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Large language models entered the mainstream when OpenAI wrapped one in a chat window and called it ChatGPT. The interface was so intuitive that everyone copied it, and it's still how most people think about AI: you type a question, you get an answer. But a lot has changed since then.

USB-C has been a game changer for electronics like phones, laptops, and other small devices, but the same isn't true for desktop PCs. After going through the trouble of adding a USB-C port to my slightly-older PC, I've only used it a handful of times, and I frequently find myself wondering if it was worth the fuss.

Samsung has dominated foldable phones for years, but it's conceding one of its thrones to Motorola with the Galaxy Z Flip 8. It's not just that this is a mostly warmed-over design with a higher price tag. It's that Samsung has ditched the "budget" FE model right as Razr phones have become more compelling than ever, often at a lower cost. If I want a clamshell foldable phone in the modern era, I go with Moto.

Snapchat is officially joining the race to clean AI slop out of social media.

The company announced July 31 that wholly AI-generated videos will no longer be eligible for recommendation in Spotlight, Snapchat’s discovery feed for trending videos from creators across the platform in order to "reward authentic creativity."

The policy does not prevent users from posting AI-generated videos elsewhere on Snapchat. It also does not disqualify every video that involves AI. Creators can continue using Snapchat’s AI tools to edit or enhance their original footage, and those videos will remain eligible for Spotlight recommendations with transparency indicators.

SEE ALSO: New safety rules for under-16 Snapchat users

The line Snapchat is drawing comes down to who, or what, created the underlying video. AI can help a person make something. It cannot make the entire thing and still expect Snapchat’s recommendation system to distribute it.

"As low-quality, repetitive, AI-generated content becomes increasingly common across the internet, we want Spotlight to remain a place where people can discover authentic creativity from real people," the company wrote in a blog post.

Keeping entirely generated videos out of Spotlight matters on the platform because recommendation is what allow a creator’s work to reach people who do not already follow them. Removing that distribution makes Spotlight far less valuable as a growth channel for automated content farms that can produce synthetic videos at scale.

It also protects a part of Snapchat that has been attracting more creators. Snap said the number of unique people contributing to Spotlight globally has increased by more than 120 percent over the past year.

Exactly how Snapchat will identify wholly AI-generated videos is less clear. The company has not explained what level of human involvement would make a video eligible or how it will distinguish an AI-enhanced recording from a generated video that received a few human edits.

Snap acknowledged that challenge in its announcement, saying that "no detection system is perfect."

Social platforms are reconsidering AI slop

Snapchat isn't the first platform to decide that the flood of repetitive AI content is becoming a problem for its users.

LinkedIn began expanding tools in July that allow members to report posts and comments that "seem like AI slop." The company is also introducing classifiers intended to reduce low-quality AI content in recommendations and replacing its "enhance your post" writing feature with a more limited proofreading tool.

LinkedIn Chief Product Officer Hari Srinivasan emphasized that the company does not consider all AI-assisted work to be slop. The concern is content that feels automated, generic, or disconnected from the person publishing it.

Substack has taken a transparency-focused approach. On July 21, the newsletter platform introduced an optional AI-detection feature built with Pangram. Readers can scan posts, notes, replies, and comments longer than 100 words to receive an estimate of how much of the text was written by a person or with AI assistance.

YouTube’s current policies similarly make repetitive or mass-produced "inauthentic content" ineligible for monetization. Its spam rules also prohibit creators from using automated or synthetic tools to flood the platform with large volumes of nearly identical videos.

TikTok has also put more of the decision in viewers’ hands. The platform began testing a setting in November that lets users increase or decrease the amount of AI-generated content that appears in their For You feeds.

Snapchat’s decision also arrives as Meta imagines a very different future for social media.

In its latest earnings remarks on July 29, Meta said its Muse image and video models would create a "nearly infinite universe of personalized content" across its platforms. That AI-generated material would become another source of recommendations alongside posts from friends and established creators.

Snapchat is making a different bet for Spotlight. As synthetic video becomes easier to produce and harder to distinguish from recorded footage, the platform is reserving its most valuable discovery space for content that begins with a person.

Drawing that line may be easier than enforcing it. Still, Snapchat has made its preference clear: AI can stay behind the scenes. Spotlight belongs to the humans.

Start rearranging your Top 8: Myspace’s owners are hinting at a comeback.

Chris and Tim Vanderhook, whose company acquired Myspace in 2011, say they plan to relaunch the once-dominant social media platform. The brothers confirmed their intentions in Tommy Avallone’s recent documentary Myspace, although they have not announced when the relaunch will happen or what it will look like.

"We still own Myspace," Tim Vanderhook said in the documentary. "We are going to relaunch Myspace. We’re just waiting for the right time to do it."

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Before you start choosing a profile song, there are still plenty of unanswered questions. The owners have not announced a launch date, development timeline, or which classic Myspace features might return. For now, the comeback is closer to a promise than a product. But a promise nonetheless.

Myspace has tried this before

If the relaunch talk sounds familiar, that is because Myspace has never completely stopped trying to come back.

The platform, launched in 2003 by co-founders Tom Anderson and Chris DeWolfe, quickly became one of the internet’s largest social networks. In July 2006, Myspace was the most-visited website in the United States, placing it ahead of Google and eBay.

Its appeal was more chaotic than the uniform profiles that came later. Users could customize their pages with HTML and CSS, change their backgrounds and fonts, embed glittering graphics, and choose a song that played automatically for every visitor.

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Music was central to the platform. Artists used Myspace pages to upload songs and communicate directly with listeners before streaming services became the dominant way to discover new music. Adele, Lily Allen, Arctic Monkeys, and Calvin Harris were among the musicians whose early careers became closely associated with the site.

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News Corp purchased Myspace and its parent company, Intermix Media, for approximately $580 million in 2005. Facebook eventually overtook it, and Myspace cycled through several leaders and redesigns as its audience declined.

By 2011, News Corp had sold the platform to Specific Media and Justin Timberlake for a reported $35 million. In 2013, the new owners unveiled a redesigned, music-focused Myspace, but the relaunch never restored its former audience.

"We really tried to modernize it, but it was a different company at that point," Tim Vanderhook said in the documentary. "It wasn’t the same Myspace."

The consequences were expensive. The brothers said advertisers canceled their contracts after the acquisition and estimated that they lost more than $150 million attempting to rebuild the platform. Even that did not kill their interest in another try. In the documentary, Tim says that if the next relaunch does not work, they will simply "do it again."

What would a new Myspace actually offer?

The platform people remember was designed for a different internet. Its profiles were built around individual customization and updates from mutulas that users had deliberately added to their network.

Myspace’s owners have not said whether they intend to recreate the older model or build something closer to existing platforms. The distinction could determine whether people are interested in using a new Myspace or simply interested in remembering the old one.

For at least some former users, however, the lack of details has not dampened the excitement. As one commenter wrote, "Oh my god we are actually so back."

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People have not abandoned social media, but recent research suggests plenty are frustrated with what their feeds have become.

In a 2026 study of 1,000 social media users, the Institute for Public Policy Research asked participants to categorize the first four posts in their most-used feed. Only 18 percent came from someone they actually knew. Influencers, public figures, and recommended content accounted for 35 percent, while advertisements and brands made up another 29 percent. Researchers said platforms were increasingly prioritizing "sticky" features and short-form video over social connection.

Some users are responding by stepping away. A 2026 Deloitte survey found that 70 percent of Irish consumers believed they spent too much time on their phones, while nearly one-quarter had deleted a social media app. Needing a break was the most common reason, followed by excessive time consumption and too many advertisements or sponsored posts.

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None of that means users are waiting specifically for Myspace. A revived platform would still have to compete with Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X, Threads, Bluesky, and every other app already fighting for their attention.

The requests surrounding its proposed return, however, are relatively specific: more control over what appears on screen, more personal profiles, and updates from actual friends.

In Reddit discussions about the proposed relaunch, former users reminisced about learning basic HTML and CSS while designing their profiles. One person said Myspace’s level of customization “hasn’t really been replicated,” while another recalled charging friends to design their pages.

Of course, the same freedom also produced unreadable text, flashing backgrounds, slow-loading pages, and songs that began playing at full volume without warning. When one Reddit user argued that being ambushed by Linkin Park or Evanescence was exactly why those designs had disappeared, others insisted that it was "part of the charm." On the other hand, some argued that a platform could not recreate "a feeling from 20 years ago."

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Myspace’s original friendly face has also floated a comeback separately. In January, Anderson, better known as everyone’s first friend "Myspace Tom," told his Threads followers that he would discuss reviving the platform if his account reached 1 million followers. The now-deleted post received nearly 15,000 likes and more than 2,000 comments within a day, according to Parade.

Anderson, however, sold the company in 2005 and is not involved with the Vanderhooks’ current plans.

Whether Myspace can recreate its old appeal remains unanswered. For now, at least, nobody has to explain why their best friend suddenly fell from No. 2 to No. 7.

In case you've been living under a proverbial rock (or have a life, I guess), you're probably aware of the vocal backlash Sony is experiencing right now after it announced the date for the end of new PlayStation 5 game disc production.

While many people think Linux performs better than Windows, it depends on the distribution. Some of them have system requirements that rival modern versions of Windows. These distros are lean and mean. They're great for fast modern machines or wringing more use of out of older computers.

Are you looking for some ways to tinker with your Bambu Lab 3D printer? You're in luck! Even though Bambu has made some functions a bit harder to access, there's actually a lot of ways to tinker with your Bambu Lab 3D printer, and here are three of my favorite projects.

Powering Android Auto is one of the most demanding things your phone does. Sometimes you can even keep your phone plugged in and still find that the battery level drops during a long drive. However, with these changes to your setup, you can minimize battery drain and make sure you've still got a decent amount of power left when you reach your destination.

Rather than carry a USB drive with me everywhere, I tried switching to a Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W, a high-capacity microSD card, and a short cable. Instead of a physical disk, I now carry a tiny file server that literally fits in my pocket. For roughly the same price as a flash drive, you can build a tool that is far more interesting.

Docker changed how developers build and distribute applications. It made containers approachable, introduced a simple workflow, and created an ecosystem that became the default for modern software development. For years, installing Docker was for me the first step after setting up a Linux workstation or server.

USB-C was meant to be the one technology to rule them all, but it's turned into a bit of a mess, and thanks to the stubborn USB-A connector sticking around for 30 years so far, fully embracing the USB-C standard has been harder than it should be.

If you're comfortable uploading your photos to Google servers, Google Photos is the only photo editing software you need. But if you're not all that trusting of Google, or you're tired of having to buy more storage for your photos, there's another photo editing tool available for your phone that provides most—if not all—of the tools you need to break free of your Google Photos dependence.

Hank Green has spent nearly two decades answering the internet’s questions, but this time viewers had one for him: Did ChatGPT write that?

Green says it did not, although the controversy has prompted the longtime YouTuber and science communicator to reconsider how much he uses AI in the first place. In a lengthy Reddit response posted July 31, Green said he plans to make fewer videos and pause two online word games after admitting that his reliance on large language models had become "not healthy for me or good for the world."

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"I’m mortified that I have let so many people down," Green wrote. "I’m going to change things about how I make stuff."

How "I appreciate the pushback" started the backlash

The questions began with a recent 55-minute episode of Complexly’s Ask Hank Anything, featuring TikTok creator Soupytime. During a segment recorded separately from their conversation, Green said, “A better way to say it, and I appreciate the pushback, is a word is a human invention.”

That "I appreciate the pushback" caught viewers’ attention. The phrase is commonly associated with chatbots responding to a correction, and because Green appeared to be speaking alone in that portion of the video, some people speculated that he had accidentally read language generated by ChatGPT.

Green responded in a since-deleted post on X, explaining that he had produced the episode "under a ton of pressure." He confirmed that he used ChatGPT to research the script, but said neither his notes nor the script contained the disputed phrase. According to Green, it was an ad-lib referring to a disagreement with Soupytime earlier in the episode.

The line may have been his, but Green conceded that the broader impression was not coming from nowhere.

"I think it’s fair to say I was relying too much on generated notes," Green wrote in the deleted post. "That’s a thing I’ve been doing, and it’s a bad habit at a time when I’ve overcommitted myself."

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Complexly soon offered its own clarification. In an Aug. 1 statement, the educational media nonprofit Green founded with his brother, author John Green, confirmed that he used ChatGPT during preliminary research. The organization said he did not use it to write or fact-check the segment.

Under Complexly’s existing AI policy, the organization permits limited use of AI for preliminary research but prohibits AI from writing, editing, or fact-checking videos. It also described Green’s use of ChatGPT as uncommon for him and for Complexly productions.

"You need to know that my words are mine. I’ve been moving so fast that my own process isn’t actually clear to me."

With the video’s production process clarified, Green turned to the larger concern: how deeply AI had worked its way into his routine.

In his Reddit response, Green said he has used chatbots to locate academic papers and other resources, rather than generate scripts or opinions.

"You are still getting my takes based on what I read, know, and learn," he wrote.

Finding those sources faster, however, came with a tradeoff. Green said relying on ChatGPT prevented him from finding his "own ways into and around a topic," even when the chatbot led him to papers he did not know existed.

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That uncertainty carries particular weight for Green, who helped build educational channels, including SciShow and CrashCourse, focused on making complex subjects accessible.

"You need to know that my words are mine," Green wrote. “I’ve been moving so fast that my own process isn’t actually clear to me.”

Green’s response was not a complete rejection of AI. He described himself as "not a pure AI-hater" and said people can reasonably disagree about whether or how the technology should be used. He also reiterated his concerns about how AI models are trained, their climate impact, and the speed at which AI companies are consolidating economic power.

The part of his explanation connected to the pressure he felt to keep producing projects as quickly as possible.

"The level of dopamine I’ve been getting from interacting with LLMs...with doing more and more and more and more...is not healthy for me or good for the world," he wrote.

Green said his wife, Katherine, and brother John had also raised concerns. Neither "pulled any punches," he wrote, and both believed his behavior had become unhealthy.

Hank Green plans to make less content

That realization will change Green’s production schedule. Green says he plans to slow down Hankschannel, his personal YouTube account with more than 3 million subscribers, which may either pause temporarily, return with additional writing and research support, or simply publish far fewer videos.

Green is also pausing SMUSH and 4x3, two daily online word games he produces. He currently has a backlog of 4x3 puzzles, but said he will let the game stop updating if those run out, rather than pressuring himself to keep producing them.

With fewer projects competing for his attention, Green said he wants to spend more time making videos where "the writing was the whole thing." There may still be occasional unscripted videos filmed directly to the camera, but the pace will be slower.

Beneath Green’s response, some fans gave him grace, saying Green "is allowed to slow down" and that most viewers would prefer fewer videos over greater reliance on AI. But many more questioned Green's use of AI in the first place, especially given that Complexly already works with human researchers.

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"If the pressure to make a video is too much that you can’t use a human researcher, we don’t need the video," one Reddit commenter wrote. Another argued that AI can create the impression of increased productivity while merely "pushing the food around on your plate."

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Even the user who started the Reddit discussion apologized if the post had contributed to a dogpile. Green replied that he understood and believed the criticism was "coming from a good place."

ESP32 boards are incredibly versatile. They're small and relatively cheap, and I use them for a wide variety of purposes in my smart home. The problem is that a bare ESP32 board doesn't look great dangling off the back of a power cable. A Home Assistant user has found a neat and elegant way to hide them away.

Working with a sluggish computer is a grind. With automated functions, servers, self-hosting, Docker containers, and all the files I download on a daily basis, I often forget to keep my digital space tidy. I noticed something was chewing up my Linux box's performance in a way I never experienced when I used Windows. I wanted to find out why, so I did a deep dive into cleaning up my computer using a mix of system tools and third-party software, and a bit of help from Claude.

Not every award-winning movie demands a three-hour time commitment. Your watchlist grows longer than your leisure time. Short films are the fix nobody talks about. Netflix’s library is quietly stocked with Oscar-winning and Oscar-nominated titles. The Academy’s short categories—animated, live action, and documentary—routinely produce work that’s as sharp, well-crafted, and gut-punching as anything for Best Picture, minus the runtime.

Welcome to your guide to Pips, the latest game in the New York Times catalogue.

Released in August 2025, Pips puts a unique spin on dominoes, creating a fun single-player experience that could become your next daily gaming habit.

Currently, if you're stuck, the game only offers to reveal the entire puzzle, forcing you to move on to the next difficulty level and start over. However, we have you covered! Below are piecemeal answers that will serve as hints so that you can find your way through each difficulty level.

How to play Pips

If you've ever played dominoes, you'll have a passing familiarity with how Pips is played. As we've shared in our previous hints stories for Pips, the tiles, like dominoes, are placed vertically or horizontally and connect with each other. The main difference between a traditional game of dominoes and Pips is the color-coded conditions you have to address. The touching tiles don't necessarily have to match.

SEE ALSO: Wordle today: Answer, hints for August 2, 2026

The conditions you have to meet are specific to the color-coded spaces. For example, if it provides a single number, every side of a tile in that space must add up to the number provided. It is possible — and common — for only half a tile to be within a color-coded space.

Here are common examples you'll run into across the difficulty levels:

• Number: All the pips in this space must add up to the number.

• Equal: Every domino half in this space must be the same number of pips.

• Not Equal: Every domino half in this space must have a completely different number of pips.

• Less than: Every domino half in this space must add up to less than the number.

• Greater than: Every domino half in this space must add up to more than the number.

If an area does not have any color coding, it means there are no conditions on the portions of dominoes within those spaces.

SEE ALSO: NYT Strands hints, answers for August 2, 2026 Easy difficulty hints, answers for August 2 Pips

Greater Than (1): Everything in this space must be greater than 1. The answer is 0-2, placed horizontally.

Number (1): Everything in this space must add up to 1. The answer is 1-1, placed horizontally; 0-2, placed horizontally; 0-0, placed horizontally.

Number (6): Everything in this space must add up to 6. The answer is 5-3, placed horizontally; 3-6, placed horizontally.

Greater Than (5): Everything in this space must be greater than 5. The answer is 3-6, placed horizontally.

Medium difficulty hints, answers for August 2 Pips

Greater Than (0): Everything in this space must be greater than 0. The answer is 4-0, placed horizontally.

Equal (0): Everything in this space must be equal to 0. The answer is 4-0, placed horizontally; 0-3, placed vertically.

Greater Than (3): Everything in this space must be greater than 3. The answer is 5-5, placed horizontally.

Not Equal Everything in this space must be different. The answer is 2-6, placed horizontally; 5-5, placed horizontally; 4-3, placed vertically.

Number (8): Everything in this space must add up to 8. The answer is 4-4, placed vertically.

Equal (3): Everything in this space must be equal to 3. The answer is 4-3, placed vertically.

Number (3): Everything in this space must add up to 3. The answer is 3-3, placed horizontally.

Hard difficulty hints, answers for August 2 Pips

Less Than (3): Everything in this space must be less than 3. The answer is 0-0, placed vertically; 1-6, placed horizontally.

Number (3): Everything in this space must add up to 3. The answer is 3-3, placed horizontally.

Number (5): Everything in this space must add up to 5. The answer is 5-2, placed vertically.

Number (0): Everything in this space must add up to 0. The answer is 0-0, placed vertically.

Number (3): Everything in this space must add up to 3. The answer is 3-6, placed vertically.

Number (5): Everything in this space must add up to 5. The answer is 5-0, placed vertically.

Number (0): Everything in this space must add up to 0. The answer is 0-2, placed horizontally.

Greater Than (5): Everything in this space must be greater than 5. The answer is 6-2, placed horizontally.

Less Than (3): Everything in this space must be less than 3. The answer is 5-0, placed vertically.

Number (3): Everything in this space must add up to 3. The answer is 3-1, placed vertically.

Equal (2): Everything in this space must be equal to 2. The answer is 5-2, placed vertically; 2-3, placed horizontally; 6-2, placed horizontally; 2-1, placed vertically.

Equal (6): Everything in this space must be equal to 6. The answer is 3-6, placed vertically; 6-4, placed horizontally.

Greater Than (3): Everything in this space must be greater than 3. The answer is 6-4, placed horizontally.

Less Than (5): Everything in this space must be less than 5. The answer is 4-1, placed horizontally.

Equal (1): Everything in this space must be equal to 1. The answer is 4-1, placed horizontally; 2-1, placed vertically; 1-1, placed horizontally.

Number (3): Everything in this space must add up to 3. The answer is 3-5, placed horizontally.

Number (5): Everything in this space must add up to 5. The answer is 3-5, placed horizontally.

Number (0): Everything in this space must add up to 0. The answer is 0-1, placed horizontally.

Equal (1): Everything in this space must be equal to 1. The answer is 0-1, placed horizontally; 3-1, placed vertically.

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

Did you just get a UV printer? I did, and I've already been making and working on selling things that I've made. UV printers are insane machines, and they deliver the ability to make almost anything your mind can imagine. Here are some of the first projects that I designed and made with my UV printer, along with what I am selling them for, or what I plan to list them for.

Most PC upgrades feel like a big project because you're reading reviews, checking compatibility, maybe cracking open a case or watching a tutorial before anything actually changes. However, you don't need to spend very much to get what you need. I've bought most of the cheap accessories below more than once, which tells you something about how well they hold up.