IT General

If you’ve ever been to a major event, like the World Cup or a big show or festival, you know how taxing traveling on foot can be. Uneven terrain, crowds, obstacles, and constant flow issues can really make it difficult to get from Point A to Point B. That “last mile” might even make you wish you had wheels instead of feet, and thanks to modern EV technology, it’s actually possible to substitute manual strides for a personal mobility vehicle.

Milwaukee is one of the most popular names in power tools, and users love its extensive lineup of M12 and M18 options, as well as its growing hand tool collection. This week, Milwaukee announced several more hand tools that are made in the USA, and here's what you need to know.

It's fair to say that voice assistants such as Alexa and Google Home have made the smart home much more accessible. They're fairly easy to set up, and controlling devices with your voice is something anyone can do. However, these types of closed smart home ecosystems have their limitations; connecting your voice assistants to Home Assistant can make them even better.

The average size of a smartphone battery in 2026 has crossed 5,000mAh. With the rise of silicon carbon batteries outside the US, it's now feasible for relatively thin phones to contain 7,000mAh battery packs. As exciting as this new battery chemistry may be, we wouldn't actually need bigger batteries to get more life out of our phones if only we could opt out of all the nonsense going on in the background.

If you're worried that the new single from a favorite musician might just be a dupe from an AI band, Spotify might have your back. The streaming music service is introducing a Verified by Spotify badge that proves an artist isn't AI-generated or an AI persona.

A lot of us still have a few decade-old USB flash drives with tiny amounts of storage lying around the house. If we're being realistic, these flash drives are way too small for modern use and too old to be reliable, yet somehow, it's hard to justify throwing away a functioning USB flash drive.

The Toyota Highlander has long been a go-to for families who want a safe, dependable three-row SUV. Its reputation alone is often enough to justify the price, making it one of the most predictable choices in the segment. But in 2026, that predictability comes at a steep cost, and not everyone is getting their money’s worth.

Most proxy servers, sometimes called forward proxies, can be used to obscure your location from whatever service you're connected to. Reverse proxies do almost the exact opposite—they sit between your self-hosted services and whoever is trying to connect. It might not sound that exciting, but it is one of the most useful things you can run for your homelab.

Your Kindle has a web browser where you can play board games like chess. It makes for a fun, distraction-free experience, so I wanted to see how far I could take it. With my jailbroken Kindle, I can actually install new apps on my Kindle and play games offline.

You're tired of your TV's crappy sound quality, so you go online to try and find a decent soundbar. To your dismay, every "best of" article insists that you need a $1,000 soundbar—anything else is a terrible, stupid, idiotic purchase. I'm here to tell you that the influencers are full of bologna.

HBO Max has released its May schedule, and it’s a thick one. The month kicks off with plenty of hit flicks from the 1970s through the 2020s, such as Enter the Dragon, Walk the Line, and Saltburn; then you're in for new seasons of hit shows, new documentaries and comedy specials, and a handful of movies making their streaming debut.

The electric vehicle market has grown from having only a scant offering of eco-friendly econo-boxes to accessible sports cars for enthusiasts. Those who live for the weekend canyon-carving run or the occasional track day may find the Porsche Taycan 4S is a strong benchmark, a proverbial “go-to” considering its design and engineering, along with Porsche’s legacy.

Excel has a powerful feature most people never touch—and it quietly turns spreadsheets into something far more capable. If you've ever hit the limits of the grid, Power Pivot is where things start to get interesting. It lets you connect large datasets so you can analyze them without merging everything into one massive spreadsheet.

Windows Virtual Desktops have been around for years, and for most of that time, I completely ignored them. I assumed they were one of those features Microsoft added that sounded useful in theory but didn't really change how most people worked. I already had multiple monitors, plenty of screen space, and a workflow that felt good enough, so I never saw the point.

The mistake some people make is thinking about Gemini exactly like they thought about Google Assistant. However, you’re probably missing out on one of Gemini’s best features if you’re using it that way. It’s called “Connected Apps,” and it may change how you use your Android phone.

NVIDIA has finally enabled RTX 5080 graphics for GeForce Now game streaming, and the move promises major improvements to your experience — provided you're willing to pay.

USB generational numbering is sort of straightforward, right? A bigger number means better, and so we have USB 1.1, USB 2.0, uh, 2.0 Revised, USB 3.0, 3.1, 3.2 (but now USB 3.2 Gen something or other), USB4, and USB4 2.0.

In his own words, Jonah Evarts is "just some guy that talks about books on the internet." But with more than 158,000 followers on TikTok, the Kansas-based creator has built a devoted audience around his love of reading, especially high fantasy. Since 2023, Evarts has transformed that passion into a full-time career, landing a spot on the reality competition series Destination X and publishing his debut novel, Reaper's Bend.

The return of BookCon after a six-year hiatus offered a rare chance for the online BookTok community to connect in person. We caught up with Evarts at BookCon 2026 to talk about turning a hobby into a career, choosing the independent publishing route, and what's next for his growing platform.

SEE ALSO: You wrote a book! Now make a viral TikTok about it. We sat down with Credit: Ian Moore/Mashable/Adobe Stock Mashable: When did you start your BookTok account?

Jonah Evarts: I started my BookTok account about three years ago, and I think I'd been posting for a couple of months before I really started even having anybody see my videos, which was crazy. And now, three years later, it's my job, which is crazy.

Are you doing it full-time now?

I've been doing it full-time for a year and a half, which feels really weird. Sometimes I wake up, and I'm like, "What am I gonna do for work? Oh, I'm gonna read a book."

How has it felt turning this passion for books into a career in content?

It happened so organically for me. When I first started posting, it was just for fun. None of my friends back home read, so I needed to put this energy somewhere, and I started making videos. I almost immediately started building a huge community of people who were also interested in the books I read. It just feels so strange to think that so many people like the same thing as me.

Has your relationship to reading changed since becoming a creator?

A little, sadly. At different times throughout the past three years, it's felt like I have to read this [book], because that's what's going to get views even if it's not what I'm in the mood for. I've had to grapple with that. I don't want to just read books because they're gonna get views. I think people can tell if I'm not super passionate or excited about a book. So I try to mood-read as much as possible. But sometimes people really want me to talk about a book, and it's hard not to get carried away with the crowd.

You're also a writer and an author, too. Was writing always a part of your content, or did you bring it in later?

I kept it hidden from everyone. None of my followers knew that I was a writer until I was already done with my book. So when I made a post saying, "I wrote this book, and it's coming out later this year," the general reaction was like, "Wait, what, you write books?"

It makes sense, writing is such a personal and often vulnerable thing to share.

That's part of the reason I kept it hidden. It's different to present yourself as a book reviewer rather than an artist. As an artist, you're the one being judged.

Now that you're in both spaces as a creator and writer, how have you navigated that?

There hasn't been a ton of crossover yet because most of the readers are my friends. I think a lot of that is because I went indie. Most of the people reading my book have followed me for years. So far, I haven't really had to branch out of my circle or my own audience. It's been really cool because everyone's been really supportive and affirmed me as an artist.

Do you feel that being a creator allowed you to take the indie publishing route?

When I first started writing, I was so certain I was going to try to go the traditional route. But for me, I wanted [this project] to be something where I could just overcome my fear of being seen as an artist. Going indie felt a little more like confronting my fear rather than seeking affirmation because I got a book deal. And I knew I could take that risk and invest in an editor and a book cover, expecting a return, because I knew some people in my audience might buy it. So [being a creator] let me take a bit bigger risk than I would have otherwise.

What's it like to interact with fans at BookCon when so much of your audience interactions happen online?

It's been crazy. The first time someone stopped me and asked, "Are you Jonah?" I freaked out. I feel famous right now, but I'm just some guy who talks about books on the internet. I went to Dragonsteel last year, and I expected to be a little more recognized there because that's my specific niche: epic fantasy books. The coolest part for me is seeing a bunch of other creators that I've known for years and bumping into them. Everyone's so friendly and supportive.

Also, you were on the show Destination X last year. Was that a fun side quest, or something you'd been dreaming of doing?

It was just a fun side quest. I got on the show because of BookTok. A casting agent found me on TikTok and asked if I would do an interview. And I said, "Sure," and two months later, I was in Belgium filming the show. It came out of nowhere, and it was crazy, but I represented BookTok.

What's next for you and your platform?

I am writing another book, and I'm really hoping to get a traditional deal with this one. And I'm hoping to progress my content in the same way. Maybe I'll start talking more about writing, because right now, it's mostly still just me talking about other people's books, but I love writing as much as I love reading. I would like to move in that direction eventually. I know other people in the space who have done so. I know there's a path for that, and I want to go after it.

There are few filmmakers who can say they established the formula for an entire genre of film. Well, the Zucker Brothers and Jim Abrahams certainly did! If you look at the most celebrated spoof films of the past 50 years, if they weren't made by them, they were inspired by them. It's hard to believe that some of their biggest hits almost didn't even get made.

As David Zucker told Mashable's Executive Producer, Mark Stetson: "Airplane was turned down by every studio. Believe me, it's the story of my life!"

Lucky for them, Michael Eisner, President of Paramount at the time, heard about the Airplane script and wanted to make it. "You're in," he said. "You don't even have to pitch this. I want to make this movie." Airplane ended up grossing $80million, over 5 times the film's budget.

Their next project was a short-lived tv series called, Police Squad, which ended up being the precursor to Naked Gun films. The tv show format wasn't quite right fit for the now iconic character Frank Drebin, so they had to "put a pin it" until they could make the film. In the meantime, they took their obsession with WWII spy films and made the tragically lessor-known cult classic, Top Secret, starring Val Kilmer. After the films moderate success, they finally made The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad, and the rest is movie history!

David Zucker will be presenting a special screening of The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad at the Netflix is a Joke Fest on May 5th.

You can learn directly from David by joining his comedy community on Master Crash.

Bambu Lab’s Automatic Material System, or AMS, received a big upgrade with the release of the AMS 2 Pro in 2025. It’s one of the best quality-of-life upgrades you can make to a Bambu Lab printer, but it’s not without its flaws.