, a planetary scientist at the space agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, told Mashable.

Other space missions have captured intriguing views of Mars, the moon, and brilliant galaxies. Here are many of the impressive scenes captured this year as humanity reveals what's happening in our solar system neighborhood, and beyond.

SEE ALSO: NASA scientist viewed first Voyager images. What he saw gave him chills. NASA craft snaps close images of volcano-covered world NASA's Juno spacecraft captured this detailed view of Io on Feb. 3, 2024. Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / SwRI / MSSS / Jason Perry

After swooping by Jupiter's tortured moon on Feb. 3, NASA's Juno spacecraft beamed back some of the closest-ever images of this unique world. The agency's deep space probe came within just 930 miles of Io, following a similar pass in December 2023. Planetary scientists hope these much-anticipated flybys will answer fundamental questions about the mysterious, lava-spewing moon.

Io contains hundreds of volcanoes, many of which are active and hot enough for Juno to detect their heat on the moon's surface.

Two volcanic plumes rising from Io. Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / SwRI / MSSS / AndreaLuck / CC BY 3.0 Unported Unprecedented photo of largest volcano in our solar system Olympus Mons captured by NASA's 2001 Mars Odyssey orbiter on March 11, 2024. Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / ASU

NASA captured an expansive view of the largest volcano known to humanity.

The space agency used its 23-year-old Mars Odyssey orbiter to capture a never-before-seen view of Olympus Mons — a vista similar to how astronauts in a hypothetical orbiting space station might view the behemoth mountain. It's 373 miles (600 kilometers) wide — about the size of Arizona — and 17 miles (27 kilometers) tall. That's over twice as high as commercial airliners fly.

"Normally we see Olympus Mons in narrow strips from above, but by turning the spacecraft toward the horizon we can see in a single image how large it looms over the landscape," NASA's Odyssey project scientist, Jeffrey Plaut, said in a statement. "Not only is the image spectacular, it also provides us with unique science data."

As you can see, it's not a sharply peaked mountain, but a gradually sloping "shield volcano," similar to the Hawaiian volcanoes. It was formed by progressive lava flows, as thick oozing lava layered upon earlier lava flows.

Tweet may have been deleted Spacecraft approaches metal object zooming around Earth, snaps footage

A spacecraft carefully approached and imaged a large hunk of metal orbiting Earth in April — a step in tackling humanity's mounting space junk woes.

The delicate space mission, undertaken by the Japanese satellite technology company Astroscale, used its ADRAS-J satellite to travel within several hundred meters of an abandoned section of a non-communicative, derelict rocket, proving it could safely observe in such close proximity.

Tweet may have been deleted Views of the large Japanese rocket debris orbiting Earth. Credit: Astroscale

The mission is part of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's (JAXA, which is Japan's NASA counterpart) "Commercial Removal of Debris Demonstration" project, which seeks a proven way to remove problematic space junk from Earth's orbit. A collision involving a large object can create thousands more pieces of debris, stoking a domino effect of future impacts.

By December, the ADRAS-J craft came within 15 meters (almost 50 feet) from the derelict rocket upper stage, part of JAXA's H2A rocket, which launched the Earth observation GOSAT satellite in 2009.

The $82 million follow-up mission to capture the sizable piece of space junk, ADRAS-J2, is expected to launch in 2028.

U.S. spacecraft snap views of auroras encircling Earth A view from above Earth showing the vibrant auroras on May 11, 2024. Credit: NOAA

A parade of intense solar storms hit Earth in May 2024 — the strongest since Halloween over 20 years ago.

While these outbursts from the active sun can pose serious threats to our electrical grid and communications systems, they also stoke brilliant events in our polar skies, commonly called auroras, or the northern lights. In particular, our medium-sized star recently emitted a number of coronal mass ejections, or CMEs, which are ejections of super hot gas (plasma). "It's like scooping up a piece of the sun and ejecting it into space," Mark Miesch, a scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Space Weather Prediction Center, previously told Mashable.

When they collide with Earth, solar particles can become trapped by our planet's magnetic field, traveling to the poles and colliding with the molecules and particles in our atmosphere. Then, these atmospheric particles heat up and glow. Three U.S. weather satellites captured this dramatic event from above the North Pole on May 11, showing a glowing ring around places that don't usually witness the dancing lights.

"Multiple coronal mass ejections from the sun sparked an extreme geomagnetic storm around the Earth last week, creating stunning auroras, even in places where the northern lights are rarely seen," NOAA's National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS) explained when it released the image above. "The Southern Hemisphere also reported remarkable auroras from the storm."

Lunar spacecraft lands on its head Japan's robotic SLIM spacecraft landed upside down on the moon in January 2024. Credit: JAXA

Japan landed its SLIM spacecraft — short for Smart Lander for Investigating the Moon — on Jan. 19. About a week later, Japan's space agency (JAXA) released an image of the robotic lander (taken by a baseball-sized robot released before landing), revealing why its solar panels failed to generate electricity.

It landed upside down.

One of SLIM's thrusters malfunctioned 50 meters (around 50 yards) above the lunar surface, resulting in the mishap. Even so, the craft still demonstrated an unprecedented "pinpoint landing," wherein it touched down under 100 meters (about 110 yards) from its intended target.

"The pinpoint landing performance was evaluated to be at approximately 10m or less, possibly about 3 - 4m," JAXA said in a statement.

NASA rover finds damaged helicopter in middle of Mars desert

After a rough landing this year, the damaged Ingenuity helicopter can't fly again. NASA's nearby Perseverance rover spotted the grounded extraterrestrial chopper sitting alone in a valley on Mars in early February 2024.

The NASA image below, processed and enhanced by the geovisual designer Simeon Schmauß, underscores the desolation of profoundly arid Mars, a desert planet that's largely lost its insulating atmosphere and is 1,000 times drier than the driest desert on Earth.

The Ingenuity helicopter is visible just below the center of this image. Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / ASU / Simeon Schmauß

Both the Perseverance rover and its former aerial scout, Ingenuity, had been searching for the best places to look for past evidence of Martian life — should any ever have existed. Now the car-sized rover will hunt alone.

Before its accident, the Ingenuity craft made history. The experimental robot was the first craft to ever make a powered, controlled flight on another planet. And then, it kept flying. Ingenuity flew on Mars a whopping 72 times — engineers initially hoped it might fly five times, if at all. It flew distances as far as 2,315 feet.

And it overcame a daunting flight challenge. The Martian atmosphere is quite thin, with a volume about one percent of Earth's. This makes it difficult to generate the lift needed for flight. To take to the air, Ingenuity spun its four-foot rotor blades at a blazing 2,400 revolutions every minute.

Rough robotic U.S. moon landing The robotic Odysseus spacecraft landing on the moon on Feb. 22, 2024. Credit: Intuitive Machines

Intuitive Machines' Odysseus moon lander snapped a leg while landing on the moon in February 2024. An onboard camera caught the dusty touchdown.

While Odysseus' landing wasn't perfect, NASA, which provided $118 million for the commercial mission, hailed the challenging Feb. 22 touchdown as a success. Even in a compromised state, the lander beamed back scientific data from all of NASA's equipment, which included research into space weather and interactions between the spacecraft's plume and the moon's chalky surface.

The mission is part of the space agency's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program, which picks companies to deliver NASA missions to the moon. This frees the agency, already burdened with an ambitious timeline to return astronauts to the moon under the Artemis program, from having to completely plan and fund missions leading up to human landings. Such a crewed mission won't happen before 2026.

The moon's eclipse shadow crossing over Earth

On April 8, 2024, millions of people in North America witnessed a rare total solar eclipse — when the moon passes in between the sun and Earth, casting a shadow on our planet.

For those in the relatively narrow path of totality, it's an experience that cannot be overhyped. "On a scale of one to 10, a partial eclipse is a seven," Terry Virts, a former NASA astronaut who experienced his first total eclipse (from down on Earth) in 2017, told Mashable. "And a total eclipse is a million." (A partial eclipse is when just a portion of the sun is blocked by the moon — an interesting experience, but nothing like totality.)

Here's how the poignant event looked from space, captured by a U.S. science satellite.

Tweet may have been deleted Webb telescope snapped photo of a huge world — in another solar system Epsilon Indi Ab is the orange object in this James Webb Space Telescope image. Credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / STScI / E. Matthews (Max Planck Institute for Astronomy)

The James Webb Space Telescope achieved a rarity — snapping an image of a planet beyond our solar system.

The exoplanet, Epsilon Indi Ab, is located 12 light-years away. That's trillions of miles, but right next door, cosmically speaking. The world is somewhat like the gas giant Jupiter, but twice as massive. (For reference, "If Earth were the size of a grape, Jupiter would be about as big as a basketball," NASA notes.)

The Webb telescope, the most powerful space observatory ever built, used a coronagraph to capture the faint light from this far-off planet. A coronagraph blocks light from a specific star while capturing an image. This allows light from the nearby exoplanet to reach Webb.

"A star symbol marks the location of the host star Epsilon Indi A, whose light has been blocked by the coronagraph, resulting in the dark circle marked with a dashed white line," the NASA said. The orange object is the gas giant Epsilon Indi Ab. Only a "few tens of exoplanets" have been directly imaged before.

Black hole shot a beam through space and NASA snapped stunning footage A 3,000-light-year-long jet of plasma (superheated gas) shooting out from galaxy M87's supermassive black hole. Credit: NASA / ESA / STScI / Alec Lessing (Stanford University) / Mike Shara (AMNH) / Acknowledgment: Edward Baltz (Stanford University) // Image Processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI)

The M87 galaxy is monstrous.

It contains several trillions of stars, compared to our Milky Way's hundreds of billions. And the supermassive black hole at its center is shooting an outstretched beam of energy into space. The Hubble Space Telescope, operated by NASA and the European Space Agency, has captured a new image of this energetic cosmic event, which produces a beam of superheated gas 3,000 light-years long (a single light-year is nearly 6 trillion miles).

NASA calls this jet "blowtorch-like," and it seems to be triggering many stars near its trajectory to erupt.

"We don't know what's going on, but it's just a very exciting finding," Alec Lessing of Stanford University, who led the research into the finding, said in an agency statement. "This means there's something missing from our understanding of how black hole jets interact with their surroundings."

As the jet shoots through the galaxy, astronomers suspect it's triggering a type of stellar explosion called a "nova." These eruptions happen in double-star systems with an aging star — which is bloated and shedding its layers — and a white dwarf star, which is the hot core of a sun-like star that has shed its mass. The swollen star dumps material (hydrogen) on the white dwarf. "When the dwarf has tanked up a mile-deep surface layer of hydrogen that layer explodes like a giant nuclear bomb," the agency explained. And then the gradual process renews.

NASA rover finds major surprise on Mars — and scientists are excited The "leopard spot" splotches found in a new Mars rock sample. Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / ASU / MSSS

NASA planetary scientists are excited.

"As a rock geek/scientist and as the Director of @NASAJPL — this is the kind of discovery you hope for — where mind-bending observations make your heart beat just a little faster," NASA's Laurie Leshin posted online in July.

The space agency's Perseverance rover drilled into a Mars rock this summer where the six-wheeled robot had detected organic molecules (aka the "building blocks of life" as we know it). The robot collected a sample, and inside scientists spotted a telltale composition that suggests the potential of ancient microbial life. "The rock exhibits chemical signatures and structures that could possibly have been formed by life billions of years ago when the area being explored by the rover contained running water," NASA said in a statement. But, crucially, much more research, over many years, is needed to confirm this possibility.

The image above shows the novel Martian structures NASA scientists observed in this rock. They're white splotches surrounded by black halos dubbed "leopard spots."

"These spots are a big surprise," David Flannery, an astrobiologist at the Queensland University of Technology and member of the Perseverance science team, said in a statement. "On Earth, these types of features in rocks are often associated with the fossilized record of microbes living in the subsurface."

Colliding galaxies Two galaxies, IC 2163 and NGC 2207, warped after grazing each other millions of years ago. Credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / STScI

Millions of years ago, the spiral galaxies IC 2163 and NGC 2207 grazed each other, leaving this majestic, though warped, cosmic scene.

That's IC 2163 on left, and the larger NGC 2207 on right. (Our Milky Way galaxy is a spiral, too.)

"The galaxies' first pass may have also distorted their delicately curved arms, pulling out tidal extensions in several places," NASA explained. "The diffuse, tiny spiral arms between IC 2163’s core and its far left arm may be an example of this activity. Even more tendrils look like they’re hanging between the galaxies’ cores. Another extension 'drifts' off the top of the larger galaxy, forming a thin, semi-transparent arm that practically runs off screen."

Nobody can resist a good mystery.

Whether it's a whodunnit crime story, a tale of suspense that keeps you guessing, or a mind-bending psychological thriller, putting the pieces together sitting in front of your screen has long been a highly satisfying activity for amateur sleuths.

Often, the best mysteries span out over a whole series on Netflix, making the TV side of things pretty well populated — think The Fall of the House of Usher, The Sinner, Dark, Midnight Mass, Wednesday, The Haunting of Hill House/Bly Manor, The Watcher — but there are plenty of mystery movies on the streaming service for those who'd like a more comprehensive experience. Spanning its horror, thriller, and sci-fi genres, Netflix has a range of mystery films now streaming, each offering up an unexpected twist or reveal.

SEE ALSO: The 25 best movies of 2024, and where to watch them

What's inside the walls in Remi Weekes' His House? Why does the boarding house in Santiago Menghini's No One Gets Out Alive have so many locked doors? What's at the heart of the disturbing prison system in The Platform? What exactly, David Lynch asks, did Jack do? Is Adam Sandler's Murder Mystery actually worth watching? From creaking haunted houses to vengeful masked killers, here are the best mystery movies on Netflix.

1. Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery Credit: Netflix

Southern gentlemen detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) is back on the case in Glass Onion, Rian Johnson’s sequel to his modern, Agatha Christie-style mystery movie Knives Out. With an eye for the tiniest detail, Blanc again finds himself investigating a murder in a secluded location with a wealthy cast of suspects (and what a cast it is). This time it’s a private island owned by billionaire tech founder Elon Musk Miles Bron (Edward Norton) and his cohort of "disrupters." When someone winds up dead, only an intricate web of deception stands between Blanc and the truth.

Though less satisfying than the original Knives Out, Glass Onion is a thoroughly enjoyable mystery whose twists and turns will genuinely surprise you. Delivering some truly delightful character work, Kathryn Hahn, Janelle Monáe, Leslie Odom Jr., Kate Hudson, and Dave Bautista star as Bron's guests, each with their own secrets. — Kristina Grosspietsch, Freelance Contributor

How to watch: Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery is now streaming on Netflix.

2. The Call Don't pick up the phone. Credit: Netflix

Not the 2013 Halle Berry film or the revenge-based horror film of the same name, but based on Matthew Parkhill's 2011 supernatural horror film The Caller, Lee Chung-hyun's The Call is a dark, chilling South Korean mystery that you can't hang up on.

SEE ALSO: 12 of the best suspense movies on Netflix to put you on edge

When Kim Seo-yeon (Park Shin-hye) visits her family home, she loses her phone, then starts getting weird, disturbing calls and finds a connection to a woman called Young-sook (Jeon Jong-seo). Where this film twists and turns from here, you’ll never predict, so paying light attention is not an option. Strong performances, unnerving use of sound, stunning cinematography, and a well-woven structure make this one surreal and disturbing journey.* — Shannon Connellan, UK Editor

How to watch: The Call is now streaming on Netflix.

3. His House There's something in the walls... Credit: Netflix

The best types of horror films are more than just a trickbox of scares. Some are character studies, others explore deeper themes or grapple complex social issues, and a few manage to move you in more ways than just a raising of the pulse. Writer-director Remi Weekes' debut His House does all of the above at once.

Following asylum-seekers Bol (Sope Dirisu) and Rial (Wunmi Mosaku) as they arrive in the UK from South Sudan only to be thrust into an unforgiving world of bureaucracy and racism, His House melds drama with a claustrophobic haunted house mystery. Noises echo in the walls, and Bol's fear and paranoia grows along with ours. But it's only as the movie progresses, and Jo Willems' creative cinematography starts hinting at what took place in the past, that the true horror of His House is revealed.* — Sam Haysom, Deputy UK Editor

How to watch: His House is now streaming on Netflix.

4. The Guilty Jake Gyllenhaal is on top form. Credit: Glen Wilson / Netflix

Following a cop with an anger problem during a 911 dispatch shift, The Guilty sees Jake Gyllenhaal at his vein-bursting best in this twisty thriller about a kidnapped woman.

"With the camera focused on him for almost the full 90 minutes in The Guilty, Gyllenhaal combines all [his] skills into one excruciatingly tense performance," I wrote in my review. "He throws himself into the role of detective-turned-911-dispatcher Joe Baylor with so much anger, pain, and sadness that you're forced to go through every single emotion with him."* — S.H.

How to watch: The Guilty is now streaming on Netlfix.

5. Fear Street The "Fear Street" trilogy has a solid mystery at its bloody core. Credit: Netflix

What could have just been a kitschy homage to classic horror films of the '70s, '80s, and '90s actually has a really compelling core murder mystery, meaning it's on the list! The Fear Street trilogy, inspired by R.L. Stine's more grown-up novel series, centres around a cyclical curse that sees a string of murders plaguing the residents of Shadyside. Directed by Leigh Janiak, the three films (Part 1: 1994, Part 2: 1978, and Part 3: 1666) are set in different time periods, each linked by these happenings. A group of teenagers will have to delve into the past in order to figure it all out before the curse catches up with them. As far as horror mysteries go, Fear Street is the best thing since sliced bread (sorry). — S.C.

How to watch: Fear Street is now streaming on Netflix.

6. I Am All Girls A masked killer is at the heart of the mystery in "I Am All Girls." Credit: Netflix

Fair warning: This one isn't an easy watch. Inspired by true events, the film begins with the interrogation of Gert van Rooyen, a South African sex offender who was suspected in the abductions of six young girls in the late '80s. Set in the present day, the movie uses van Rooyen's alleged crimes as a jumping-off point, with a detective working to uncover a child trafficking ring while also investigating a serial killer who seems to be exclusively targeting the criminals involved. Donovan Marsh's movie is a blend of mystery and thriller, a how-deep-does-this-go conspiracy that leads from dilapidated drug dens to the halls of government — uncovering a series of grim revelations with roots that go back 30 years. — S.H.

How to watch: I Am All Girls is now streaming on Netflix.

7. Burning

A literal slow smoulder of a mystery film, Lee Chang-dong's Burning is a masterpiece in simmering uncertainty. Based on Haruki Murakami's short story "Barn Burning" from The Elephant Vanishes, the film sees an impeccable Steven Yeun as the mysterious Ben, a newcomer in the lives of childhood friends Lee Jong-su (Yoo Ah-in) and Shin Hae-mi (Jeon Jong-seo). Though Hae-mi is enamoured with their charming new acquaintance, Jong-su feels like something's not right. With outstanding cinematography from Hong Kyung-pyo paired with Mowg's haunting score, Burning is a true scorcher. — S.C.

How to watch: Burning is now streaming on Netflix.

8. I Am Mother Friend...or foe? Credit: Netflix

The problem with robots is you can never tell what they're thinking. This is a lesson we've had drilled into us time and again in the sci-fi space, and Grant Sputore's futuristic mystery — about a girl being raised by a robot in a post-apocalyptic bunker — is of course no exception. Starring Hilary Swank, Clara Rugaard, and Rose Byrne, the suspense in this one comes hand-in-hand with the blank, impenetrable gaze of Mother (the robotic carer in question), before cranking into overdrive when a stranger's arrival casts suspicion on the metal guardian's real role.* — S.H.

How to watch: I Am Mother is now streaming on Netflix.

9. I'm Thinking of Ending Things All is not what it seems. Credit: Mary Cybulski / Netflix

Is this the most entertaining movie on this list? Almost certainly not. But is it the best mystery? Well, judging by how incredibly confused I was when I finished watching it, possibly. Writer/director Charlie Kaufman's story about a student travelling to meet her boyfriend’s parents for the first time is a head-scratching psychological nightmare that feels like watching a reality break for two straight hours. There's plenty of deep writing, philosophical musings, and reality-bending clues, all of which add up to a very Lynch-esque feeling that what we're watching isn't as it seems. But what are we watching? The answer might take some figuring out. — S.H.

How to watch: I’m Thinking of Ending Things is now streaming on Netflix.

10. Lost Girls Credit: Jessica Kourkounis / Netflix

Based on the real disappearance of Shannan Gilbert in 2010 and her mother Mari's attempts to find her, Lost Girls is a dark exploration of events surrounding the infamous Gilgo Beach serial killings that places a focus on the families left behind. Liz Garbus directs with a sense of grim realism, while Amy Ryan is a picture of angry desperation as she goes up against a police force that seems apathetic at best, and incompetent at worst. — S.H.

How to watch: Lost Girls is now streaming on Netflix.

11. No One Gets Out Alive Cristina Rodlo stars in this claustrophobic nightmare. Credit: Teddy Cavendish / Netflix

More horror than mystery? Perhaps. But Santiago Menghini's claustrophobic haunted house tale, based on an Adam Nevill novel of the same name, still comes with plenty of questions. Questions like, why does the boarding house that Mexican immigrant Ambar (Cristina Rodlo) arrives at have so many locked doors? And what are the noises she keeps hearing at night, and the nightmares about a strange stone box that she keeps seeing when her eyes are closed? You’ll have a hard job guessing, but this tense and well-written thriller will have you trying until the end. — S.H.

How to watch: No One Gets Out Alive is now streaming on Netflix.

12. Oxygen Uh, how did we get here? And where's the exit? Credit: Netflix

A futuristic twist on the fear of being buried alive, Alexandre Aja's Oxygen is a claustrophobic nightmare about a woman who wakes up in a cryogenic box with no idea of who she is or how she got there. The good news? She's able to communicate with the outside world via a robotic medical unit called M.I.L.O. The bad news? Nobody she speaks to seems willing to come clean with her, and her oxygen reserves are quickly spiralling toward 0 percent. Mélanie Laurent perfectly captures the short-breathed dread of this role, and Christie LeBlanc's screenplay has enough twists and turns to keep the story racing along at a heart-pounding pace. Just tread carefully if you have a fear of tight spaces — this one won't be a fun watch for claustrophobics.* — S.H.

How to watch: Oxygen is now streaming on Netflix.

13. The Wonder Credit: Christopher Barr / Netflix

The Wonder is a wholly engrossing period mystery about a young girl from a small, 19th-century Irish town who claims to not have eaten for four months, surviving purely on holy "manna." Florence Pugh is fantastic as Lib Wright, the stoic, science-driven English nurse sent to investigate. Over the course of a few weeks, Lib is charged with watching Anna (Kíla Lord Cassidy) for 12 hours at a day, while a nun observes during the other 12, to determine if there’s a heavenly or earthbound explanation for the girl's miraculous months-long fast.

Based on Emma Donoghue's novel of the same name, The Wonder is a solemn, subtle, and captivating masterpiece exploring religious prejudice, cycles of abuse, and the boundaries of our own realities. It’s a satisfying watch with an unexpected ending that will stick in your bones like an Irish winter frost. — K.G.

How to watch: The Wonder is now streaming on Netflix.

14. Wicked Little Letters

It's 1920, and the small English town of Littlehampton hasn't seen anyone like Rose Gooding (Jessie Buckley) before. She's brash, she's reckless, and worse, she's Irish. Rose is the polar opposite of her neighbor, Edith Swan (Olivia Colman), the pious, shy spinster who still lives with her aging parents and is shocked by Rose's carefree employment of curse words. The two form a friendly acquaintance, until Edith receives a barrage of hateful, swear-laden anonymous letters. Rose is obviously to blame! Or is she?

This delightful poison-pen mystery is inspired by a very real scandal that consumed the minds and media of 1920s England. Starring a who's-who of British acting royalty (including Eileen Atkins, Timothy Spall, Anjana Vasan, and more), Wicked Little Letters is a darkly comedic puzzle full of top-notch characters. What more could any budding detective ask for? — K.G.

How to watch: Wicked Little Letters is now streaming on Netflix.

15. The Platform How far down does it go? Credit: Netflix

Prison cells are stacked one on top of the other, with holes in the floor and ceiling. Randomly assigned levels change each month. And a platform of food gets slowly lowered from the very top, getting sparser and sparser with each floor it descends. This is the concept at the centre of Spanish director Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia's The Platform, a disturbing sci-fi thriller that wears its capitalist analogy plainly on its prison garb sleeve. It's one of those rare gems where the execution is as strong as the idea at its core, driven by an excellent screenplay from David Desola and Pedro Rivero that's dripping with horror and suspense. If you're a fan of movies like The Cube or Saw, this is well worth checking out.* — S.H.

How to watch: The Platform is now streaming on Netflix.

16. The Pale Blue Eye

Christian Bale is Augustus Landor, a grizzled retired detective and alcoholic who gets pulled into one last case, and it’s a whopper: A military academy student has been hanged and had his heart removed. To sniff out the gruesome murderer, Augustus recruits a student — none other than Edgar Allan Poe (Harry Melling) —  for insider knowledge of the school. 

Adapted from a Louis Bayard novel, The Pale Blue Eye is an atmospheric murder mystery with an excellent cast (shout out to Gillian Anderson!). And if Edgar Allan Poe is in the cast of characters, you know it’s gonna be a spooky one, y’all! — K.G.

How to watch: The Pale Blue Eye is now streaming on Netflix.

17. The Perfection Credit: Netflix

This isn’t the kind of movie you want to be watching while you eat. Richard Shepard's musical nightmare leans heavily into the body horror genre, with protégés Charlotte (Allison Williams) and Lizzie (Logan Browning) going on a truly hellish journey that starts with a bus ride through rural China and ends with them revisiting the prestigious music school where they both trained — and where all is clearly not as it seems. Tread carefully, because this story is really not for the faint-hearted — but it is full of surprises. — S.H.

How to watch: The Perfection is now streaming on Netflix.

18. What Did Jack Do? What did you do, huh? WHAT DID YOU DO? Credit: Netflix

For a truly baffling mystery, it's time for you to watch David Lynch asking a suited monkey if he's ever been a card-carrying member of the Communist party. It's a genuine thing that happens in David Lynch's What Did Jack Do?, a 17-minute film which sees the director interrogating a monkey called Jack in a train carriage.

Co-presented by Lynch's company Absurda and Parisian contemporary art museum Fondation Cartier, the film was written, directed, and edited by Lynch himself. Along with a small crew, he also did the sound editing, set design, and assisted with set construction.

We won't spoil what happens, but make sure you stick around for the catchy musical number toward the end. Yes, you read that right.* — S.H.

How to watch: What Did Jack Do? is now streaming on Netflix.

19. A Simple Favor

Anna Kendrick is Stephanie Smothers, a cutesy, sheltered mommy vlogger without much joy in her life. So when an impossibly fashionable and cool mom at her son's school, Emily (Blake Lively), asks her to hang out, she's both eager and out of her depth. An unlikely friendship between the mismatched pair blooms, until the day Emily doesn't return from a business trip. A Simple Favor is an unpredictable, gripping, and sometimes silly Gone Girl-esque mystery directed by Paul Feig. It never goes over the top, but it doesn't concern itself with staying too grounded either — the perfect sweet spot.* — K.G.

How to watch: A Simple Favor is now streaming on Netflix.

20 - 21. Enola Holmes and Enola Holmes 2 Credit: Alex Bailey / Netflix

If you want your mysteries more adventurous and bright than bleak and despairing, then Netflix’s Enola Holmes films will certainly fit the bill. Based on author Nancy Springer's The Enola Holmes Mysteries, the films star Millie Bobbie Brown, ebullient and charismatic as Sherlock Holmes’ younger sister. Raised alone by an eccentric mother (a perfectly cast Helena Bonham Carter) who rejects societal expectations for women, Enola is every bit the prodigy her brother is, and then some. But when her mother goes missing, she takes it upon herself to solve the mystery, uncovering a larger enigma in the process. 

Cheerful, charming, with a moderate sense of danger and a whole lot of fun, Enola Holmes and its sequel are pure delights with surprisingly sophisticated mysteries at their core. Henry Cavill and Sam Claflin round out the sparkling cast as Sherlock and Mycroft, Enola's more famous older brothers, both visibly enjoying themselves with the material. — K.G. 

How to watch: Enola Holmes is now streaming on Netflix.

How to watch: Enola Holmes 2 is now streaming on Netflix.

22. Things Heard and Seen Credit: Anna Kooris / Netflix

Don’t let the low Rotten Tomatoes score put you off. Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini's Things Heard and Seen — based on the novel All Things Cease to Appear by Elizabeth Brundage — is one of those films that's sure to divide people. It hovers between multiple genres, splicing drama and thriller with horror and mystery in a balancing act that could easily be off-putting to some. The film follows a young couple – Catherine (Amanda Seyfried) and George (James Norton) – whose decision to move into a farmhouse in upstate New York leads to the discovery of some fairly unsettling secrets (both of the ghostly and the non-ghostly variety). Don't go into it expecting straight horror, though, or you’ll be disappointed. But if you like well-drawn characters and plenty of simmering dread, it’s worth checking out. — S.H.

How to watch: Things Heard and Seen is now streaming on Netflix.

23. Luther: The Fallen Sun Credit: John Wilson / Netflix

For five seasons, Neil Cross' highly addictive BBC series Luther followed Idris Elba in his iconic role as the hardened titular detective who plays by his own rules. The very first film of the TV franchise, Luther: The Fallen Sun, sees the brilliant and brash John Luther finally facing consequences for his years of flouting the law in the name of the greater good. He’s now in prison, just when an old case of his starts to heat up again. It’s a twisting and gripping thriller that will keep you guessing, and Andy Serkis' villain David Robey is truly chilling. While it may not be a wholly necessary addition to the Luther legacy, it’s certainly a welcome one. We’ll take any chance to see Elba’s reckless detective take on the world once more.* — K.G.

How to watch: Luther: The Fallen Sun is now streaming on Netflix.

24. Svaha: The Sixth Finger

Svaha: The Sixth Finger is a chilling, serpentine Korean mystery/thriller that explores unseen interpretations of Buddhism and probes the meaning of faith. Pastor Park (Squid Game's Lee Jung-jae), a man driven by his work exposing dangerous cults, looks into a remote religious sect called Deer Mountain or Dongbanggyo. Simultaneously, police begin investigating the murder of a girl found encased in concrete. Could the two be related? — K.G.

How to watch: Svaha: The Sixth Finger is now streaming on Netflix.

25. Murder Mystery Credit: Scott Yamano/Netflix

Sometimes you want your mysteries mindless and cheerful, and the fairly substance-less Murder Mystery Netflix franchise is just that. Adam Sandler is Nick, an NYPD cop, and his wife, Audrey (Jennifer Aniston), is a hairdresser and murder mystery book lover. On their first trip to Europe, their 15th anniversary celebrations are delayed when they board a luxury yacht, a murder occurs, and they're the number one suspects. Looks like these two amateur detectives will have to solve the case to clear their names. It’s a silly, lighthearted romp with a few solid jokes and an unchallenging plot. Murder Mystery (and Murder Mystery 2) make perfect background movies for cooking, cleaning, or scrolling on your phone, when nothing but fluff will hit the spot. — K.G.

How to watch: Murder Mystery is now streaming on Netflix.

26. It's What's Inside

A genre-bending 2024 hit, It's What’s Inside is "a deviously good time," according to Mashable film critic Siddhant Adlakha. At a pre-wedding party, a college friend group catches up and laughs about old scores. But when one of them arrives with a suitcase that allows them to switch bodies, mayhem ensues. Lingering resentments, unrequited loves, smoldering jealousies all rear their chaotic heads as the friends fight to get back into their own bodies… and wonder who really put them up to this in the first place. — K.G.

How to watch: It's What's Inside is now streaming on Netflix.

27. The Clovehitch Killer

When 16-year-old Tyler finds a confusing BDSM polaroid in his father’s car, he begins to wonder if his dad (Dylan McDermott) has anything to do with the Clovehitch Killer, a serial murderer who terrorized their Kentucky town a decade prior. Chilling, tense, and patient, The Clovehitch Killer is a smart mystery-thriller written by Christopher Ford (Spider-Man: Homecoming). This is a film that takes its time, ratcheting up the suspense minute by minute as Tyler gets closer and closer to the truth. If that’s not enough to convince you, then take it from an expert in scares, Stephen King, who called the film "an excellent small movie" that’s "not for the faint of heart." — K.G.

How to watch: The Clovehitch Killer is now streaming on Netflix.

* denotes that this blurb appeared in a previous Mashable list.

UPDATE: Dec. 13, 2024, 12:20 p.m. EST This article was originally published on Nov. 7, 2021. It has been updated to reflect current Netflix offerings.

Opens in a new window Credit: Netflix Netflix Get Deal

It's a simple truth: Where there’s a Dyson product, there’s a dupe, and that holds especially true for Dyson beauty products.

The brand entered the beauty sphere in 2016 when it released the now-legendary Supersonic, a hair dryer with an innovative design that maximized airflow and minimized hair damage. Eight years later, it remains the most highly-praised hair dryer on the market, making it clear that Dyson's beauty tech bet was more than a success. While it’s an impressive product, it also retails for $429 — a price that you don't need to pay for an exceptional at-home hair dry.

What makes the Dyson Supersonic so special? 

The Supersonic first made waves because, in typical Dyson fashion, it brought an upgraded, futuristic design to an everyday product.

Dyson is known for this aesthetic, but the sleek look also has a function. The ring-shaped head ditches the vented and coiled model of the traditional hair dryer and houses the tiny V9 motor in the handle. The combination of the V9 motor and the Air Multiplier technology makes for a dryer that clocks in at only 1.8 pounds, yet still delivers a powerful airflow that’s notably quieter than the roar of a traditional dryer. That extra strong airflow makes this dryer less reliant on heat than standard models. It also keeps hair damage to a minimum.

SEE ALSO: All the best skincare tech that we tested and loved, and some that we didn’t

To further minimize damage, the Supersonic also measures the air temp up to 20 times per second and uses a built-in ionizer to minimize static and give hair a sleek finish, which brings us to a quick ionizer science lesson.

Ionizers are pretty common in higher-end air dryers. Why? Most work by blowing negative ions at wet hair to reduce static electricity by sealing the hair cuticle and taking down the power of that positive ionic charge (aka what's causing that annoying frizz). As negative ions make contact with hair, they're also dispersing the positive ions of water, therefore cutting down on your drying time and reducing damage in the process.

Basically, it's one of the reasons the Dyson Supersonic provides such quick and excellent results, and why hair dryers with ionizers will cost you more money — they do more than simply dry the hair.

SEE ALSO: From studying to working out, these are the best earbuds of 2024

Magnetic attachments designed to easily snap onto the blow dryer round out the futuristic feel of the Supersonic, with five included — a styling concentrator, a flyaway attachment, a diffuser, a gentle air attachment, and a wide tooth comb. It's a nice array of included nozzles even for high-end dryers, which might typically include three to four attachments at the most.

Why is the Dyson Supersonic so expensive?

At $429, the Supersonic is definitely an investment. However, you're paying for a high-end motor that's built to last, multiple heat settings to protect hair, an innovative design, and of course, the ionic tech. Other dryers from popular hot tool brands like T3, ghd, and Harry Josh boast some similar features and run you anywhere from $150 to $350, but none quite capture the complete offerings of the Supersonic.

When I tested the Supersonic myself, I found that it had a luxe feel that still makes it stand out from other hair dryers. At the same time, there are dupes that deliver similar features and elements of the performance at a much lower price.

SEE ALSO: Honest review of Ruggable: Are the washable rugs worth the price? What is the best dupe for the Dyson Supersonic?

There are a lot of options for luxury blow dryers and a lot of dupes that look like Dyson but skimp on quality. A good rule of thumb: Avoid the $40 Amazon knockoffs that copy Dyson's signature fuchsia and nickel design. I promise they won't perform the same.

Instead, I tested a bunch of hair dryers, some that look similar to the Supersonic, and some that look nothing like it, to find the best hair dryers that replicate the Supersonic experience: That is to say, they give a hair dry that feels quick, easy, and at least a little luxurious.

Below, you'll find my deep dive on the five best Dyson Supersonic dupes.

Dating as a bisexual person is more than checking off men, women, and people beyond the binary in your "Show Me" settings on Tinder. Especially when it comes to dating apps, it can involve speaking with people who believe stereotypes about bisexual people (such as that they can't be monogamous), or people who fetishize them (like unicorn hunters — more on them below). While the assumption is that bisexual people have double — or more! — the options of monosexual (straight and gay) folks, the reality is that if someone's match doesn't understand their sexuality, they face rejection. 

As bisexual Reddit users will tell you, if anyone on a dating app has a problem with your bisexuality, they're telling you who they are from the get-go — and that's the beauty of dating apps. There's no need to go on several dates before the truth comes out; you can figure it out from the safety of your home.

Not all is lost, though. You can find plenty of open and accepting people on dating apps, as well, and many of them — from Hinge to HER — allow users to specify whether they're bisexual. But which dating app to choose?

What is the best bisexual dating site?

It depends. There's no doubt that the most mainstream dating apps like Tinder, Hinge, and Bumble cater to a heterosexual audience. If you don't mind that — or, as a bisexual, you're more into dating other genders at the current moment anyway — you might enjoy those apps more. As those apps have a more general appeal and are well-known, they also have more users than apps that cater to the queer community. (Then again, that could be because the queer community is smaller than the straight one.)

You may, however, want an app that is more LGBTQ-focused. There's HER which is for the sapphic community (women who love women), and Archer which is more focused on men who love men, to name a couple. 

There are a handful of smaller dating apps that are purely for bisexual daters: BiCupid and Bindr (if this isn't your first dating app rodeo, you can tell where they got their names). The former boasts over three million downloads on its website, but the App Store reviews don't paint the best picture. The latest complaints are about getting suspended once downloading the app, not enjoying the user experience, and not thinking the $30/month subscription is worth it. 

In an email to Mashable, BiCupid confirmed that it offers numerous features to free users like browsing profiles, sending likes and "winks," setting basic filters, and responding to private messages. Any member can share daily activities with "Moments," and comment, like, and reply to posts without restrictions.

BiCupid also acknowledged that finding nearby matches can be a challenge in less-populated areas, and the app is working to expand its user base and improve the matching algorithm. In terms of fraud accounts, reported activities are reviewed manually by a team.

Bindr has more positive reviews on the App Store, but these reviews are fewer and far between. Bindr's CEO and co-founder Mary Richardson told Mashable in an email that they have hundreds of thousands of users and millions of unique visitors/downloads. Due to Redditors saying that there aren't many people on Bindr, however, it's not on our list at this time. 

Consider whether you're looking for something more long or short term, as well. Hinge has a reputation for being a relationship-focused app, for example, while Tinder is more well-known for hookups. Of course, that's not always the case (people have found their spouses on Tinder and hookups on Hinge), but adjust your expectations accordingly. 

Dating as an out bisexual person

If you fear being "queer enough" to put "bisexual" in your dating app bio, don't. Dating apps can be a way to explore your sexuality, and it can feel lower-key than going to a gay club or coming out to your loved ones. As executive director of the Kinsey Institute, Justin R. Garcia, told Mashable in a story about women discovering their queerness using these apps, dating apps "allow people to dream" in an "unprecedented" way, offering "a window into a world of possibility." This possibility could be dating as an out and proud bisexual person!

Know about the risks going into it: stereotypes, fetishization, and the overall safety precautions every dating app user should take. If you're aware of these factors ahead of time, dating as someone who likes multiple genders can be fun. 

With that being said, here are the best dating apps for bisexual people. 

The best self-emptying robot vacuums have one huge perk past the obvious act of vacuuming the floor for you. (Hint: It's in the name.)

When you outsource vacuuming to a robot, your floors get cleaned way more often. The only downside of this extra attention? More debris off the floor means a dust bin that fills up faster, and emptying a vacuum's dust bin by hand is arguably the worst part of the chore.

SEE ALSO: Roomba models, explained: The guide to deciding which Roomba to buy in 2024

Enter self-emptying robot vacuums. These vacs do your vacuuming and emptying for you for a few weeks at a time, storing the debris the robot vacuum collects on each trip in a larger compartment that's located in the charging dock.

Are self-emptying robot vacuums worth it?

Not having to lift a finger when it comes to floor maintenance is well worth it for anyone who just doesn’t have the time — or the interest — in wrestling an upright vacuum out of the closet every few days. The next question is whether you want the true set-it-and-forget solution that only automatic emptying can provide, and if you're willing to pay more for it.

Automatic emptying quickly proves its worth in households where the layer of pet fur would otherwise have you dumping the vacuum's tiny dust bin after just a few rooms. The best self-emptying robot vacuum cleaners let you off the hook for months at a time. (Many brands claim to have capacities averaging between six to eight weeks, but almost every self-emptying dock I've experienced lasted much longer.) And when it actually is time to empty the bigger dust bin, most self-empty docks trap dust inside a disposable bag, meaning you won't have to see or touch the nasty stuff at all.

For people with allergies, auto-emptying also spares you from inhaling the inevitable puff of dust that emerges when dumping a dustbin into the trash.

SEE ALSO: It wasn't hard to narrow down the best Shark robot vacuums to these top 3

Speaking of avoiding the grosser parts of the job, if you want a robot vacuum that mops, many self-emptying docks also take it upon themselves to wash and dry the dirty mopping pads after the job is done — all in the same dock. Looking ahead into 2025 and beyond, I expect to see more models with self-dispensing detergent and front-loading water tanks, which free up the dock's surface to be used like a side table. Only a few currently have these features.

I've been testing the latest and greatest self-emptying robot vacuums released in 2024 against my old favorites from 2023 and 2022. Here are the best self-emptiers to consider for your home.

(Note that each vacuum's retail price is listed by default, but that I've also noted the most common sale price each vacuum frequently drops to in "The Good" section. And yes, robot vacuum deals are common all throughout the year — not just during a shopping holiday like Black Friday.)

Bose released its new smart soundbar, fittingly called the Bose Smart Soundbar, in September 2024, and it's quickly become a popular pick in the mid-range. And if you want the best soundbar under $500, this is a strong contender for the title.

It's not a luxury soundbar like the Sonos Arc Ultra or a Hi-Fi speaker like the Sennheiser Ambeo Soundbar Max, nor is it a barebones budget option. It's strong enough to provide a noticeable audio improvement, and at a good price for the feature set.

After testing out the Bose Smart Soundbar, I'm ready to render a verdict. Spoiler alert: It's worth the money, but if you can pick it up for the sale price of $399, it's really worth the money.

Unboxing the Bose Smart Soundbar. Credit: Timothy Beck Werth / Mashable Bose Smart Soundbar review: How does it sound?

This is the single-most important factor in soundbar reviews, for obvious reasons. And I can tell you that this soundbar does indeed sound fantastic. Overall, it provides deep, balanced sound that's well suited to TV shows, movies, and music.

For TV shows, I was able to turn off closed captions for all but the most accent-heavy shows. When I activated the AI Dialogue Assist feature, the effect was even more dramatic, but even without it, the dialogue sounds much clearer. The same goes for action-heavy movies where dialogue often gets drowned out by explosion sounds and car crashes.

However, dialogue isn't the only area where audio noticeably improved. When I watched a Formula 1 race with the soundbar for the first time, I heard a big difference in the sound of the engines, pit crew, and crowd noise. The improvement definitely made the race more enjoyable.

Testing the soundbar while watching "Dune." Credit: Timothy Beck Werth / Mashable Use the voice, Paul! Credit: Timothy Beck Werth / Mashable

The soundbar contains five transducers and a central tweeter to project sound all around you. Two upwards-facing transducers even bounce sound off the ceiling for a truly immersive effect. When Dolby Atmos sound is available, the sound quality really sings. I watched movies like Dune and Mad Max: Fury Road to appreciate this effect to the fullest.

Music also sounds incredible on this speaker. On really layered tracks (like Michael Jackson's "Beat It" or Radiohead's "The National Anthem"), the vocals are sometimes a little buried, but this isn't a problem on more vocal-heavy songs (like Lewis Capaldi's "Someone You Loved" or Adele's "Hello," both of which sounded incredible). The bass was especially clear with music — and without totally blowing out the bass like so many speakers do.

This soundbar excels in every category save one — the vibes

I've generally had good experiences with Bose products. Sometimes, very good experiences. But I do sometimes wonder if they need some help in the branding department. The new Bose smart soundbar doesn't have the most creative name. In case you've already forgotten, this soundbar is called — wait for it — the Bose Smart Soundbar.

Like a 15-inch HP laptop that's simply called "HP Laptop 15," it leaves something to be desired. And while Sonos was using the cool, gravelly voice of Giancarlo Esposito as their brand voice, Bose uses a generic female robot voice that's cold and occasionally grating.

An angled power cord and HDMI eARC cable are inserted at an angle behind the soundbar. Credit: Timothy Beck Werth / Mashable

The soundbar's design is also pretty plain. Now, to be fair, soundbars aren't meant to stand out, and they don't present many opportunities for creative design. But this soundbar is pretty much just a black rectangle. As well-designed as it is functionally, it's pretty bland-looking.

Does any of this matter? A lot of people probably prefer this no-bullshit, focus-on-the-sound approach. After all, who cares what a soundbar looks like, doesn't it matter more what it sounds like? The latter is more important, absolutely. But as someone who does care about the vibes and aesthetics of my products — especially when they're asking for pride of place at the center of my living room — I'd like a little more. This product would have received a higher score save for its poor showing in the "Wow Factor" category.

From a practical standpoint, this speaker does have a smart design. You insert the HDMI and power plugs at an angle, saving you an inch or two of space on your entertainment console. The bar itself is 2.2 inches x 4.1 inches x 27 inches, letting it easily fit below your TV.

You only need two of these cables to start using your new soundbar. Credit: Timothy Beck Werth / Mashable You insert cables at an angle, which saves space. Credit: Timothy Beck Werth / Mashable Bose Smart Soundbar connectivity: The good and the bad

The good news? It was incredibly easy to set up this soundbar. Truly, it was up and running in minutes. I had to re-shuffle some of the inputs on my TV, but even this didn't take long. Even for folks who aren't particularly tech-savvy, I think the setup will be really simple. Simply plug the HDMI cable into your TV's eARC input and follow the instructions.

I did experience some connectivity problems. First, because I didn't have additional surround sound speakers or a sub-woofer, I tried to connect the soundbar to my Bose Soundlink Max portable speaker. The connection was really easy, and I was able to group them together instantly. Unfortunately, the Soundlink Max wireless speaker played on a slight delay, rendering it useless.

Setting up the soundbar is incredibly easy. Credit: Screenshot: Bose Using the Bose app. Credit: Screenshot: Bose

When I wanted to play music from my phone, I found that I had to pair and re-pair the soundbar with my iPhone 15 Pro repeatedly. I don't know why this type of Bluetooth connectivity is such a pain point with Bose. My review of the Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds noted a similar problem with multi-point pairing (which has since been fixed). In terms of time wasted, it's less than 30 seconds to repair, but it's annoying, especially in a $500 product.

I should also note that I was able to connect my Amazon Music account to the Bose app, but not Spotify. This could be a problem on Spotify's end, so I haven't docked any points for this. I was still able to stream music with a simple Bluetooth connection.

SEE ALSO: Amazon Music Unlimited vs. Spotify Premium: A comparison Is the Bose Smart Soundbar worth it?

On balance, I think it is. The connectivity issues never stopped me from actually using the soundbar for the desired purpose, and the improvement over my regular TV speakers was immediately clear. With added perks like Dialogue Assist and Dolby Atmos, it provides a powerful upgrade for your audio setup.

Again, if you want a true Hi-Fi experience with all the possible bells and whistles, you'll need to pay $1,000 or more. And if you buy a budget soundbar for $300 or less, you might as well just stick with your regular TV speakers, as there won't be much of a difference.

For most users, I think this soundbar hits the sweet spot in terms of features, sound, and value for the dollar. If it was priced at $399 instead of $499 (and it's often on sale for $399), it would have received a higher score from me. You can buy this soundbar from retailers like Amazon or directly from Bose.

Bose Smart Soundbar $399.00 at Amazon
$499.00 Save $100.00 Shop Now

TL;DR: Live stream Pittsburgh Steelers vs. Baltimore Ravens on Sling TV or FuboTV.

NFL Week 16 continues this weekend with a matchup between the Pittsburgh Steelers and Baltimore Ravens. The Steelers are atop the AFC North division at 10-4, while the Ravens are second in the AFC North division at 9-5 — placing them right below the Pittsburgh Steelers. With these two teams being so close, the win could go to either team on Saturday.

The Steelers lost their last game on Sunday, Dec. 15 to the Philadelphia Eagles at 13-27, while the Ravens beat the New York Giants 35-14 that same day. If the Ravens win, they will be tied with the Steelers for the top spot in the AFC North division.

When is Steelers vs. Ravens?

Pittsburgh Steelers vs. Baltimore Ravens takes place at 4:30 p.m. ET on Dec. 21. The two teams will face off at M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore, MD. The announcers for the game have not been confirmed.

Best streaming services for Steelers vs. Ravens

Pittsburgh Steelers vs. Baltimore Ravens will be aired locally in Maryland. It may be available in some other markets, but NFL games are subject to local blackouts.

If you do not have a cable package in those markets, you have options. We've found some of the best streaming services to consider for the Rams vs. 49ers on local networks.

Most affordable: Sling TV Opens in a new window Credit: Sling Sling TV Sports Plan Get Deal

Sling TV offers its Orange & Blue package of 48 channels at $55 per month that would serve your needs for locally available NFL games. Sign up to enjoy a first-month discounted rate of $27.50.

Sling TV’s sports channels feature ABC, ACC Network, Big Ten Network, ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN3, ESPNews, ESPNU, FOX, FS1, FS2, NBC, NFL Network, and SEC Network.

For in-market games: FuboTV Opens in a new window Credit: FuboTV FuboTV Pro plan Get Deal

FuboTV offers you more than 250 channels of live TV and the option to watch on 10 screens at once. You can try FuboTV with a seven-day free trial period. 

FuboTV’s sports channel offerings include ABC, ACC Network, Big Ten Network, CBS, CBS Sports Network, ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNews, FOX, FS1, FS2, Golf Network, Marquee Sports Network, Monumental Sports, NBC, NFL Network, and SEC Network. 

Again, Steelers vs. Ravens is subject to local blackouts. It is available nationally on Prime Video.

How to watch Steelers vs. Ravens from anywhere in the world

If you're abroad for this fixture, you might need to use a VPN to unblock your favorite streaming service. These tools can hide your real IP address (digital location) and connect you to a secure server in the U.S., meaning you can unblock live streams of the NFL from anywhere in the world.

Live stream Steelers vs. Ravens from anywhere in the world by following these simple steps:

1. Subscribe to a streaming-friendly VPN (like ExpressVPN)

2. Download the app to your device of choice (the best VPNs have apps for Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, Linux, and more)

3. Open up the app and connect to a server in the U.S.

4. Sign in to your favorite streaming service

5. Watch Steelers vs. Ravens from anywhere in the world

ExpressVPN is the best choice for bypassing geo-restrictions to stream live sport, for a number of reasons:

• Servers in 105 countries including the U.S.

• Easy-to-use app available on all major devices including iPhone, Android, Windows, Mac, and more

• Strict no-logging policy so your data is secure

• Fast connection speeds free from throttling

• Up to eight simultaneous connections

• 30-day money-back guarantee

A one-year subscription to ExpressVPN is on sale for $99.95 and includes an extra three months for free — 49% off for a limited time. This plan includes a year of free unlimited cloud backup and a generous 30-day money-back guarantee.

Opens in a new window Credit: ExpressVPN ExpressVPN (1-Year Subscription + 3 Months Free) $99.95 only at ExpressVPN (with money-back guarantee) Get Deal

TL;DR: Live stream Houston Texans vs. Kansas City Chiefs on YouTube TV, Peacock TV, or Sling TV.

NFL Week 16 includes a battle between the Houston Texans and Kansas City Chiefs. The Chiefs are atop the AFC West division with just one loss the entire season, putting them at a record of 13-1. The Texans are also atop their division, the AFC South, with a record of 9-5. Both teams seem to have a good chance of winning this Saturday.

The Chiefs won 21-7 against the Cleveland Browns on Sunday, Dec. 15. That same day, the Texans beat the Miami Dolphins with a final score of 12-20. This game may have you on the edge of your seat, so grab your popcorn.

When is Texans vs. Chiefs?

Houston Texans vs. Kansas City Chiefs takes place at 1 p.m. ET on Dec. 21. The two teams will face off at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, Missouri.

The game will air on NBC and Peacock, where Mike Tirico is expected to do the play-by-play. Cris Collinsworth will join him in the booth, and Melissa Stark will be the sideline reporter.

How to stream Texans vs. Chiefs

We've found some of the best streaming services to consider for the Texans vs. Chiefs:

Most live sport: YouTube TV Opens in a new window Credit: YouTube TV YouTube TV $49.99/month for your first two months (save $46) Get Deal

Houston Texans vs. Kansas City Chiefs is available to live stream via YouTube TV or the NFL Sunday Ticket on YouTube TV (not to mention other NFL fixtures).

YouTube TV's base plan is $49.99 per month for two months for new subscribers ($72.99 per month regularly). The base plan includes over 100 live TV channels, including ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, ESPN, Fox Sports 1, and the NFL Network.

The NFL Sunday Ticket is an add-on for $209 per year, or four non-cancellable payments of $52.99. Sunday Ticket provides access to all NFL games, including out-of-market games and split-screen viewing.

No ads: Peacock TV Opens in a new window Credit: Peacock Peacock TV Get Deal

There are two tiers to NBC’s Peacock streaming service. The Premium plan is $7.99 per month, and the Premium Plus at $13.99 per month.

The advantage of the Premium Plus plan is no ads, but that doesn’t apply to live sporting events. Also, the Premium Plus plan provides 24/7 access to your local NBC channel. Peacock also offers a full year for the price of 10 months if the full year is paid upfront. Those rates are $79.99 for the Premium plan and $139.99 for the Premium Plus plan. 

College students can get Peacock’s premium plan for $1.99 per month. Students can get more information at PeacockTV.com/students.

Most affordable: Sling TV Opens in a new window Credit: Sling Sling TV Sports Plan Get Deal

Sling TV offers its Orange & Blue package of 48 channels at $55 per month that would serve your needs for locally available NFL games. Sign up to enjoy a first-month discounted rate of $27.50.

Sling TV’s sports channels feature ABC, ACC Network, Big Ten Network, ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN3, ESPNews, ESPNU, FOX, FS1, FS2, NBC, NFL Network, and SEC Network.

How to watch Texans vs. Chiefs from anywhere in the world

If you're abroad for this fixture, you might need to use a VPN to unblock your favorite streaming service. These tools can hide your real IP address (digital location) and connect you to a secure server in the U.S., meaning you can unblock live streams of the NFL from anywhere in the world.

Live stream Texans vs. Chiefs from anywhere in the world by following these simple steps:

1. Subscribe to a streaming-friendly VPN (like ExpressVPN)

2. Download the app to your device of choice (the best VPNs have apps for Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, Linux, and more)

3. Open up the app and connect to a server in the U.S.

4. Sign in to your favorite streaming service

5. Watch Texans vs. Chiefs from anywhere in the world

ExpressVPN is the best choice for bypassing geo-restrictions to stream live sport, for a number of reasons:

• Servers in 105 countries including the U.S.

• Easy-to-use app available on all major devices including iPhone, Android, Windows, Mac, and more

• Strict no-logging policy so your data is secure

• Fast connection speeds free from throttling

• Up to eight simultaneous connections

• 30-day money-back guarantee

A one-year subscription to ExpressVPN is on sale for $99.95 and includes an extra three months for free — 49% off for a limited time. This plan includes a year of free unlimited cloud backup and a generous 30-day money-back guarantee.

Opens in a new window Credit: ExpressVPN ExpressVPN (1-Year Subscription + 3 Months Free) $99.95 only at ExpressVPN (with money-back guarantee) Get Deal

TL;DR: Live stream Barcelona vs. Atletico Madrid in La Liga for free on ITVX. Access this free streaming platform from anywhere in the world with ExpressVPN.

Select La Liga fixtures are available to live stream without spending anything. And that includes some of the biggest games on the schedule, like Barcelona vs. Atletico Madrid.

Barcelona and Atletico Madrid are fighting it out at the top of the table, so this game really is massive. We're expecting a fiery battle from the first whistle.

If you want to watch Barcelona vs. Atletico Madrid in La Liga from anywhere in the world, we have all the information you need.

When is Barcelona vs. Atletico Madrid?

Barcelona vs. Atletico Madrid in La Liga kicks off at 8 p.m. GMT on Dec. 21. This fixture takes place at the Lluís Companys Olympic Stadium.

How to watch Barcelona vs. Atletico Madrid for free

Barcelona vs. Atletico Madrid is available to live stream for free on ITVX in the UK.

If you're abroad for this fixture, you might need to use a VPN to unblock ITVX. These tools can hide your real IP address (digital location) and connect you to a secure server in the UK, meaning you can unblock ITVX to stream La Liga fixtures for free from anywhere in the world.

Live stream Barcelona vs. Atletico Madrid for free by following these simple steps:

1. Subscribe to a streaming-friendly VPN (like ExpressVPN)

2. Download the app to your device of choice (the best VPNs have apps for Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, Linux, and more)

3. Open up the app and connect to a server in the UK

4. Sign in to ITVX

5. Watch Barcelona vs. Atletico Madrid for free from anywhere in the world

Opens in a new window Credit: ExpressVPN ExpressVPN (1-Year Subscription + 3 Months Free) $99.95 only at ExpressVPN (with money-back guarantee) Get Deal

The best VPNs for streaming are not free, but most do offer free-trials or money-back guarantees. By leveraging these offers, you can access free live streams of La Liga without actually spending anything. This obviously isn't a long-term solution, but it does give you enough time to stream Barcelona vs. Atletico Madrid before recovering your investment.

What is the best VPN for ITVX?

ExpressVPN is the best choice for bypassing geo-restrictions to stream live sport on ITVX, for a number of reasons:

• Servers in 105 countries including the UK

• Easy-to-use app available on all major devices including iPhone, Android, Windows, Mac, and more

• Strict no-logging policy so your data is secure

• Fast connection speeds free from throttling

• Up to eight simultaneous connections

• 30-day money-back guarantee

A one-year subscription to ExpressVPN is on sale for $99.95 and includes an extra three months for free — 49% off for a limited time. This plan includes a year of free unlimited cloud backup and a generous 30-day money-back guarantee.

Live stream Barcelona vs. Atletico Madrid in La Liga for free with ExpressVPN.

Connections is the latest New York Times word game that's captured the public's attention. The game is all about finding the "common threads between words." And just like Wordle, Connections resets after midnight and each new set of words gets trickier and trickier—so we've served up some hints and tips to get you over the hurdle.

If you just want to be told today's puzzle, you can jump to the end of this article for today's Connections solution. But if you'd rather solve it yourself, keep reading for some clues, tips, and strategies to assist you.

SEE ALSO: Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more: Play games on Mashable What is Connections?

The NYT's latest daily word game has become a social media hit. The Times credits associate puzzle editor Wyna Liu with helping to create the new word game and bringing it to the publications' Games section. Connections can be played on both web browsers and mobile devices and require players to group four words that share something in common.

Tweet may have been deleted

Each puzzle features 16 words and each grouping of words is split into four categories. These sets could comprise of anything from book titles, software, country names, etc. Even though multiple words will seem like they fit together, there's only one correct answer.

If a player gets all four words in a set correct, those words are removed from the board. Guess wrong and it counts as a mistake—players get up to four mistakes until the game ends.

Tweet may have been deleted

Players can also rearrange and shuffle the board to make spotting connections easier. Additionally, each group is color-coded with yellow being the easiest, followed by green, blue, and purple. Like Wordle, you can share the results with your friends on social media.

SEE ALSO: NYT's The Mini crossword answers for December 21 Here's a hint for today's Connections categories

Want a hint about the categories without being told the categories? Then give these a try:

• Yellow: Circular shapes or formations

• Green: Used for cooking or baking

• Blue: Styles or types of beds

• Purple: Associated with Oscar

Featured Video For You Connections: How to play and how to win Here are today's Connections categories

Need a little extra help? Today's connections fall into the following categories:

• Yellow: Loop

• Green: Cooking Vessels

• Blue: Kinds of Beds

• Purple: Things Called "Oscar"

Looking for Wordle today? Here's the answer to today's Wordle.

Ready for the answers? This is your last chance to turn back and solve today's puzzle before we reveal the solutions.

Drumroll, please!

The solution to today's Connections #559 is...

What is the answer to Connections today

• Loop: BAND, CIRCLE, HOOP, RING

• Cooking Vessels: CASSEROLE, CROCK, PAN, POT

• Kinds of Beds: BUNK, CANOPY, MURPHY, SLEIGH

• Things Called "Oscar": BALONEY, GROUCH, O, STATUETTE

Don't feel down if you didn't manage to guess it this time. There will be new Connections for you to stretch your brain with tomorrow, and we'll be back again to guide you with more helpful hints.

SEE ALSO: NYT Connections Sports Edition today: Hints and answers for December 21

Are you also playing NYT Strands? See hints and answers for today's Strands.

If you're looking for more puzzles, Mashable's got games now! Check out our games hub for Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more.

Not the day you're after? Here's the solution to yesterday's Connections.

Oh hey there! If you're here, it must be time for Wordle. As always, we're serving up our daily hints and tips to help you figure out today's answer.

If you just want to be told today's word, you can jump to the bottom of this article for today's Wordle solution revealed. But if you'd rather solve it yourself, keep reading for some clues, tips, and strategies to assist you.

SEE ALSO: Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more: Play games on Mashable SEE ALSO: NYT Connections today: Hints and answers for December 21 Where did Wordle come from?

Originally created by engineer Josh Wardle as a gift for his partner, Wordle rapidly spread to become an international phenomenon, with thousands of people around the globe playing every day. Alternate Wordle versions created by fans also sprang up, including battle royale Squabble, music identification game Heardle, and variations like Dordle and Quordle that make you guess multiple words at once. 

Wordle eventually became so popular that it was purchased by the New York Times, and TikTok creators even livestream themselves playing.

What's the best Wordle starting word?

The best Wordle starting word is the one that speaks to you. But if you prefer to be strategic in your approach, we have a few ideas to help you pick a word that might help you find the solution faster. One tip is to select a word that includes at least two different vowels, plus some common consonants like S, T, R, or N.

What happened to the Wordle archive?

The entire archive of past Wordle puzzles was originally available for anyone to enjoy whenever they felt like it, but it was later taken down, with the website's creator stating it was done at the request of the New York Times. However, the New York Times then rolled out its own Wordle Archive, available only to NYT Games subscribers.

Is Wordle getting harder?

It might feel like Wordle is getting harder, but it actually isn't any more difficult than when it first began. You can turn on Wordle's Hard Mode if you're after more of a challenge, though.

SEE ALSO: NYT's The Mini crossword answers for December 21 Here's a subtle hint for today's Wordle answer:

Sharp and sleek, it slices through things with ease.

Does today's Wordle answer have a double letter?

There are no reoccurring letters.

Today's Wordle is a 5-letter word that starts with...

Today's Wordle starts with the letter B.

SEE ALSO: Wordle-obsessed? These are the best word games to play IRL. The Wordle answer today is...

Get your last guesses in now, because it's your final chance to solve today's Wordle before we reveal the solution.

Drumroll please!

The solution to today's Wordle is...

BLADE.

Don't feel down if you didn't manage to guess it this time. There will be a new Wordle for you to stretch your brain with tomorrow, and we'll be back again to guide you with more helpful hints.

Are you also playing NYT Strands? See hints and answers for today's Strands.

SEE ALSO: NYT Connections Sports Edition today: Hints and answers for December 21

Reporting by Chance Townsend, Caitlin Welsh, Sam Haysom, Amanda Yeo, Shannon Connellan, Cecily Mauran, Mike Pearl, and Adam Rosenberg contributed to this article.

If you're looking for more puzzles, Mashable's got games now! Check out our games hub for Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more.

Not the day you're after? Here's the solution to yesterday's Wordle.

If you're reading this, you're looking for a little help playing Strands, the New York Times' elevated word-search game.

Strands requires the player to perform a twist on the classic word search. Words can be made from linked letters — up, down, left, right, or diagonal, but words can also change direction, resulting in quirky shapes and patterns. Every single letter in the grid will be part of an answer. There's always a theme linking every solution, along with the "spangram," a special, word or phrase that sums up that day's theme, and spans the entire grid horizontally or vertically.

SEE ALSO: Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more: Play games on Mashable

By providing an opaque hint and not providing the word list, Strands creates a brain-teasing game that takes a little longer to play than its other games, like Wordle and Connections.

If you're feeling stuck or just don't have 10 or more minutes to figure out today's puzzle, we've got all the NYT Strands hints for today's puzzle you need to progress at your preferred pace.

SEE ALSO: Wordle today: Answer, hints for December 21 SEE ALSO: NYT Connections hints today: Clues, answers for December 21 NYT Strands hint for today’s theme: Keeping the faith

These words are for practicing religion.

Today’s NYT Strands theme plainly explained

Words are places you'd visit to practice your faith.

NYT Strands spangram hint: Is it vertical or horizontal?

Today's NYT Strands spangram is horizontal.

NYT Strands spangram answer today

Today's spangram is SacredSpaces.

Featured Video For You Strands 101: How to win NYT’s latest word game NYT Strands word list for December 21

• Temple

• Tabernacle

• Mosque

• Abbey

• Monastery

• SacredSpaces

Looking for other daily online games? Mashable's Games page has more hints, and if you're looking for more puzzles, Mashable's got games now!

Check out our games hub for Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more.

Not the day you're after? Here's the solution to yesterday's Strands.

In our increasingly complex digital landscape, enterprises and cloud providers face significant challenges in the development, deployment, and maintenance of sophisticated IT applications. The broad adoption of microservices and cloud-based serverless architecture has streamlined certain aspects of application development while simultaneously introducing a host of operational difficulties, particularly in fault diagnosis and mitigation. These complexities can result in outages, which have the potential to cause major business disruptions, underscoring the critical need for robust solutions that ensure high availability and reliability in cloud services. As the expectation for five-nines availability grows, organizations must navigate the intricate web of operational demands to maintain customer satisfaction and business continuity. 

To tackle these challenges, recent research on using AIOps agents for cloud operations—such as AI agents for incident root cause analysis (RCA) or triaging—has relied on proprietary services and datasets. Other prior works use frameworks specific to the solutions that they are building, or ad hoc and static benchmarks and metrics that fail to capture the dynamic nature of real-world cloud services. Users developing agents for cloud operations tasks with Azure AI Agent Service can evaluate and improve them using AIOpsLab. Furthermore, current approaches do not agree on standard metrics or a standard taxonomy for operational tasks. This calls for a standardized and principled research framework for building, testing, comparing, and improving AIOps agents. The framework should allow agents to interact with realistic service operation tasks in a reproducible manner. It must be flexible in extending to new applications, workloads, and faults. Importantly, it should go beyond just evaluating the AI agents and enabling users to improve the agents themselves; for example, by providing sufficient observability and even serving as a training environment (“gym”) to generate samples to learn on.  

We developed AIOpsLab, a holistic evaluation framework for researchers and developers, to enable the design, development, evaluation, and enhancement of AIOps agents, which also serves the purpose of reproducible, standardized, interoperable, and scalable benchmarks. AIOpsLab is open sourced at GitHub (opens in new tab) with the MIT license, so that researchers and engineers can leverage it to evaluate AIOps agents at scale. The AIOpsLab research paper has been accepted at SoCC’24 (the annual ACM Symposium on Cloud Computing). 

Figure 1. System architecture of AIOpsLab.  Agent-cloud interface (ACI)

AIOpsLab strictly separates the agent and the application service using an intermediate orchestrator. It provides several interfaces for other system parts to integrate and extend. First, it establishes a session with an agent to share information about benchmark problems: (1) the problem description, (2) instructions (e.g., response format), and (3) available APIs to call as actions.

The APIs are a set of documented tools, e.g., get logs, get metrics, and exec shell, designed to help the agent solve a task. There are no restrictions on the agent’s implementation; the orchestrator poses problems and polls it for the next action to perform given the previous result. Each action must be a valid API call, which the orchestrator validates and carries out. The orchestrator has privileged access to the deployment and can take arbitrary actions (e.g., scale-up, redeploy) using appropriate tools (e.g., helm, kubectl) to resolve problems on behalf of the agent. Lastly, the orchestrator calls workload and fault generators to create service disruptions, which serve as live benchmark problems. AIOpsLab provides additional APIs to extend to new services and generators. 

Example shows how to onboard an agent to AIOpsLab from aiopslab import Orchestrator class Agent: def __init__(self, prob, instructs, apis): self.prompt = self.set_prompt(prob, instructs, apis) self.llm = GPT4() async def get_action(self, state: str) -> str: return self.llm.generate(self.prompt + state) #initialize the orchestrator orch = Orchestrator() pid = "misconfig_app_hotel_res-mitigation-1" prob_desc, instructs, apis = orch.init_problem(pid) #register and evaluate the agent agent = Agent(prob_desc, instructs, apis) orch.register_agent(agent, name="myAgent") asyncio.run(orch.start_problem(max_steps=10)) Service

AIOpsLab abstracts a diverse set of services to reflect the variance in production environments. This includes live, running services that are implemented using various architectural principles, including microservices, serverless, and monolithic.

We also leverage open-sourced application suites such as DeathStarBench as they provide artifacts, like source code and commit history, along with run-time telemetry. Adding tools like BluePrint can help AIOpsLab scale to other academic and production services. 

Workload generator

The workload generator in AIOpsLab plays a crucial role by creating simulations of both faulty and normal scenarios. It receives specifications from the orchestrator, such as the task, desired effects, scale, and duration. The generator can use a model trained on real production traces to generate workloads that align with these specifications. Faulty scenarios may simulate conditions like resource exhaustion, exploit edge cases, or trigger cascading failures, inspired by real incidents. Normal scenarios mimic typical production patterns, such as daily activity cycles and multi-user interactions. When various characteristics (e.g., service calls, user distribution, arrival times) can lead to the desired effect, multiple workloads can be stored in the problem cache for use by the orchestrator. In coordination with the fault generator, the workload generator can also create complex fault scenarios with workloads.  

Fault generator

AIOpsLab has a novel push-button fault generator designed for generic applicability across various cloud scenarios. Our approach integrates application and domain knowledge to create adaptable policies and “oracles” compatible with AIOps scenarios. This includes fine-grained fault injection capable of simulating complex failures inspired by production incidents. Additionally, it can inject faults at various system levels, exposing root causes while maintaining semantic integrity and considering interdependencies between cloud microservices. The fault injector’s versatility can enhance the reliability and robustness of cloud systems by enabling thorough testing and evaluation of AIOps capabilities. 

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Start now Opens in a new tab Observability

AIOpsLab is equipped with an extensible observability layer designed to provide comprehensive monitoring capabilities across various system layers for any AIOps tool. AIOpsLab collects a wide array of telemetry data, including (1) traces from Jaeger detailing the end-to-end paths of requests through distributed systems, (2) application logs formatted and recorded by Filebeat and Logstash, and (3) system metrics monitored by Prometheus. Additionally, AIOpsLab also captures lower-level system information such as syscall logs and cluster information. As mentioned, we handle potential data overload through flexible APIs to tune the telemetry data relevant to the AIOps tools. 

AIOpsLab currently supports four key tasks within the AIOps domain. These tasks include incident detection, localization, root cause diagnosis, and mitigation. Additionally, we support several popular agent frameworks: React, Autogen, and TaskWeaver. Two key insights from the study emphasize the importance of observability and well-designed ACI. Observability is crucial for clear root-cause diagnosis, for instance, pinpointing a misconfigured API gateway can be vital in preventing service downtime.

Flexibility is another critical factor; the ability to execute arbitrary shell commands allowed for effective troubleshooting in real-time scenarios. Lastly, robust error handling is essential—providing agents with high-quality feedback on execution barriers, such as a failed database connection, ensures swift resolution and continuous improvement. 

Example of ACI on diagnosis task Agent: I need to first look at the logs to understand if there are any errors or warnings that could indicate problems. Action: ``` get_logs("compose-post-service", "test-social-network") ``` Service: [2024-Aug-04 23:18:49.365494] <info>: … Thrift: Sun Aug 4 23:19:19 2024 TSocket::open() connect() <Host: user-service Port: 9090>: Connection refused Agent: … unable to connect to the `user-service` at port 9090, even though the pod is running. This suggests a possible network issue or misconfiguration in service discovery Next steps

This research project adopts Microsoft security standards and Responsible AI principles, and we envision this research evolving into a vital resource for organizations aiming to optimize their IT operations. Additionally, we plan to collaborate with various generative AI teams to incorporate AIOpsLab as a benchmark scenario for evaluating state-of-the-art models. By doing so, we aim to foster innovation and encourage the development of more advanced AIOps solutions. This research is essential not only for IT professionals but also for anyone invested in the future of technology, as it has the potential to redefine how organizations manage operations, respond to incidents, and ultimately serve their customers in an increasingly automated world. 

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Yinfang Chen, Manish Shetty, Yogesh Simmhan, Xuchao Zhang, Jonathan Mace, Dax Vandevoorde, Pedro Las-Casas, Shachee Mishra Gupta, and Suman Nath, for contributing to this project.

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The post AIOpsLab: Building AI agents for autonomous clouds appeared first on Microsoft Research.

Willem Dafoe and filmmaker Robert Eggers talk at-length about where they pulled their inspirations from for Nosferatu. And Eggers describes how he intentionally updated the iconic character for this film.

Nosferatu opens in theaters Dec. 25.

It seems that an unintended leak has revealed that Lenovo is making its concept rollable laptop a reality, and this could not come a minute too soon if you ask me. I've long held that rollable screen technology is much more exciting than the foldable variety, and if things work out well, this could be the future of laptop screens.

The definition of clickbait varies, but it usually means a title that is far from the article or video's topic, or even not related to it at all. Now, YouTube plans to take a stronger stance against clickbait in YouTube video titles.

The guidance computer used in the Apollo lunar landings has been turned into a cool calculator watch. It has a stopwatch, GPS, and the promise of future updates with more functionality.