IT General

The new flagship of the Audi portfolio has arrived. On July 28th, 2026, Audi unveiled the all-new Q9 and the high-performance SQ9, both three-row SUVs. As the largest SUV Audi has ever produced, the Q9 is poised to compete in the lucrative full-size luxury SUV segment, going up against established rivals like the BMW X7, Cadillac Escalade, and Mercedes-Benz GLS.

HBO Max is turning up the heat with an August lineup that leans deep into big-event television. In addition to a mix of unscripted content, subscribers are also in for some movie streaming premieres, a highly anticipated new series, a new season of a returning favorite, and another Hard Knocks training camp, this time with the Seattle Seahawks. Documentary fans also have a gripping new treat, and it looks to be a must-see project, especially for fans of Tiger King.

FREE GIFT: Until July 31, spend $40 or more on Marvel, DC, Batman, or Jurassic World Lego merchandise and get the Spider-Man vs. Anti-Venom Heist ($4.99 value) for free at Lego, in Lego Stores, or via phone orders while stocks last.

Opens in a new window Credit: Lego Free Spider-Man vs. Anti-Venom Heist Free when you spend over $40 on Marvel, DC, Batman, or Jurassic World Lego merchandise. Get Deal

Lego's tucked another freebie into its current promotions — a mini Spider-Man vs. Anti-Venom Heist (30725). Here's the scenario the set recreates: Anti-Venom busts open a street-corner ATM and takes off with the cash, and Spider-Man chases him down on a skateboard to stop him.

Spend $40 or more on Marvel, DC, Batman, or Jurassic World Lego merchandise, and this set comes free with your purchase. Unlike some of Lego's other current offers, this isn't online-only: it's valid at Lego, in Lego Stores, and through Lego Catalog phone orders until July 31, while stocks last.

If you're interested in crossing the $40 threshold, here are some solid options to put you over the line:

• Venom Bust — $49.99

• Spider-Man Prison Transport Chase — $49.99

• Loki vs. Team Iron Man — $49.99

• Spider-Man vs. Doc Ock Subway Train Scene — $54.99

• Avengers: Endgame Thor vs. Chitauri — $54.99

• Iron Spider-Man Bust — $59.99

• Ravager Jumpsuit Groot — $59.99

• Batman Tumbler vs. Two-Face & The Joker — $59.99

• Miles Morales' Mask — $69.99

• Spider-Man vs. Hulk Epic Clash — $89.99

• Avengers: Endgame Final Battle — $99.99

• Iron Man Mark 3 Collectors' Edition — $129.99

• Batmobile Tumbler — $189.99

• X-Men: The X-Mansion — $329.99

• S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier — $399.99

Same standard fine print applies: Pick a Brick (Standard) orders don't count toward the $40 minimum, you're limited to one free set per household, and if you return your qualifying purchase, the freebie has to be returned with it. It also can't be swapped for another item or cash value, and it's not valid at Legoland Parks, Legoland Discovery Centers, or Lego Certified Stores.

$4.99 of free Spider-Man justice — grab it at Lego while stocks last.

Want to learn more about getting the best out of your tech? Sign up for Mashable's Top Stories and Deals newsletters today.

TL;DR: Get Microsoft Office Home & Business for Mac 2021 for a one-time $42.97 through Aug. 9 (reg. $219) and enjoy Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Teams, and OneNote for years.

Opens in a new window Credit: Microsoft Microsoft Office Home & Business for Mac 2021: Lifetime License $42.97
$219 Save $176.03   Get Deal

Subscriptions have their place, but productivity software doesn’t really need to be one of them — especially when it’s something as familiar and widely used as Microsoft Office. Somewhere along the way, there must have been a glitch in the matrix, because buying software turned into renting it forever.

Thankfully, Microsoft Office Home & Business for Mac 2021 skips that model entirely. Its lifetime license is currently on sale for $42.97 (reg. $219).

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There’s no need to explain why an Office license still matters. Most people have been using Microsoft Office long before cloud apps and browser-based alternatives became the norm. With this deal, you can install the full Office suite on a single device for lifetime use — at home or at work — without worrying about monthly renewals, annual price hikes, or surprise charges down the line.

This license includes all the core apps most people actually rely on: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Teams, and OneNote. That means drafting documents, crunching numbers, building presentations, managing email, and organizing notes using the full desktop versions of each app.

Unlike free alternatives or web-based tools, you get access to the complete feature sets, which makes a difference when you’re working on longer documents, detailed spreadsheets, or presentation-heavy projects.

Once you purchase, your license key and download links are delivered instantly, so there’s no waiting around to get started. Microsoft also includes lifetime customer support, which can be helpful if you ever need assistance with installation or troubleshooting.

Instead of committing to yet another recurring subscription, this one-time purchase lets you snag software you’ll likely keep using for years.

Right now, you can grab Microsoft Office Home & Business 2021 for Mac for $42.97 (reg. $219). That’s proof that the matrix occasionally still gets things right.

StackSocial prices subject to change.

T-Mobile is apologizing for a major nationwide outage on Monday that left many T-Mobile customers across the U.S. without any mobile service for hours.

While we don't yet have an answer on what caused the T-Mobile outage, another question remains: Where was T-Mobile's Starlink service, T-Satellite?

This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed. What is T-Satellite?

Way back in 2022, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk and T-Mobile announced an exclusive partnership between the two companies that would allow T-Mobile customers to connect to Starlink satellites. T-Mobile finally launched the T-Satellite service for customers last summer, following a testing period at the start of the year.

"T-Satellite connects you where towers can’t," reads T-Mobile's T-Satellite with Starlink product page on its website.

In a recent earnings call last Thursday, just days before the outage, T-Mobile CEO Srini Gopalan even shared that satellite service won't so much compete with traditional mobile carrier offerings, but be offered as complementary alongside cellular service.

Yet, when cellular service went down on Monday, some users reported online that they struggled to connect to T-Satellite.

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

"Why didn't their phones switch to T-Satellite network with Starlink?" asked one social media user in response to Mashable's coverage of the T-Mobile outage.

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

"T-Mobile is down, but what I find funny is that they brag about having satellite and you connect automatically when you can't get service from t-mobile, but satellite doesn't connect either," said one user on Musk's social media platform X alongside a crying face emoji.

"My T-Satellite aka Starlink didn't connect, what happened I thought it was supposed to be amazing for exactly this????" complained an X user. Another X user shared, "Mine tried and could not find a sat lol not kidding."

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.

One crucial issue users may have faced: Starlink connectivity requires a wide, clear view of the open sky. So, while Starlink connections may be available in most urban areas, objects such as roofs, poles, and even trees can obstruct signal strength. This could explain why some customers struggled to connect via satellite while their phones were stuck in SOS Mode during the T-Mobile outage.

Mashable did come across users on X and Reddit who said they successfully connected to T-Satellite during the Monday outage.

T-Mobile's T-Satellite with Starlink service is included at no extra cost on certain T-Mobile plans, such as the $100 per month Experience Beyond plan. If T-Satellite isn't included in a user's service plan, they can add it on for $10 per month.

Starlink's partnership with T-Mobile hasn't met expectations

Recent statements from T-Mobile CEO Gopalan suggest T-Satellite hasn't been widely used by T-Mobile customers.

During an April 2026 earnings call, Gopalan called the company's Starlink partnership "very strong" but admitted that T-Mobile was "seeing a lot less usage than we were originally thinking" regarding its T-Satellite service. Gopalan went on to call it "a great complementary product."

At a conference the next month, in May 2026, Gopalan was more specific with just how low T-Satellite usage has been.

“Just to give you an example, we look at our data in May, and satellite usage is 0.0002% of our total network usage," Gopalan said of its T-Satellite service. "That’s three zeros."

In the previously mentioned earnings call from last week, Gopalan reiterated those numbers and added that “in our busiest summer months, that went to 0.0003%." And, despite that small summer bump, independent data from Speedtest.net parent company Ookla found that T-Satellite usage has largely gone down.

During its launch last year, T-Mobile shared that 1.8 million customers had signed up for the T-Satellite free beta period. The company has not shared subscription numbers for the Starlink service since.

Mashable reached out to T-Mobile to find out more about T-Satellite service and Monday's nationwide outage. We will update this piece if we receive more information.

It happened two times in two weeks: First Sony's PlayStation Network, then Microsoft's Xbox experienced significant outages. Monday's Xbox outage was particularly galling for users, since many Xbox games these days require authentication via the internet before they can even launch.

Not only were Xbox users locked out of online features, they couldn't even launch games they had installed on their machines. PSN players are vulnerable too: Sony recently confirmed it will stop manufacturing PlayStation game discs after January 2028.

The outages, in short, were an object lesson in the trade-offs that come with an all-digital sales model — as well as the benefits of keeping physical media alive.

Why are game discs going away?

For most of the history of video game consoles, buying a game meant acquiring a physical object. You bought a disc or cartridge, you inserted it, the console read it, and the game ran. You could resell the disc, lend it, or shelve it indefinitely without worrying about digital rights management.

But discs could also produce noticeable delay or stutter during gameplay, since optical drive read speeds have not scaled up as fast as processing power. So publishers began front-loading install data onto consoles' local hard drives, rather than taking it from a disc in real-time. As game file sizes have grown, publishers have leaned further into upfront installation as the more stable engineering choice.

SEE ALSO: Nintendo's potentially last Switch 1 game is absolutely worth your time

But that's not what drove the backlash to Sony's announcement. Many players are concerned about what happens to the whole concept of games ownership once physical media is entirely off the table.

The digital "sharing" economy was supposed to be defined by the phrase "you'll own nothing and be happy." Though coined by a socialist politician as a positive promise in 2016, this quote has since become a meme with a more sinister meaning.

Streaming services have long illustrated the problem. Netflix, Spotify, and their peers technically sell you access to media, revocable at any time a licensing deal lapses or a platform decides a title no longer earns its keep. This is not a new problem, and one of the more chilling examples is one of the oldest: the time in 2009 when Amazon removed George Orwell's dystopia of erased history, Nineteen Eighty-Four, from users' Kindles, due to a rights issue.

Likewise in the games industry, publishers can and have removed purchased digital titles from a user's library over licensing disputes or expired royalty agreements. Game servers are shut down once a title stops generating sufficient revenue to justify the operating cost, rendering online games unplayable.

In addition to ending disc production in 2028, Sony also revealed it would close its PS3 and PS Vita stores in some countries as early as this August. The company promised users "will still be able to download previously purchased content after the closing date," but only for a vague period of time: "the foreseeable future."

What happens when games discs don't work?

If you're seeking out an older discontinued title, there are often used copies to be found, and workarounds are available online for some games that require server connections. Live-service architecture, which Sony has tried (and sometimes failed) to make the norm, removes even that fallback.

Without a functioning server, there's no local copy to fall back on, no disc to reinsert, nothing to do but wait — precisely the position both Xbox and PlayStation users found themselves in recently.

Take The Crew, a decade-old racing game that publisher Ubisoft deciding to sunset in 2024. Because the game required a persistent internet connection even for its single-player mode, players lost the ability to launch it once Ubisoft delisted it from storefronts, revoked existing licenses, and shut down its servers. Ubisoft offered refunds only to those players who'd purchased The Crew in the past 14 days, its standard refund procedure.

The response from gamers was the formation of Stop Killing Games, a campaign founded by YouTuber Ross Scott. The campaign demanded that publishers not render anything a customer already paid for permanently unusable. It has since collected more than a million verified signatures via a European Citizens' Initiative, and helped spur a French consumer lawsuit against Ubisoft.

For now, Sony is still making discs, and won't be taking away games you've already bought. But after 2028, according to Sony's plan, that will change; you'll only ever be able to purchase PlayStation games online. And that could make PSN users vulnerable to the next server crash, legal dispute over licensing, or online game that simply isn't making its money back.

There's a reason we keep going back to documentaries—real life is always way stranger than any writers' room could ever conjure up. July has made that case again (June was pretty solid, too), with some genuinely fascinating docs and series from the likes of Netflix, HBO Max, Disney+/Hulu, and Paramount+ that I've watched that have hijacked more than one entire weekend of mine.

The Mercedes-Benz E-Class has spent decades setting the standard for luxury sedans. It's refined, packed with technology, and carries the kind of prestige that still draws buyers into showrooms.

Since I own a couple of SSDs that have passed the half-decade mark (the older one is pushing its first decade of service), I decided it was time for a quick health check to see if they're still in good working order and worth keeping.

Today, Pornhub sent a letter to various U.S. governors, attorneys general, and state reps, the company shared with Mashable. The letter details concerns over "performative, ineffective, and unenforceable" age-verification laws, calls for releasing data on how these laws protect children, and advocates for device-level filters.

Age-verification laws require submitting personal information — such as a facial scan or a government ID — to view certain content, typically explicit content. These laws have been enacted in around half of U.S. states since 2023, starting with Louisiana. Pornhub has blocked itself in most of these states due to the burden of complying.

SEE ALSO: What would ethical age verification look like online?

Meanwhile, initial research has suggested that age-verification laws don't work due to software like VPNs (which can hide someone's real location) and non-compliant websites.

In its letter, Pornhub mentions these pitfalls, as well as digital safety and privacy concerns.

The company sent the open letter to elected officials in Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Jersey, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wyoming.

"These laws demonstrably do not work and, as a result, have put your constituents' children and adults' personal data at risk. If you truly intend to protect minors online, you must acknowledge the facts and introduce a real solution," the letter states.

The solution Pornhub offers is mandating operating system providers like Apple, Microsoft, and Google to enable parental controls on the device level. Pornhub sent a letter to these tech giants in Nov. 2025, asking them to do so.

In the UK, Apple enabled device-level filters on devices with iOS 26.4, prompting Pornhub to reverse its decision to block the country back in May. The UK's age-verification law, the Online Safety Act, went into effect in July 2025.

Pornhub has experimented with this solution since April 2026 and found that it prevents minors from accessing adult content in the UK. VPNs also don't work to circumvent it. "It is our view that children in the UK using Apple devices with the most up-to-date version of iOS are benefitting from the strongest level of protection from age-inappropriate content online," the letter reads. "Your constituents deserve the same."

The company wrote that Apple, Microsoft, and Google should make this the default on all devices globally.

It also mentions the recent report from Ofcom, the UK's communications regulator, stating that current age checks "leave major gaps." It also mentions similar findings in Texas, where an online search for "free porn" showed that nine out of the top 10 search results had no age verification at all. (The latter findings are in an appendix in the letter.)

In Australia, which enacted a social media ban for children under 16 in December 2025, 85 percent of those teens are still using social media, according to a study published in June. Meanwhile, Pornhub states, "The longer this goes on, the longer these non-compliant sites are accessed by more minors and adults. As outlined by Lucy Faithfull Foundation, we know that when faced with age verification, some adults are choosing riskier, irresponsible sites to avoid age checks."

The letter also asks, "How many minors have been protected in the weeks, months and years since age verification laws have come into effect in your jurisdictions?" It asks for the officials to publicly release data about this, if such data exists

"Platform-by-platform age verification laws were designed to fail. These laws may be simple and attractive, but the evidence shows they are impossible to enforce at scale, easy to evade, weak at protecting minors and increase privacy risks for adults," the letter goes on, linking to various reports by The Independent and the BBC.

Pornhub finishes the letter, again asking for device-level filters. Free speech advocates have long called for this as a solution that doesn't infringe on adults' free speech rights.

Here is the letter in full:

Dear lawmakers,

We are writing to you because, as a community, we are deeply concerned about the harm being caused by the performative, ineffective, and unenforceable age verification laws you have taken part in passing despite your intention of protecting minors. Everyone subjected to these laws is more at risk than ever before of encountering online harm.

We are serious about protecting minors, and lawmakers like yourselves must recognize that these laws have failed at that objective. Voting for age verification laws that require hundreds of thousands of individual websites to collect personal information from every user, every time they want to access content restricted to adults, is dangerous.

These laws demonstrably do not work and, as a result, have put your constituents’ children and adults’ personal data at risk. If you truly intend to protect minors online, you must acknowledge the facts and introduce a real solution. You have the power and the responsibility to mandate operating system providers like Apple, Microsoft and Google to render all mobile phones, tablets and computers child safe by enabling parental controls at the source and by default.

You should be aware that in the United Kingdom, where they’ve introduced the Online Safety Act with the goal of making the UK “the safest place in the world to be online”, Apple has shown what meaningful action looks like. With a quick software update, Apple set a new benchmark for child safety that turned parental controls on by default for users who have not verified they are adults. This means making every phone or tablet kid-safe as a starting point. Adults can then verify their age once in their mobile phone settings, instead of every time they want to browse an adult website, use a dating app or scroll social media. It’s a more consistent, privacy-conscious, global approach to protecting children online than requiring every individual website or application to build and enforce its own age verification system.

Since April 2026, Pornhub has experimented with Apple’s solution and has seen it successfully prevent minors from accessing adult content websites in the UK. It is our view that children in the UK using Apple devices with the most up-to-date version of iOS are benefitting from the strongest level of protection from age-inappropriate content online. Adult sites are blocked by default, and VPNs do not work to circumvent these blocks. Your constituents deserve the same.

This is a big step for online safety that can go even further. We believe all device manufacturers, like Microsoft, Apple and Google – the three companies responsible for the operating system of 97% of mobile phones, tablets and computers currently in use around the world, should make this the default setting on all devices globally. Because clearly, more could and should be done. Your role here is to mandate them to do it by including this in their next software updates.

For nearly a year, Ofcom, the UK internet regulator, has monitored and collected data. Like your existing laws, the UK Act relies heavily on adults repeatedly submitting personal information, such as a driver’s licence, facial scan, or credit card, to access lawful content. Ofcom has now released its first six-month implementation report. Its findings make clear that site-by-site age checks leave major gaps. “Since January 2026, the number of services in the top 100 with age assurance in place has decreased steadily, as services without age assurance become more popular.” Ofcom also noted that site-by-site rules can “inadvertently strengthen the market position of non-compliant firms.” In other words, dangerous websites that are breaking the law by refusing to implement any kind of age assurance are benefitting from the law by winning traffic over from the compliant websites that have.

None of the age verification laws that have been passed in any of your jurisdictions are working or can effectively be enforced. An excellent example of this exists in the UK. Ofcom is one of the world’s strongest online safety regulators, but it has been given an impossible mandate. This outcome was predictable: responsible platforms comply, while non-compliant operators remain discoverable, gain traffic and continue exposing minors to age-inappropriate content. And this is not unique to the UK. For example, in Texas, where age verification was introduced in September 2023, a simple online search showed 9 out of the top 10 search results for “free porn” had no age verification at all.

This issue does not only apply to adult content laws. Since December 2025, kids under the age of 16 in Australia have been prohibited from having social media accounts. However, three months after the ban more than 85% of teenagers are still using social media. Search results are constantly replenished with new, non-compliant sites, demonstrating how easily new players can enter the market. This revolving door means the internet remains wide open to unmoderated, unverified and potentially unsafe content, regardless of how many times authorities attempt to crack down.

The longer this goes on, the longer these non-compliant sites are accessed by more minors and adults. As outlined by Lucy Faithfull Foundation, we know that when faced with age verification, some adults are choosing riskier, irresponsible sites to avoid age checks. According to the Free Speech Coalition, “Less than 5% of consumers actually go through with age-verification for adult content. When confronted with a request for a facial scan and government ID, most consumers simply hit the back button and find a non-compliant site outside the mandate or log on to a VPN.” The internet is global and it's impossible to patrol millions of different sites based in hundreds of different countries. Site-based regulation is always going to encourage evasion.

We can no longer accept laws that create the appearance of action while failing to address the challenge of keeping kids safe online. It is particularly concerning when these laws drive regulated business out of your jurisdictions and aid in creating a lush market for bad actors online, when a viable solution exists today.

Phones, tablets and computers could start as kid-safe devices by default, where only verified adults would be able to disable safeguards designed to protect minors from age-inappropriate content, including pornography. This method protects minors without requiring adults to surrender unnecessary personal information to multiple websites. It also avoids creating systems that are easily circumvented through tools like VPNs. Some governments and major technology companies recognize that kid-safe phones can provide a more consistent and privacy-protective way to help keep minors away from age-restricted content.

How many minors have been protected in the weeks, months and years since age verification laws have come into effect in your jurisdictions? The public deserves to see the data on how these laws are protecting children and reducing access to age-inappropriate content. We don’t believe such data exists. Platform-by-platform age verification laws were designed to fail. These laws may be simple and attractive, but the evidence shows they are impossible to enforce at scale, easy to evade, weak at protecting minors and increase privacy risks for adults.

We urge you to focus on putting into action policies that produce measurable improvements in child safety rather than legislation that grabs headlines. The technology exists. A precedent exists. The responsibility now lies with you to pursue solutions that truly protect children across the entire internet. We are determined to be part of this solution and want to collaborate with government, civil society and tech partners to arrive at an effective kid-safe-by-default solution.

Signed,

Pornhub

Google Maps is on so many phones that it's hard to get away from it. For most people, it's never really been a choice; it's just the default. You open it, type a destination, and assume it's giving you the most useful route with the most honest results. I made that assumption for years, but lately I've noticed things that make it really annoying and untrustworthy, even if you change the settings.

When Avatar: The Last Airbender premiered on Nickelodeon in 2005, no one could have predicted that nearly two decades later, one of its characters would still be one of the internet's favorite fictional boyfriends. Yet here we are.

Since Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender arrived on Paramount+ and in select theaters, my TikTok algorithm has developed a singular obsession: making sure I see adult Zuko in all his gorgeous, danmei-esque glory. Not clips from the movie. Edits. Slowed down. Zoomed in. Color graded to perfection.

The same handful of shots appear over and over, each transformed by a different corner of internet culture. There's the now-ubiquitous Doja Cat "Jealous Type" edit (see examples here, here, and here). Others swap in Sabrina Carpenter or Britney Spears. Another pairs Zuko with the viral audio of increasingly frantic cats meowing — the universal soundtrack for fictional men so attractive they short-circuit your brain. Another opts for barking dogs instead. One creator dissolved into tears trying to explain how unfairly good adult Zuko looks. Honestly? I understood every word.

On X, the reactions are even less restrained. "Zuko is so sexy just sitting there looking ripped af and his hair in a bun," one viral post reads. Another declares, "Adult Zuko is so hot and sexy. I'd take on the world just to have him."

SEE ALSO: I let fancams dictate what I watch

The internet, it seems, has once again reached a consensus. Unfortunately, many of these edits don't survive for very long. As copyrighted clips from the film, they're often removed almost as quickly as they go viral.

Legally, that makes sense. Practically, it's a little harder to understand. Because by the time an edit disappears, it's usually already done exactly what great marketing is supposed to do. It's racked up hundreds of thousands of views. It's inspired TikTok stitches and reaction videos. It's filled the comments with people asking where the clip is from or admitting they've never watched Avatar before but suddenly want to.

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.

Studios spend millions trying to convince audiences to care about a movie. Meanwhile, fans are doing it organically, one 20-second edit at a time. In 2026, the edit has become the trailer.

One of my own friends has tried to get into the original Avatar series more than once. It never clicked. But after days of TikTok serving her edit after edit of hot Zuko, she texted asking if I'd take her to see the movie in theaters.

That's the magic of internet fandom. It doesn't just keep beloved characters alive — it keeps introducing them to people who somehow missed them the first time around.

What's happening with Zuko speaks to something bigger than a viral thirst trend. It's a reminder that some characters never really leave the internet. They get passed from platform to platform, generation to generation, finding new audiences through fan edits, memes, fan art, and recommendations powered more by fandom than by marketing.

Dante Basco, who voiced teenage Zuko in the original series, has watched that happen in real time. Speaking to Fandom for the show's 15th anniversary in 2020, Basco described Avatar as "so timeless" and said he was happy that "a new generation is discovering it now." He also noted that the fanbase never really disappeared, saying fans were "always continually following it and cosplaying."

That enduring enthusiasm helps explain why the arrival of an official adult Zuko has taken over social media. The movie may have given fans new footage, but it didn't create the fascination. It simply reignited one that has quietly been thriving online for nearly two decades. It doesn't hurt that adult Zuko is voiced by another internet boyfriend: Steven Yeun.

Long before "book boyfriend" entered the mainstream lexicon and before TikTok perfected the art of the thirst edit, Zuko dominated Tumblr dashboards, YouTube AMVs, fanfiction archives, cosplay conventions, and GIF sets. Fans wrote essays dissecting his redemption arc, created fan art imagining his future as Fire Lord, and spent years debating every step of his journey. As Dante Basco told Fandom, fans still regularly approach him to say Zuko has "one of the greatest redemption arcs in history."

That devotion isn't an accident. In fact, Zuko almost didn't exist. On the Avatar: Braving the Elements podcast, co-creator Bryan Konietzko recalled that Zuko emerged after Nickelodeon executive Eric Coleman suggested the series needed "someone who's going after them the whole time." Konietzko's response: "Can he have a scar?"

The creators also knew from the very beginning where his story was headed. "It's in the series bible," Konietzko said. "We knew that Zuko was going to become Aang's teacher."

That long-game storytelling is part of what makes Zuko endure while so many animated characters have faded into nostalgia. He's not redeemed overnight. He stumbles, backslides, betrays the people trying to help him, and ultimately has to choose, over and over again, the person he wants to become. His emotional vulnerability, dry sense of humor, and hard-earned growth make him the kind of character audiences can root for.

"We love the villain who's been hurt and who is given the opportunity to come back from that," said Janet Varney, who voices Korra, during the same podcast conversation. Konietzko agreed, noting that even he sees Zuko as someone with "an amazing redemptive arc."

He's also incredibly editable. Every glance, every fight scene, every quiet moment carries emotional weight because fans already know where his story leads. A well-made edit can communicate that emotional journey in under 30 seconds, even to someone who's never watched an episode.

That's part of what's changed about fandom in the TikTok era. Character edits have quietly become one of the internet's most effective recommendation engines. Instead of convincing viewers to watch an entire series, they convince them to care about one character. The rest often follows.

For years, studios have tried to figure out how to introduce older franchises to new audiences. Increasingly, the answer is powered by fandom.

A compelling edit can do what traditional marketing often can't: make someone emotionally invested before they've watched a single scene. We've seen it happen across pop culture. A fancam introduces someone to a K-pop group. A TikTok revives a decade-old song. An anime edit sends viewers rushing to Crunchyroll. The algorithm has become one of the internet's most powerful discovery engines, constantly resurfacing stories for audiences who missed them the first time around.

Zuko is perhaps the clearest example of how that cycle can last for decades. Ironically, Paramount spent months trying to keep Avatar Aang footage offline after the film leaked earlier this year. Now that the finished film is finally streaming, it's fans, not the studio, who are generating the clips everyone wants to watch.

The creators of Avatar Aang have described the film as a chance to revisit Team Avatar at "this precipice between adolescence and adulthood," reconnecting with characters who have grown up alongside the audience that first fell in love with them.

But if TikTok is any indication, fans didn't need much convincing to come back.

That's why the flood of "hot Zuko" edits feels like more than a fleeting social media trend. They're evidence that fandom itself has become part of a franchise's longevity. Characters no longer live only within the stories that created them. They continue evolving through the internet, where fans remix and reintroduce them to thousands of potential new viewers.

And if my friend finally watches Avatar because TikTok convinced her to give a scarred Fire Nation prince a chance? Honestly, I don't think she'll be the first. And judging by my For You page, she definitely won't be the last.

Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender is now in select theaters and streaming on Paramount+.

As SUVs continue to dominate showroom floors, it's easy to forget just how much value a well-engineered family sedan can offer. For buyers who prioritize low running costs, long-term reliability, and everyday comfort over extra ride height, a midsize sedan often delivers a better ownership experience while costing significantly less to buy and operate.

Women receive no shortage of safety advice. Cover your drink. Share your location. Avoid walking at night alone. Text when you get home.

Here is one they may not hear every day: If you think someone wearing smart glasses is secretly recording you, start playing a Disney song.

The advice has begun circulating on LinkedIn, Threads, and other social channels as more people use Meta's smart glasses to covertly film women, prank service workers, and post unsuspecting strangers online. The theory, known as "copyright hacking," is that YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, or another platform will recognize the copyrighted music and prevent the resulting video from being uploaded.

"Because Disney music is more protected than women," one X user wrote. She's not completely wrong.

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It sounds like the kind of internet hack that is equal parts clever and depressing. Women are already taught to modify their behavior in response to new risks. Now, as ordinary-looking glasses make it easier to turn a private interaction into public content, they are being handed another instruction.

While this specific piece of advice may be new, the tactic itself is not.

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The theory is based on YouTube’s real copyright system.

YouTube uses an automated tool called Content ID to compare uploaded videos against audio and video submitted by copyright holders. When the system detects a match, the owner can decide whether to monetize the video, track its performance, or block it.

The important part is that not every match results in a takedown. YouTube says monetization is the most common policy applied to music claims. In those cases, the video stays online, but some or all of its advertising revenue may go to the copyright holder.

The rules are stricter for certain Shorts. YouTube says vertical videos between 1 and 3 minutes are blocked when they receive an active Content ID claim. Even then, however, an uploader could shorten the video, remove its sound, replace the audio, or use editing software to separate the speakers’ voices from the background music.

TikTok can similarly mute a sound that violates copyright restrictions without removing the video's visual content. The uploader can then replace the missing audio with another sound.

So yes, playing a Disney song could make a video harder to post or less profitable, and might even get it blocked — but that's not guaranteed.

Social media users were quick to point out the practical problems with this methodology.

"If you are being secretly recorded, how do you know to play the songs?" one user asked on a viral Facebook post by author and content creator Tova Leigh. Others noted that the person wearing the glasses could simply post the footage without sound.

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That first question gets at the larger flaw: Meta's Ray-Ban glasses are designed to look like conventional eyewear. The person being filmed may never realize a camera is pointed at them, and even if they notice the small recording light, they’d still need to recognize what it means, reach for their phone, and start playing music before the interaction ends. By that point, they may have already become the content.

Women may not know they are being filmed

The Disney advice is spreading as more women describe discovering that seemingly ordinary encounters were actually being recorded for an online audience.

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In February, CNN reported on the rise of "manfluencers" who use smart glasses to film themselves approaching women in airports, grocery stores, gyms, and other public spaces. To the woman involved, the interaction may feel like a stranger starting a conversation. For the creator, it is an opportunity to produce a video for thousands, or even millions, of viewers.

One woman, a DJ and producer who goes by Manic Muse online, said she gave her number to a man who approached her in a Texas grocery store because she believed their conversation was genuine. Her sister later suggested that his glasses might have contained a camera.

"And in that moment, my heart fell to my stomach," she told reporters.

Manic Muse said she messaged the man, asked whether he had recorded her, and told him not to post the interaction. He stopped replying and uploaded it anyway. The video eventually received more than 23 million views.

"It’s just so violating," she added. "I didn’t consent to being secretly recorded, and I definitely didn’t consent to becoming content for millions of strangers.”

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Once the footage is online, the recording itself is only the beginning. Viewers may scrutinize the woman's appearance, sexualize her, criticize how she handled the interaction, or search for personal information. What she believed was a private conversation with one stranger can be repackaged as evidence of whether his pickup technique "worked."

The technology has helped creators build entire accounts around people who never agreed to participate. As Mashable previously reported, smart-glasses users have covertly filmed attempts to get women's phone numbers in many public spaces. Other accounts have featured recordings of women’s bodies, sexually suggestive visits to massage parlors, and pranks targeting retail and restaurant employees.

Former prank creator Brad Podray, previously known online as Scumbag Dad, told us in January that women and service workers are often selected precisely because they can provide usable reactions while being less able or willing to challenge the person recording them.

"They want people who are good on camera, so they’re going to hit fast food employees, and they’re going to hit pretty girls," Podray said. "A lot of random women walking around aren’t going to want to participate in a skit if you ask them to, so they remove the agency entirely by just running the glasses."

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Meta has attempted to make the recording less discreet. Its glasses include a white LED that signals the camera is operating. But users have also found ways to interfere with it. Stickers designed to conceal the indicator have been sold online, and people in at least 30 states have offered services that physically modify it, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Though Meta has put safeguards in place to make the glasses harder to manipulate, they do not solve the broader consent problem. A person can see the light without understanding what it means. In many cases, they may not even see it.

Police have tried the Disney defense, too

This is not the first time someone has tried to turn copyright enforcement into a shield against a camera.

In April 2022, a Santa Ana, California, police officer played Disney songs while a YouTuber recorded officers investigating a stolen vehicle in his neighborhood. "You've Got a Friend in Me" from Toy Story played through a police vehicle's speakers late at night. It was followed by "We Don’t Talk About Bruno" from Encanto, "Reflection" from Mulan, and "Un Poco Loco" from Coco.

When Santa Ana City Councilmember Johnathan Ryan Hernandez asked the officer why he was playing it, the officer pointed toward the person recording.

"Because it will be copyright infringement for him," the officer said in a statement. The department also said playing music while officers were being recorded was not part of its recommended policy.

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Still, the Santa Ana incident was part of a pattern that had already appeared in several other departments.

In February 2021, Beverly Hills police officers were recorded playing songs including Sublime's "Santeria" and the Beatles' "Yesterday" during encounters with activist Sennett Devermont. Devermont had been livestreaming his attempts to obtain information and body-camera footage from the department.

The timing suggested the officers might have been attempting to activate Instagram's copyright filters, which can interrupt livestreams or limit how the resulting video gets shared. The Beverly Hills Police Department responded similarly, stating it doesn’t recommend officers play music while being filmed.

A few months later, an Alameda County sheriff’s sergeant played Taylor Swift's "Blank Space" while activists recorded him outside a courthouse in Oakland. This time, the officer explicitly explained what he was doing. "You can record all you want," he said. "I just know it can't be posted on YouTube." A department spokesperson later acknowledged that the attempt had backfired.

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The practice also surfaced in Illinois. In an incident report obtained by Motherboard later that year, an officer wrote that he had been "recently advised" to turn on music when he encountered a woman recording him. That detail suggested the tactic was no longer simply occurring to individual officers in the moment; in at least one department, someone appeared to be passing it along as advice.

Platforms are starting to act, but only after the fact

Recording someone in public is not universally illegal in the United States. Laws vary by state, and additional restrictions can apply to audio recording, sexual imagery, stalking, harassment, and the commercial use of someone's likeness. But in general, people have weaker expectations of privacy on a sidewalk, in a park, or in other public places.

Nowadays, though, recording can also violate a platform's rules. Instagram head Adam Mosseri said last week that the platform would remove smart-glasses videos showing people being exploited or harassed.

Meta confirmed that two prominent accounts posting smart-glasses pickup content had been deactivated for violating its harassment policies. Both had amassed more than 1 million followers.

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The crackdown creates a clearer consequence for some of the most abusive accounts, but it does not guarantee the removal of every video made without consent. Instagram has focused its policy on harassment and exploitation, leaving a large gray area for recordings that are invasive but do not clearly meet either definition.

More importantly, moderation generally begins after the footage has already been posted. The person recorded must first discover the video, locate the account, report the content, explain the violation, and wait for the platform to decide whether it crossed a line. By then, the video may have already accumulated millions of views or been copied to other accounts.

Government rules are beginning to adapt to technology in certain areas. Beginning July 20, New York prohibited recording-enabled glasses inside every courthouse in the state's Unified Court System. Officials said the ban was intended to prevent people from secretly recording court proceedings in violation of state law and court rules.

Outside those controlled settings, people who do not want to be recorded are still left depending on the wearer’s judgment, a small white light, inconsistent laws, and moderation systems that usually arrive after the damage has begun.

Playing Disney music might occasionally interrupt that process. It could also do absolutely nothing. But when the alternatives are so limited, an unreliable defense may still feel better than no defense at all.

Prime Video remains one of the major streaming services in today's streaming landscape. Like its competitors, Prime Video is always looking for its next critically acclaimed Emmy contender. Since 2015, Amazon has won more than 50 Emmy Awards in various categories, including some of the most prestigious comedy and drama prizes.

Your ESP32-based DIY electronics projects could soon integrate more smoothly into your smart home. Espressif's ESP32-S31 board is now available with major upgrades in performance, wireless tech, and input.

A new humanoid robot debuted this week with a sensor-laden layer of "smart skin" designed to feel exactly where and how hard it's being touched...for industrial safety, of course.

The robot, called Gene.01, comes from Generative Bionics and debuted at AMD's Advancing AI conference in San Francisco. CNET senior video producer Jesse Orrall got hands-on time with the machine, and Orrall described the texture of the smart skin as similar to a neoprene wetsuit. (Disclosure: Mashable and CNET are both owned by the same parent company, Ziff Davis.)

Around its frame, the bot is outfitted with "full-body multimodal skin" that can sense "touch, proximity, force and temperature," according to Generative Bionics.

SEE ALSO: The more I watch the new NEO robot hand video the weirder it gets

Per CNET's reporting, the skin senses touch using two kinds of sensors working together. The first are touch sensors capable of detecting contact, as well as the precise location and amount of pressure applied. Orrall wrote that squeezing the robot's arm triggered a live rendering on a nearby screen, lighting up at the exact spot being touched and darkening as more pressure was applied.

The second sensor type handles proximity rather than direct contact. These are known in the industry as time-of-flight (ToF) sensors, which work by emitting invisible light and measuring how long it takes to reflect back — effectively letting the robot sense something (or someone) before actual contact occurs. Orrall reported that waving a hand near the sensors produced a cluster of dots on the display screen that tracked with the hand movement, fading out as the hand moved away.

The practicality of the design, according to CNET, is collision avoidance. The hope is that these features will make it safer for industrial robots to work in close proximity to humans, whether on a factory floor or elsewhere. Generative Bionics reportedly views Gene.01 as an early platform, with plans to customize the amount and placement of smart skin, as well as the robot's hands, or "end effectors," depending on a client's specific use case.

As CNET noted, sensing the world is only half the equation — the harder problem still ahead is teaching the robot to act on that sensory data in real-time, something Generative Bionics says it's continuing to develop.

Phones have become such a part of our daily lives that it's important to find ways to make them easier to use. There's always one place that can make navigating cleaner, smoother, and easier: the Home Screen. But you might not realize there are some neat features available in your system launcher, like Samsung's One UI Launcher.

When the first trailer for Children of Blood and Bone debuted in Brooklyn this week, the excitement inside the room was palpable.

Director Gina Prince-Bythewood described years of research into African history and spirituality. The cast spoke about identity, ancestry, and the responsibility of bringing Orïsha to life. For fans who have spent years imagining Tomi Adeyemi's bestselling fantasy world, it was the first real glimpse of one of BookTok's most anticipated adaptations.

SEE ALSO: How 'Children of Blood and Bone' is bringing one of BookTok's biggest fantasy worlds to the big screen

Outside the theater, however, the conversation surrounding the film has been far more complicated.

Long before audiences saw a single frame of footage, the adaptation had become the subject of debates over colorism, questions about representation, and, more recently, the stunning decision by Adeyemi herself to publicly distance herself from the project she helped develop.

The casting sparked immediate debate.

When Paramount announced the cast in 2025, many readers celebrated seeing a predominantly Black ensemble led by Thuso Mbedu, Regina King, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Cynthia Erivo, Damson Idris, Lashana Lynch, and Idris Elba.

But the announcement also reignited conversations that had followed the adaptation for years.

Much of the criticism centered on the casting of Amandla Stenberg as Princess Amari. In the novel, Amari is described as having "dark copper skin" and is notably darker than the rest of her royal family, a physical difference that contributes to her feeling like an outsider long before she begins questioning the kingdom's treatment of the maji. Many readers argued that casting the lighter-skinned, biracial actor weakened a key aspect of the character's identity and reflected a broader pattern of colorism in Hollywood.

Other fans questioned why relatively few Nigerian actors had been cast in a story so deeply inspired by Nigerian history, Yoruba spirituality, and pre-colonial West African cultures. Those conversations unfolded across Reddit, X, and BookTok, where readers debated what authenticity should look like in a film adaptation of a novel so closely tied to Nigerian identity.

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At the time, Stenberg said she understood why readers felt protective of the books and noted that Adeyemi had personally encouraged her to take the role.

Tomi Adeyemi publicly stepped away from the project.

The conversation shifted dramatically earlier this month. In a TikTok (since deleted) addressing fans who had asked why she had stopped promoting the movie, Adeyemi announced she was "officially separating" herself from the adaptation.

"There is a reason I will not post anything about the adaptation of my work," she wrote. She later added that she had not seen the finished film and did not plan to watch it.

Adeyemi, who is credited as an executive producer and co-writer of the screenplay alongside Prince-Bythewood, said she had "tried everything" behind the scenes before deciding to step away, describing the experience as emotionally painful. She encouraged fans to support the film if they wished, but asked those who wanted to support her directly to purchase the books from independent bookstores.

Perhaps the most surprising part of her statement was a series of screenshots showing messages she allegedly sent to Stenberg, telling the actor not to contact her or mention her publicly, before blocking her. The message appears to be from Feb. 28, 2025, and reads: "Do not ever use my name in an interview or video again. Do not text me. Do not call me." Stenberg's previous message in the chain is partially blocked, but the words "my only hope was to reconnect as human beings" can be seen at a point.

The posts immediately reignited online speculation about what had happened behind the scenes, though Adeyemi has not publicly detailed the circumstances that led to the falling out.

Adeyemi's comments have also been viewed through the lens of previous public disputes. In 2018, she accused bestselling romance author Nora Roberts of plagiarizing the title of Roberts' novel Of Blood and Bone. After speaking with Roberts, Adeyemi retracted the allegation, saying she believed the titles had been created independently and apologized. That history has complicated the public response to her latest statements.

While many fans have expressed concern about the adaptation, others say they are hesitant to draw conclusions without more information about what actually happened to lead Adeyemi to sever ties.

What actually happened?

That's the question fans continue to ask, and one that remains largely unanswered.

Neither Paramount nor Prince-Bythewood has publicly addressed Adeyemi's comments, and the author has declined to elaborate beyond describing the experience as painful and saying she was "attacked behind the scenes." In a message dated July 18, posted under a 2025 behind-the-scenes video from set in South Africa, Adeyemi replied to a commenter, saying, "Making an impossible dream come true is a beautiful thing. Even if the dream becomes a nightmare. No one, not this film or you, will ever take away what I achieved."

That uncertainty has left fans in an unusual position. The film continues to generate excitement, buoyed by Prince-Bythewood's reputation following The Woman King, an acclaimed ensemble cast, and a trailer widely praised online. At the same time, some readers say it's difficult to separate that excitement from the knowledge that the creator of Orïsha no longer wants her name associated with the adaptation. Others argue that the work of hundreds of artists, craftspeople, and performers deserves to be judged independently of whatever happened behind closed doors.

Until someone involved chooses to explain further, both realities will likely coexist.

Children of Blood and Bone remains one of the most anticipated fantasy films of 2027. It also arrives carrying questions that no trailer, no matter how spectacular, can answer.

Children of Blood and Bone hits theaters on Jan. 15, 2027.

When Toyota rolled out its first hybrid system in the 1997 Prius, the idea was straightforward. Let a gas engine and an electric motor trade off propulsion duties, so the car could ultimately go farther on less fuel. Almost three decades later, Toyota has stretched that same idea in two different directions inside a single car.