IT General

Today's Connections: Sports Edition will be easier if you've watched the Falcons during the 2010s.

As we've shared in previous hints stories, this is a version of the popular New York Times word game that seeks to test the knowledge of sports fans.

Like the original Connections, 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 the latest 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: Sports Edition?

The NYT's latest daily word game has launched in association with The Athletic, the New York Times property that provides the publication's sports coverage. The sports Connections can be played on both web browsers and mobile devices and require players to group four words that share something in common.

This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.

Each puzzle features 16 words, and each grouping of words is split into four categories. These sets could comprise 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 before the game ends.

This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.

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: Wordle-obsessed? These are the best word games to play IRL. Here's a hint for today's Connections: Sports Edition categories

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

• Yellow: Sports

• Green: Lone Star colleges

• Blue: Shares the same Portuguese first name

• Purple: Types of plays in sports

Here are today's Connections: Sports Edition categories

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

• Yellow: ___Ball Sports

• Green: Texas Schools

• Blue: Fernandos

• Purple: ___Play

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: Sports Edition #709 is...

What is the answer to Connections: Sports Edition today?

• ___Ball Sports: BASE, BASKET, RACQUET, VOLLEY

• Texas Schools: BAYLOR, HOUSTON, RICE, SMU

• Fernandos: ALONSO, MENDOZA, TATIS, VALENZUELA

• ___Play: 3-POINT, DOUBLE, SQUEEZE, TRICK

Don't feel down if you didn't manage to guess it this time. There will be new sports Connections 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.

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.

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

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 September 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 September 2, 2026 Easy difficulty hints, answers for September 2 Pips

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

Number (4): Everything in this light blue space must add up to 4. The answer is 4-1, placed vertically.

Number (4): Everything in this purple space must add up to 4. The answer is 4-4, placed horizontally; 0-4, placed vertically.

Number (4): Everything in this orange space must add up to 4. The answer is 0-4, placed vertically; 0-3, placed horizontally.

Less Than (4): Everything in this space must be less than 4. The answer is 0-3, placed horizontally.

Medium difficulty hints, answers for September 2 Pips

Number (3): Everything in this space must add up to 3. The answer is 0-5, placed vertically; 3-4, placed vertically.

Equal (4): Everything in this space must be equal to 4. The answer is 3-4, placed vertically; 4-5, placed horizontally.

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

Greater Than (4): Everything in this space must be greater than 4. The answer is 6-5, placed horizontally.

Equal (5): Everything in this space must be equal to 5. The answer is 0-5, placed vertically; 6-5, placed horizontally; 5-3, placed vertically.

Less Than (2): Everything in this space must be less than 2. The answer is 1-3, placed vertically.

Number (9): Everything in this space must add up to 9. The answer is 2-3, placed horizontally; 5-3, placed vertically; 1-3, placed vertically.

Hard difficulty hints, answers for September 2 Pips

Number (12): Everything in this space must add up to 12. The answer is 6-5, placed vertically; 6-4, placed vertically.

Less Than (3): Everything in this space must be less than 3. The answer is 2-4, placed horizontally.

Greater Than (3): Everything in this space must be greater than 3. The answer is 6-4, placed vertically; 5-4, placed horizontally.

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

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

Equal (5): Everything in this space must be equal to 5. The answer is 5-5, placed vertically; 6-5, placed vertically; 5-0, placed horizontally.

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

Number (1): Everything in this space must add up to 1. The answer is 1-4, placed horizontally.

Equal (4): Everything in this space must be equal to 4. The answer is 2-4, placed horizontally; 5-4, placed horizontally; 4-4, placed vertically; 1-4, placed horizontally; 4-3, placed vertically.

Number (12): Everything in this space must add up to 12. The answer is 2-6, placed vertically; 6-1, placed horizontally.

Number (8): Everything in this space must add up to 8. The answer is 0-3, placed horizontally; 5-3, placed horizontally.

Equal (3): Everything in this green space must be equal to 3. The answer is 5-3, placed horizontally; 4-3, 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.

Looking for spoiler-free NYT Connections hints or just wondering why Connections is trending today? We've got what you need to understand the clues for today's puzzle without spoiling any of the answers.

Of course, Mashable has also provided daily hints and answers for Connections, Wordle, and Strands for years, so we can help you if that's also what you need.

While we are focused more on meanings than hints in this story, sometimes learning that many of the words have completely unrelated meanings is a clue in and of itself. Connections frequently includes clues that involve words within words and other visual clues.

SEE ALSO: NYT Connections hints today: Clues, answers for September 2, 2026 Dazzle meaning

To blind someone with a bright light.

Floor meaning

To overwhelm.

Stun meaning

To shock.

Wow meaning

To impress.

Bow meaning

A long curved, wooded weapon.

Mute meaning

Silent.

Rosin meaning

An amber-colored resin that comes from pine trees.

Shoulder rest meaning

An accessory used by violinist.

Hunting meaning

The process of chasing and killing animals.

Rescue meaning

To save.

Sausage meaning

A food made from ground meat.

Want more tech and digital culture news delivered to your inbox daily or sent straight to your device? Sign up for Mashable's Top Stories newsletter or get Mashable push alerts today.

Sheep meaning

A woolly farm animal.

Corn meaning

A yellow, husked vegetable.

Prairie meaning

Flat, grassy land.

Salty meaning

Has a briny taste.

Top meaning

At the peak.

Have you learned the meanings and still want the things? Check out the hints and answers for today's NYT Connections puzzle.

Are you also playing NYT Strands? Get all the Strands hints you need for today's puzzle.

Meet The Mashable 101: Our list of the content creators shaping the internet today

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.

The NYT Connections puzzle today is not too difficult if you're a musician.

Connections is the one of the most popular New York Times word games 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.

This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.

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.

This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.

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 Pips hints, answers for September 2, 2026 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: To shock

• Green: What an instrumentalist might carry

• Blue: Canines

• Purple: Not canines

Want more tech and digital culture news delivered to your inbox daily or sent straight to your device? Sign up for Mashable's Top Stories newsletter or get Mashable push alerts today.

Here are today's Connections categories

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

• Yellow: Flabbergast

• Green: Things in a violin case

• Blue: ___ dogs (that are dogs)

• Purple: ___ dogs (that aren't dogs)

Play our Big Guessing Game: Make your predictions now for a chance to win a new Apple Watch. Time's running out!

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 #1177 is...

What is the answer to Connections today

• Flabbergast: DAZZLE, FLOOR, STUN, WOW

• Things in a violin case: BOW, MUTE, ROSIN, SHOULDER REST

• ___ dogs (that are dogs): HUNTING, RESCUE, SAUSAGE, SHEEP

• ___ dogs (that aren't dogs): CORN, PRAIRIE, SALTY, TOP

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

Are you also playing NYT Strands? Get all the Strands hints you need for today's puzzle.

Meet The Mashable 101: Our list of the content creators shaping the internet today

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.

Today's NYT Strands hints are easy if you're spiritual.

Strands, the New York Times' elevated word-search game, 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 September 2, 2026 NYT Strands hint for today’s theme: All will be revealed

The words are things that become evident.

Today’s NYT Strands theme plainly explained

These words describe things coming to fruition.

NYT Strands spangram hint: Is it vertical or horizontal?

Today's NYT Strands spangram is horizontal.

Want more tech and digital culture news delivered to your inbox daily or sent straight to your device? Sign up for Mashable's Top Stories newsletter or get Mashable push alerts today.

NYT Strands spangram answer today

Today's spangram is Come to Light.

NYT Strands word list for September 2

• Emerge

• Arise

• Surface

• Come to Light

• Materlize

• Manifest

Meet The Mashable 101: Our list of the content creators shaping the internet today

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.

Today's Wordle answer should be easy to solve if you're power-hungry.

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 hints today: Clues, answers for September 2, 2026 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 Pips hints, answers for September 2, 2026 Here's a subtle hint for today's Wordle answer:

An emperor.

Does today's Wordle answer have a double letter?

There are no recurring letters.

Want more tech and digital culture news delivered to your inbox daily or sent straight to your device? Sign up for Mashable's Top Stories newsletter or get Mashable push alerts today.

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

Today's Wordle starts with the letter R.

Play our Big Guessing Game: Make your predictions now for a chance to win a new Apple Watch. Time's running out!

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...

RULER

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.

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

Meet The Mashable 101: Our list of the content creators shaping the internet today

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.

The cameras are coming down in Florida. Partially.

On Monday, the Florida Department of Transportation officially revoked permission for law enforcement agencies to operate automated license plate readers on state highway rights-of-way. Police agencies have 30 days to remove them.

The order represents one of the broadest government actions yet against the increasingly controversial technology. And although Flock Safety has become almost synonymous with automated license plate readers, Florida’s directive applies to the entire category, including cameras supplied by competitors such as Axon and Motorola.

Florida officials cited the "recent exponential increase" in camera deployments, along with "concerning reports of misuse, data privacy concerns, and surveillance schemes."

Florida appears to be the first state to order the wholesale removal of automated license plate readers from its state highway system, rather than pausing new installations, limiting their use, or cutting funding.

SEE ALSO: What are Flock cameras and why are they so controversial?

The order applies statewide but only to cameras installed within state highway rights-of-way. It does not prohibit license plate readers on local roads or private property, where Florida officials say most of the cameras are located.

The Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office said it would discontinue its use of license plate readers throughout Duval County effective immediately, even as it called them valuable investigative tools. Pasco and Manatee counties have also moved to ban or remove the devices, while Oviedo’s mayor said the city’s cameras would be gone by the end of September "one way or another."

Gov. Ron DeSantis had telegraphed the move days earlier, describing the proliferation of license plate readers as "out of control" and warning against the creation of a surveillance state.

"These cameras that are out there now — who’s to say they’re only doing the license plate?" DeSantis said during an appearance on Eric Bolling’s Main Street America program. "I think it’s capturing people in their cars. I think it’s capturing way more information than they’re letting on. And you’ve seen the abuse."

Flock says a ban is the wrong response. The company argues that its cameras help police solve serious crimes, recover stolen vehicles, and locate missing people. "Rather than banning a critical public safety tool, we support thoughtful legislation and strong privacy, transparency, and accountability guardrails," Flock said in a statement.

Florida may be the biggest development of the week, but it is not an isolated one. Across the country, state and local officials (and local vigilantes) have spent the past several days covering cameras, canceling contracts, and asking questions that many departments did not address before the technology was installed.

"I think it’s capturing people in their cars. I think it’s capturing way more information than they’re letting on. And you’ve seen the abuse." - Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis's comments on Main Street America Weeks of cancellations, pauses, and proposed bans

Florida is not the only state reconsidering its relationship with Flock. Just days before the highway order, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott directed state agencies to stop funding the company’s cameras. His office pointed to mounting concerns about misuse, including the indictment of a Lufkin police officer who faces 100 felony counts for allegedly conducting unauthorized searches in Flock’s database.

In Wisconsin, Menasha Mayor Austin Hammond ordered every Flock camera in the city covered by the end of Sept. 1. He added that he would ask the Common Council to terminate its contract later in September. Menasha police had already introduced additional safeguards, including a public transparency log and regular audits of system users. Even with those measures, Hammond said community concerns about privacy and data access warranted ending the program.

"There is a great and genuine concern that exists regarding privacy and how the data is accessed and shared," Hammond told local news.

SEE ALSO: This map shows how many Flock cameras are in your neighborhood

The pullback continued Sep. 1 in Tennessee, where Hamilton County Sheriff Austin Garrett paused all 70 automated license plate readers overseen by his office. Meanwhile, several Massachusetts communities took action over the preceding days: Abington and Ayer ended their relationships with Flock, while Southbridge suspended its program pending greater public discussion of the technology and possible statewide safeguards. Groton also announced that it would terminate its contract, following an internal review. They add to five other local Massachusetts towns discontinuing their cameras.

"Being a successful police department is not simply about having the most tools or the newest technology," Abington Police Chief John Bonney. "It’s about maintaining the trust and confidence of the people we serve."

As of Aug. 31, the Institute for Justice, a libertarian public-interest law firm challenging automated license plate readers in court, counted 144 local governments that had canceled or declined to renew ALPR contracts since the beginning of 2025.

The speed of the pullback reveals how quickly Flock’s standing has deteriorated. A company that once built an enormous national network by selling its cameras as relatively inexpensive, low-maintenance tools for solving crimes now faces scrutiny from both political parties, organized community opposition, and the public at large.

I wear a smartwatch so that I almost never have to hear my phone. My watch tells me when someone's calling, when someone's texting, and other important things. Just as importantly, my watch can know when not to tell me as well.

For anyone who remembers printing MapQuest directions before a road trip, the navigation service may feel like something that belongs in the glove compartment of internet history. Apparently, all it took for a comeback was President Donald Trump starting yet another dispute over what to call a body of water.

Lake Ontario, which sits between New York and the Canadian province of Ontario, became the latest front in Trump’s trade war with Canada. On Aug. 27, Trump signed an executive order directing federal agencies to rename Lake Ontario "Lake America" within 30 days. Why? Trump said Canada had been "ripping us off for a long time on trade."

MapQuest refused to go along, and users apparently liked that answer: The 30-year-old service shot to No. 1 among free apps in Apple’s U.S. and Canadian App Stores.

"We’re not changing it," the company wrote on X, along with other defiant posts.

This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed. This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed. This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.

According to Appfigures data, MapQuest recorded roughly 80,000 iOS downloads in the U.S. and Canada on Sunday, up from a daily average of around 500 earlier in August. Google Play downloads climbed from approximately 1,000 per day to 20,000 on Saturday.

MapQuest reportedly surpassed 100,000 total downloads on Aug. 30, giving the service its best day in a decade. And those downloads apparently did not just sit unopened; the company said usage had increased roughly 50-fold, suggesting people were genuinely giving the old navigation app another chance.

"People spoke with their downloads," MapQuest general manager Doug Berger told Business Insider. "They want a mapping app with names they’re familiar with."

Funny enough, MapQuest was once nearly synonymous with getting lost. Launched in 1996, the service helped introduce millions of people to online navigation by generating turn-by-turn directions they could print and bring along for the ride. If a driver missed a turn, however, there was no automatic rerouting. Someone in the passenger seat simply had to figure it out. (Cue Gen Z gasps.)

Then built-in car navigation systems and smartphones came along, and there was no longer much reason to print out a route before leaving home. By 2008, Google Maps had overtaken MapQuest, turning the once-dominant service into a reminder of an earlier era of the internet.

But MapQuest has since managed to turn its age into part of the joke. After Trump ordered federal agencies to adopt "Gulf of America" in 2025, MapQuest joked on X that it was keeping the old name because it had not updated its maps in 15 years and no longer remembered how. The company later created an official "Name your own gulf" generator that allowed people to label it whatever they wanted.

This time, MapQuest brought the tool back and invited users to rename Lake Ontario themselves.

This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.

"We took the same approach we did with the Gulf of Mexico: be part of the conversation, and give people an app that keeps the names they’re familiar with," Berger said in an Aug. 31 statement.

Google Maps, meanwhile, took the opposite turn. On Saturday, Aug. 29, the company began rolling out the "Lake America" label to users in the United States after the name was formally added to the U.S. Geographic Names Information System. Canadians will continue to see "Lake Ontario," while users elsewhere will see both names. Google said the change followed its long-standing policy of reflecting names used by official government sources. It also quickly renamed the Gulf of Mexico back in 2025.

'How the GNIS Lake Ontario/Lake America name change in the U.S. will appear in Maps' Credit: Screenshot: Google

Apple Maps, on the other hand, continued to display "Lake Ontario." On Aug. 31, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said Trump had contacted Apple directly and asked it to update the name. By Sep. 1, Apple had begun displaying the new name to U.S. users. Apple followed the same pattern last year when it came to the Gulf of Mexico/America.

Canadian leaders have firmly rejected the new name. Prime Minister Mark Carney pointed out that Lake Ontario comes from the Wendat word Ontari’io, meaning "the lake is beautiful, the lake is big." The name is more than 400 years old. "Canadians also know that naming reality means calling it Lake Ontario — then, now and always," he added.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford compared Trump's order to "something out of Saturday Night Live" and insisted, "No one's going to call it Lake America."

Whether MapQuest can convert one viral weekend into a lasting revival remains to be seen. But after years of being overshadowed by Google and Apple, it finally found its way back to the top, all without changing direction.

It's 2026. Who on earth is buying RAM right now?

OpenAI confirmed on Tuesday that its unreleased Astra model has reached a dangerous new milestone, while simultaneously confirming that it was forging ahead with a public launch.

In a blog post, OpenAI said that Astra has reached a "critical" cyber capability threshold, which means the model could pose existential-level risks to cybersecurity. OpenAI's Preparedness Framework tracks risk levels in three categories: biological/chemical, cybersecurity, and AI self-improvement.

OpenAI confirmed to Mashable that this is the first time any of its models has been evaluated at the critical level in either of the three domains, making this a watershed moment in AI development.

The same blog post also stated that Astra will be "available soon," but that its most advanced cybersecurity skills will be reserved for select testing partners, in the interest of public safety. The AI company said it was still preparing to safely release Astra and would be transparent about the potential threat level.

This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.

Previously, OpenAI warned that it could not rule out the possibility that Astra had reached the "critical" level in its Preparedness Framework.

"Under our Preparedness Framework, a model reaches the Critical cybersecurity threshold if it can identify and develop functional zero-day exploits of all severity levels in many hardened real-world critical systems without human intervention, or can devise and execute end-to-end novel strategies for cyberattacks against hardened targets given only a high level desired goal," an Aug. 7 OpenAI blog post stated.

OpenAI previously rated GPT-5.6-Sol as a "high" risk in the cyber domain.

In recent months, advanced frontier models from Anthropic and OpenAI have developed rapidly at agentic coding and cybersecurity hacking. As a result, the prospect of AI agent swarms hacking critical infrastructure no longer seems far-fetched, especially after the Hugging Face hack. In that incident, swarms of AI agents developed by OpenAI escaped a secure testing environment and hacked Hugging Face, acting autonomously in order to pass a test. Meanwhile, thanks to a deluge of AI-discovered bugs, some zero-day bug bounty programs have been forced to shut down entirely.

SEE ALSO: The OpenAI-Hugging Face hack was worse than we thought

"While Astra was not involved in the Hugging Face incident, we have incorporated our learnings⁠ from that incident into our safety approach," OpenAI's blog post states. "Based on retrospective testing, we believe our production safeguards at the time would have prevented the Hugging Face incident. We have since implemented even stronger safeguards for Astra, including training the model to more reliably refuse harmful cyber requests and respect safety restrictions, additional protections against misuse, and monitoring that can stop potentially unauthorized activity."

The situation is starting to feel a little too much like War Games, frankly.

In its blog post, OpenAI detailed some of the safety precautions developed around Astra, with the goal of preventing bad actors from accessing the model and stopping Astra from taking unwanted actions on its own. The company said it's tightened its secure sandboxes, for example. The model should also refuse user attempts to misuse the model. OpenAI has also stepped up "offline detection and threat disruption" efforts.

On the same day OpenAI made these announcements, Anthropic announced the launch of Fable 5.1, an update to its latest frontier-level model. While advanced frontier models do pose cybersecurity risks, the same models will also benefit cybersecurity defenders in the long run.

Disclosure: Ziff Davis, Mashable’s parent company, in April 2025 filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.

Most of the vibe coding projects I encounter are written in high-level languages like C, C++, or Python. However, Claude can also write decent MicroPython—you just need to be a little careful.

Sonos is back. After taking some time to recover from a rough app rollout in 2024, the audio brand made a comeback in April 2026 with the Sonos Play portable speaker. Now, on Sept. 1, Sonos unveiled two new products in the home theater and personal listening categories. Now available for preorder are the Sonos Beam Ultra, a mid-sized soundbar, and Sonos Ace Ultra, the next iteration of the brand's Ace headphones.

The Sonos Beam Ultra is a premium upgrade to the exisiting Beam soundbar. Credit: Sonos

The Sonos Beam Ultra is an upgraded model of the existing Beam soundbar. The Beam Ultra is built with nine custom drivers, including two up-firing drivers that bring 7.1.2 Dolby Atmos. It comes with four levels of AI Speech Enhancement and Night Sound for late nights. While it is the focus of a home theater system, it can be paired with other Sonos speakers (including portable models) for a full surround-sound experience.

With the Sonos Ace Ultra, transfer what you're listening to straight from your headphones to your at-home Sonos system. Credit: Sonos

The Sonos Ace Ultra headphones are the new premium model of the existing Sonos Ace headphones. They're the first headphones from Sonos to be built on Headphone Engine 2, which links directly to your Sonos system. That means with the press of a button, whatever is playing on your headphones transfers to your Sonos speaker system and vice versa. The Ace Ultras house 40mm drivers and adaptive ANC powered by 10 microphones. Plus, Sonos touts that these headphones come with up to 35 hours of battery life — a claim we're eager to test.

The Beam Ultra soundbar costs $699, and the Ace Ultra headphones cost $449. Both are available for preorder as of Sept. 1 and will be available widely on Sept. 29.

Opens in a new window Credit: Sonos Sonos Beam Ultra $699 at Amazon
  Pre-order Here Opens in a new window Credit: Sonos Sonos Ace Ultra $449 at Amazon
  Pre-order Here

Do you understand quantum parallel repetition? What about quantum complexity, lattice cryptography, or extremal combinatorics?

The new OpenAI model Astra knows all about them.

On Aug. 1, OpenAI confirmed the existence of Astra, calling it "our next major model." And on Sept. 1, OpenAI confirmed in a blog post that Astra has reached a "critical" cyber threat level, but that it will also be "available soon." For safety reasons, the company plans to restrict its most advanced cybersecurity capabilities to a closed group of select testing partners.

Everything we know about the OpenAI Astra model

We first learned about Astra when OpenAI announced that a mysterious new model had made some notable breakthroughs in research-level mathematics.

On Aug. 1, the ChatGPT-maker revealed that an internal model named Astra had solved 10 major open math problems, some of which had been unresolved for decades. Then, on Aug. 7, OpenAI announced that Astra had developed such advanced cyber capabilities that new security controls were necessary and that some internal development work would be paused.

At the time, OpenAI said it couldn't "rule out critical cyber capabilities under our Preparedness Framework," meaning the model could have existential-threat-level cybersecurity capabilities. (OpenAI's Preparedness Framework tracks risk levels in three categories: biological and chemical, cybersecurity, and AI self-improvement.)

Finally, on Sept. 1, OpenAI confirmed that not only is Astra coming soon, but that it does, in fact, meet the "critical" threshold for cyber capabilities. Previously, OpenAI deemed GPT-5.6-Sol a "high" cybersecurity risk, making Astra the first OpenAI model to be classified as a genuine "critical" risk.

"Under our Preparedness Framework, a model reaches the Critical cybersecurity threshold if it can identify and develop functional zero-day exploits of all severity levels in many hardened real-world critical systems without human intervention, or can devise and execute end-to-end novel strategies for cyberattacks against hardened targets given only a high level desired goal," an OpenAI blog post stated.

How is OpenAI tightening security around Astra?

Until recently, the prospect of swarms of AI agents conducting relatively autonomous cyber attacks on critical infrastructure was mostly hypothetical. After the Hugging Face hack, that risk seems much more real. Because of the rapid progress in this domain, some zero-day bug bounty programs have even been forced to shut down due to the deluge of AI-discovered bugs, as Mashable has reported.

SEE ALSO: The OpenAI-Hugging Face hack was worse than we thought

Back in August, OpenAI tightened sandboxes that keep the Astra model contained and monitored its Chain of Thought to "interrupt high risk activity." In addition, while OpenAI maintains that Astra was not involved in the Hugging Face hack, the company said that "we have incorporated our learnings from that incident into our safety approach." OpenAI previously said that it was committed to working with "relevant government agencies and select AI safety organizations to test the capabilities for this model."

Now that the company is readying Astra for release, it's taking additional precautions. When Astra launches, only select testers will have access to its most advanced cybersecurity skills. Eventually, access will be expanded so that it can be used for defensive purposes.

In its latest blog post, OpenAI says its safeguards are built around two objectives:

• Preventing malicious actors from utilizing the model

• Stopping Astra from taking "unauthorized, misaligned actions"

OpenAI said more safeguarding information will be available when the model launches.

OpenAI Astra: When is the release date?

We don't know, but OpenAI appears to be actively preparing for its launch, which suggests it's coming very soon. On the same day Anthropic launched Fable 5.1, OpenAI said only that Astra would be "available soon."

At this point, it's unclear if Astra will eventually be released as GPT-5.7, the beginning of GPT-6, or something else entirely.

Major AI companies like OpenAI and Anthropic have been releasing major updates to their models every few months, with entirely new model families coming out every one to two years. GPT-5 was introduced in August 2025, which means we're due for GPT-6 any time now.

What else do we know about OpenAI Astra?

The company has also so far declined to answer our questions about Astra, but we'll update this story if we receive more information.

Bleeping Computer initially described Astra as "a powerful model that allows AI agents to collaborate on different parts of a larger problem." That suggests it's designed for agentic work and can "tackle complex, long-running tasks," also per Bleeping Computer.

We also know that the White House is reportedly close to finalizing a voluntary AI framework for testing new frontier models like Astra before they're publicly released. And in August, The Information reported that OpenAI was actively previewing Astra in Washington, D.C.

OpenAI's original blog post about Astra, "Ten advances in mathematics and theoretical computer science," also made it clear that the new OpenAI model has made significant advances in science and mathematics.

So, we talked to a mathematician about what Astra means for the future of AI and science — and what it doesn't mean.

New Anthropic and OpenAI models are really good at coding and math Credit: Photographed by Joseph Maldonado / Mashable Composite by Rene Ramos

When Anthropic announced that its unreleased Mythos model was so good at hacking that it was too dangerous to release to the public, we questioned this narrative, as the warning effectively doubled as PR. However, we can't deny that the latest frontier models from Anthropic and OpenAI have gotten remarkably good at cybersecurity, agentic coding, and discovering zero-day bugs.

But OpenAI and Anthropic have also shown impressive progress on research-level mathematics.

First, OpenAI released a disproof of the Erdős unit distance conjecture in May. Then, an Anthropic-linked mathematician casually announced that he used Fable 5 to disprove the Jacobian Conjecture, one of the infamous Smale's problems in mathematics. Now, OpenAI has announced that Astra solved 10 more open problems in mathematics.

It's a potentially paradigm-shifting moment, though this is hardly proof that artificial general intelligence or the singularity is nigh.

First, most of these math accomplishments take the form of disproofs and counterexamples, which aren't as impressive as positive proofs that greatly expand our understanding of the universe, like, say, Andrew Wiles' proof of Fermat's Theorem.

When Fable 5 disproved the Jacobian Conjecture, I spoke to Columbia professor Andrew Blumberg, who is also on the board of directors of the First Proof project, which tested the capabilities of frontier large language models in solving research-level mathematics.

At the time, he told me that Fable 5's feat "did not cause me to update my priors about what AI can and can't do." Blumberg added, "This is exactly the kind of thing I would expect AI to be able to do. If there was a counterexample that was concise and easy to state that people haven't found because it's a pain to search through all this stuff, AI will find it."

Ultimately, Blumberg said that Fable 5's counterexample to the Jacobian Conjecture didn't necessarily teach us anything new or exciting about the world, even though it was very impressive.

I went back to Blumberg to ask about OpenAI and Astra's latest work, and he said his priors still haven't changed — AI is a very useful tool for advanced science, but Astra's math results don't suggest AI is ready to replace human scientists and mathematicians.

"If you look at what these are, they're pretty short. They are either counterexamples or they are small, extremely clever constructions that build on known things, and it's super cool, right? I want to be clear: If a person had done many of these things, that person would be justly lauded for their achievement, and so [this work is] great, but they don't change my priors."

And, as many people have pointed out (including, most recently, data scientist Nate Silver), we have to put these results in perspective. While OpenAI was keen to point out that these problems were solved with just $2,000 worth of tokens, that doesn't account for the trillions spent on AI technology in recent years.

"When you hear about the amount of money that's being poured into these machines, and you think about what it would be like if we spent a trillion dollars on hiring and training mathematicians and paying the best mathematicians football players' salaries to do nothing but solve these problems, I think we'd see a shitload of progress," Blumberg told Mashable.

This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.

At the same time, the prospect of Astra-level models being in the hands of every scientist, physicist, and mathematician on Earth is truly exciting. Likewise, the prospect of Astra-like tools being available to hackers and other bad actors is truly concerning.

Disclosure: Ziff Davis, Mashable’s parent company, in April 2025 filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.

I don’t know about you, but the main reason why I wear a smartwatch is for notifications. It allows me to pull out my phone less often, which is always a good thing. On my Pixel Watch, though, there was one setting that made the experience more cumbersome than it could be.

Dyson just unveiled its latest product: the Dyson CameraJet™, an AI-powered electric toothbrush and water flosser with onboard cameras, priced at $499.99. The smart, app-connected toothbrush-slash-endoscope launches on Sept. 8, but you can pre-order the beauty tech device right now.

The product, with its lightsaber-like hilt and clunky design, sounds to me like an April Fool's Day joke, and I don't know who this is for. The people aren't exactly crying out for $500 toothbushes right now.

Dyson CameraJet electric toothbrush $499.99 at Amazon
  Pre-order Here at Amazon Pre-order Here at Dyson

I have to ask: WTF is going on over at Dyson?

The English brand is known for its innovative designs. Dyson's Supersonic hair dryer was truly revolutionary, and I use one almost every day. Dyson is the company that somehow turned boring old vacuum cleaners into status symbols and created a futuristic, revolving, hydroponic strawberry farm. But in recent years, the company has had some misfires, and anecdotally, they seem to be getting more common. You might remember the Covid-era Dyson Zone, the dystopian headphones with a built-in air purifier. You might also remember when it was discontinued. We also found that the brand's latest robot vacuums were duds.

The Dyson CameraJet™ uses a macro camera and doubles as a dental endoscope. Credit: Dyson

Perhaps there is a market for Dyson oral care products, but the idea of a toothbrush that uses AI to look into all the nooks and crannies of my mouth and squirt "mouthrinse" into them gives me the heebie-jeebies. Another Mashable editor used the word "nightmare" to describe it.

I'm never going to download an app in order to use my toothbrush, and you can't make me. Introducing the Dyson CameraJet™: What is it?

Dyson says it's been developing the CameraJet electric toothbrush for six years.

The short version: The toothbrush head includes a camera that identifies the gaps between your teeth in real-time and ejects a jet of cleansing water between your teeth to remove plaque.

For the long version, I'll quote the press release:

Credit: Dyson

Today, in Paris, James Dyson revealed an entirely new way to clean your teeth. The Dyson CameraJet™ is the only toothbrush with a camera powered by Gap Optical Targeting™ to identify gaps between teeth and precision-floss while you brush. Gap Optical Targeting™ analyzes 28 live images per second to identify and target gaps between teeth in real time, triggering a precision jet burst of mouthrinse where it is needed.

It is the result of six years of research, development, and engineering, challenging every aspect of conventional oral care. While others cannot find the gaps between teeth, CameraJet™ can.

How does the Dyson CameraJet™ electric toothbrush work?

You might think that your mouth is the absolute last place you'd want to place a 100,000-pixel macro lens camera. That is a reasonable thought! The toothbrush uses this camera to analyze 28 images per second. When the toothbrush's software detects a gap between your teeth, the device shoots a jet of water into it within 100 milliseconds. This allows for precision flossing as you brush your teeth.

The body of the smart, app-connected toothbrush contains a zero-gravity mouthrinse chamber. Credit: Dyson The toothbrush dispenses a jet of water within 100 milliseconds of detecting a gap between your teeth. Credit: Dyson

At the same time, Dyson says the toothbrush uses "variable sonic oscillation" so the bristles can penetrate and clean deeper than conventional sonic toothbrushes.

The toothbrush has a zero-gravity mouthrinse container, and it comes with a charging dock and travel case. Because it doubles as an electric flosser, the Dyson CameraJet™ has a larger body than most electric toothbrushes and, based on the photos, appears approximately lightsaber-sized.

How does AI factor into all of this? The toothbrush comes with a charging dock and travel case. Credit: Dyson

Beauty tech and grooming brands have been using AI in their hardware for a few years now. I first noticed this trend in my pre-Mashable days, when I was reviewing grooming products for GQ. All of a sudden, beard trimmers and electric shavers didn't just cut your hair — they used artificial intelligence to automatically sense hair thickness and alter the motor power to optimize your trim. Dyson introduced similar technology in its hair dryers, such as the Supersonic Nural.

If this smart technology has improved the quality of my shave and beard trimming, I haven't noticed. These "smart" beauty devices have always felt to me more like a gimmick and an excuse to raise prices by $100.

You can easily picture the scene: A conference room full of branding experts making mid-six figures, telling each other they absolutely must introduce AI into their products to stay relevant and appeal to young people.

SEE ALSO: I found 4 Dyson Supersonic dupes that are almost as good as the real thing

Dyson also isn't the first to bring AI to the bathroom sink: Oral-B's iO Series 10 rechargeable toothbrush already uses the technology to track where you're brushing and offer real-time feedback on your technique — and it will set you back $399.99.

Per Dyson, the CameraJet™ has 16 million lines of code and a visual intelligence system trained on 470,000 dental images.

And while Dyson's whole brand is basically over-engineering ordinary devices (often for the better!), introducing AI into ordinary products isn't innovation so much as trend-chasing. I'll be happy to see the backside of this smart beauty trend.

I'm never going to download an app in order to use my toothbrush, and you can't make me.

Because, of course, the Dyson Camera Jet™ has an app.

"The Dyson CameraJet™ is Wi-Fi connected at 2.4GHz and Bluetooth connected," the press release states. "Its integrated camera is a high-quality endoscope, allowing users to see what their dentist sees through the live-viewing feature in the MyDysonT™ app."

But do you really want to see what your dentist sees? Does your dentist even want to see what your dentist sees?

Is the Dyson Camera Jet™ worth it? Credit: Dyson

I have not reviewed this device, though I'd be open to trying it and being proven wrong. We've certainly seen some bizarre toothbrush designs in recent years, and I'll admit, I'm a poor flosser.

If, like me, you know your flossing game is weak and you don't mind spending $500 on a new squirting toothbrush, then you may come to a different conclusion than I have.

But I remain extremely skeptical of this particular Dyson invention.

You can pre-order the Dyson Camera Jet™ for $499.99 at the Dyson online store, Amazon, and other retailers; it's available in two colors, ceramic pink and ceramic ultra blue. The smart toothbrush will be officially released on Sept. 8.

Dyson CameraJet electric toothbrush $499.99 at Amazon
  Pre-order Here at Amazon Pre-order Here at Dyson

August is kind of the year's runt of the litter when it comes to streaming—it's often a slow stretch between summer tentpoles and the wave of new and exciting programming coming in the fall. But it appears that August 2026's documentaries didn't get the memo. Over the past four weeks, HBO Max, Netflix, Paramount+, and Hulu each came to the table with some compelling and fascinating nonfiction, some of which may end up on best-of-the-year lists.

Anthropic released Claude Fable 5.1 and a more restricted sibling, Claude Mythos 5.1, this week, positioning the pair as its most capable models yet for coding and knowledge work. Notably, the announcement arrives just weeks after fresh reports of AI agents behaving badly in security tests.

The two models are technically identical, Anthropic says in its blog post, but come with different guardrails. Fable 5.1 is broadly available, while Mythos 5.1 is reserved for vetted partners working in cybersecurity and the life sciences through the company's trusted-access programs.

SEE ALSO: What Claude's AI text watermark actually does

Anthropic also says it's cutting prices. According to the company, typical workloads will cost around 25 percent less than they did with Fable 5, with savings of roughly 45 percent for heavily agentic tasks, largely due to cheaper cache-read pricing. At the time of writing, Claude customers are accusing the AI firm of deceptive pricing and marketing for its Claude Max subscription.

On the safety side, Anthropic touts more precise filters. The company says its updated biology safeguards now fire far less often on benign medical questions, and that cybersecurity safeguards produce about 60 percent fewer false interventions in Claude Code sessions than before, in part because Fable 5.1 is now allowed to help identify software vulnerabilities — though not build exploits for them.

That framing lands amid a rockier moment for AI agents and the cybersecurity industry at large. In early August, multiple outlets reported that AI agents from both Anthropic and OpenAI had been caught taking unsanctioned actions during red-team testing. The UK's AI Security Institute, which ran the tests, said agents from the two companies took unauthorized actions a combined 19 times across 122 test runs, with the bulk of the incidents attributed to an earlier Anthropic model, Mythos 5. Anthropic responded at the time by noting that the tests were run under what it called deliberately permissive conditions that don't reflect how its production models actually operate.

The company says Mythos 5.1's cyber capabilities are the strongest it has released yet, but the model still falls in the lower-risk tier under its internal framework — and Anthropic found no evidence of a critical-severity jailbreak in testing.

Your internet router has a very specific job, and it's perfectly reasonable to assume that all it's doing is that job and nothing else. The reality, however, is never that simple.

If you've spent any time on gaming social media this week, you'll see a lot of comparison screenshots of video games. The most common ones you'll see are split-screen comparisons between an OG shot of the game and one that's slightly more detailed, with a promise that this will be the "future" of gaming.

This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.

That's DLSS 5, NVIDIA's latest and most ambitious version of its AI upscaling technology, officially launching Sept. 3. It's exclusive to the company's RTX 50-series graphics cards and arrives with just one game: NBA 2K27.

It's also become one of the more divisive pieces of gaming tech in recent memory, centered around whether AI should be allowed to redraw what a game looks like at all.

Our Big Guessing Game is Back! This is your final chance to enter to win a new Apple Watch.

What is DLSS?

DLSS has existed for years as a way to boost frame rates by having an AI model fill in detail rather than rendering every pixel natively. The new version goes further.

As we reported when it was first announced, DLSS 5 aims to use AI to add more realistic lighting and materials to a scene in real-time. That means it can actively repaint lighting, textures, and even character faces on the fly. When NVIDIA first unveiled the tech back in March, the company called it a landmark moment, framed as its biggest graphics breakthrough since real-time ray tracing debuted in 2018.

NVIDIA also claims that the system hands creative control back to developers, who get sliders to dial in exactly how aggressive the AI's changes are, down to leaving character faces untouched or enhancing only background details.

The DLSS 5 controversy on social media

Backlash towards DLSS 5 has been around since it was first revealed in a tech demo for Resident Evil: Requiem. The AI-enhanced version of the protagonist, Grace Ashcroft, looked so different from the original that it sparked its own meme cycle online, with critics describing the change as a "yassification" of the character.

DLSS 5 believers see a legitimate leap in both performance and visual fidelity, especially for sports and photorealistic titles, where the tech seems to deliver on its promises. Proponents say that DLSS 5 looks as good as you make it, and that the "bad" images of the tech are aggressively pushing the sliders and not using it properly.

This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed. This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.

Critics argue that letting an AI model reinterpret a character's face or a room's lighting overrides decisions the actual artists made — without much visible input from the games' creators. For a lot of gamers, nobody asked the AI to redesign the art direction. However, does it actually look bad? In some instances, yes. Very much so.

This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed. This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed. This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed. This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed. This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed. This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.

Performance-wise, it's not free, either.

NVIDIA itself estimates DLSS 5 costs 50 to 60 percent of your performance, offset by aggressive frame generation. NVIDIA further claims that even a mid-range RTX 5060 can run NBA 2K27 at 1080p with ray tracing and DLSS 5 maxed out, but only with a top-tier CPU and 6x frame generation enabled, meaning the GPU is inventing five out of every six frames you see rather than rendering them directly.

That's fine, if you ignore the ongoing memory crisis that's been squeezing the consumer PC market for the last few years. The RTX 5090 that NVIDIA's original DLSS 5 demos leaned on can be bought brand-new for $2,000, but it's also reselling for two to three times that on the secondary market, per market trackers following the shortage. That's most people's monthly rent for just one graphics card, and NVIDIA's demo used two.

Even the lower-end RTX 5060 is a victim of price creep, with some of the cheaper ones out there still priced over $400. So while NVIDIA's pitch is that DLSS 5 makes ray-traced, high-frame-rate gaming reachable on mid-range cards, the mid-range itself has gotten much less affordable — meaning the fully loaded version of this "future of graphics" pitch is, for now, mostly a luxury good.

Whether DLSS 5 becomes standard across PC gaming or ends up a niche feature for realism-focused titles will depend on whether NVIDIA can get more developers on board, and whether those developers use the granular controls to keep the AI from overriding their own art direction.

For now, the only way to actually judge it yourself is to boot up NBA 2K27 on Sept. 3 and toggle the setting. Or you can experience the elderitch horros being created on social media right now.