IT General

The Fantastic Four: First Steps gifts viewers with a pair of wildly different post-credits scenes.

Its mid-credits scene brings a harbinger of doom to not just the Fantastic Four, but the whole MCU. Thankfully, though, The Fantastic Four: First Steps lightens things up in its end-credits scene, so you're still able to leave the theater smiling, instead of, you know, panicking about the fate of baby Franklin. Let's break it down.

SEE ALSO: 'The Fantastic Four: First Steps' game-changing mid-credits scene, explained The Fantastic Four: First Steps' end-credits scene features a sweet Jack Kirby tribute. Ebon Moss-Bachrach in "The Fantastic Four: First Steps." Credit: Marvel Studios

As the credits finish rolling on The Fantastic Four: First Steps, a quote from Fantastic Four co-creator Jack Kirby appears on screen, saying, "If you look at my characters, you will find me. No matter what kind of character you create or assume, a little of yourself must remain there."

The attribution to Kirby also includes the dates of his life: Aug. 28, 1917 to Feb. 6, 1994. The American way of writing out his birthdate (8/28) corresponds to the number of the Fantastic Four's reality, which is Earth-828, making for a sweet tribute to the artist behind Reed Richards/Mr. Fantastic (Pedro Pascal), Sue Storm/Invisible Woman (Vanessa Kirby), Ben Grimm/The Thing (Ebon Moss-Bachrach), and Johnny Storm/Human Torch (Joseph Quinn).

The Fantastic Four: First Steps gets animated in its end-credits scene. Pedro Pascal in "The Fantastic Four: First Steps." Credit: Jay Maidment

Following the Kirby quote, The Fantastic Four: First Steps launches into the Fantastic Four cartoon that is mentioned throughout the film. As Ben laments, it's the origin of his catchphrase, "It's clobberin' time."

We get to see that animated catchphrase in action, but that's not all. The end-credits scene features a snazzy theme song, along with fights with comic villains previously brought up in The Fantastic Four: First Steps, like Puppet Master, Diablo, and Red Ghost.

Unfortunately, this cartoon only exists in the world of The Fantastic Four: First Steps, so you won't be able to catch more of Pascal, Kirby, Moss-Bachrach, and Quinn's animated selves. (At least, not yet. Disney could make this happen!) However, if you're yearning for more animated Fantastic Four, you're in luck. The 1994 Fantastic Four animated series is now streaming on Disney+.

The Fantastic Four: First Steps is now in theaters.

The Fantastic Four: First Steps features what might be the most important MCU mid-credits scene since Thanos first appeared in The Avengers.

Not only does it introduce one of Marvel's most iconic antagonists, it also teases why the Fantastic Four might have jumped to the main MCU universe, as seen in the Thunderbolts* end-credits scene. Let's break it down.

SEE ALSO: 'The Fantastic Four: First Steps' end-credits scene, explained The Fantastic Four: First Steps mid-credits scene brings Doctor Doom to the MCU. Vanessa Kirby and Ada Scott in "The Fantastic Four: First Steps." Credit: Marvel Studios

The Fantastic Four: First Steps' mid-credits scene picks up four years after the film's ending. Reed Richards/Mr. Fantastic (Pedro Pascal) and Sue Storm/Invisible Woman's (Vanessa Kirby) son Franklin is growing up happy, healthy, and — seemingly — fairly normal. From looking at him, you'd have no clue he single-handedly resurrected his mother following a harrowing battle against Galactus (Ralph Ineson). Instead, you'd just see a regular preschool-aged child, one who's learning to talk and adores picture books like Michael McClintock's A Fly Went By.

In the scene, Sue reads Eric Carle's The Very Hungry Caterpillar to Franklin in the Fantastic Four's Baxter Building apartment. She leaves him on the couch for just a moment while she goes to find their copy of A Fly Went By. However, when she returns to the living room, she discovers an unwanted visitor: a man in a green hooded cape, holding a silvery mask, who's holding Franklin's hand to his face. That mystery man? None other than Doctor Doom (Robert Downey Jr.).

Even though audiences know Downey Jr. will be playing Doctor Doom, The Fantastic Four: First Steps doesn't give us a Downey-as-Doom face reveal just yet. Marvel will likely keep up waiting for a bit on that front! However, his appearance here marks the first time Doctor Doom has popped up in the MCU, setting the stage for 2026's Avengers: Doomsday, where he will be the main villain.

The question now becomes, what in the world is Doctor Doom doing in the Baxter Building? And what does he want with Franklin? Is he, like Galactus, entranced by Franklin's cosmic powers? Or perhaps he's more intrigued by his healing capabilities, like his resurrection of Sue? After all, Doctor Doom does have facial scarring. Maybe he is hoping Franklin can get rid of it, explaining why he's having Franklin touch his face.

Either way, if Doctor Doom comes after Franklin, you know the Fantastic Four are going to be hot on his trail.

How does The Fantastic Four: First Steps connect to the Thunderbolts* end-credits scene? Ebon Moss-Bachrach and Pedro Pascal in "The Fantastic Four: First Steps." Credit: Jay Maidment

The post-credits scene from Thunderbolts* teased the Fantastic Four's entry into the MCU, with their spaceship entering Earth's atmosphere. What caused them to leave their own dimension?

After seeing The Fantastic Four: First Steps' mid-credits scene, the answer to that question is likely Doctor Doom. Perhaps he stole Franklin right from under Sue's nose, and the Fantastic Four's extra-dimensional trip is part of their hunt to get him back. Or maybe the Fantastic Four are trying to warn parallel Earths about the arrival of Doctor Doom. Whatever the answer, one thing is clear: Doomsday is coming.

The Fantastic Four: First Steps is now in theaters.

When it comes to packing, I bring too many socks, triple-check that I have my meds, and unpack and repack to ensure I don't forget that one pair of pants. But chargers? Well, too often, they're back at home when I'm already on the road. Realizing that this was no way to live, I finally invested in a travel charger and power bank.

Anker Nano 3-in-1 Power Bank $44.99 at Amazon
Shop Now The Anker Nano 3-in-1 is a power bank and charger in one device This small but mighty device has kept my phone charged all across the country. Credit: Samantha Mangino / Mashable

Over the past few months, the Anker Nano 3-in-1 has been my most consistent travel companion, coming with me to California, New York, Texas, and Vermont. While it's technically a power bank, with an included AC outlet plug-in, it's also a great charger, and multi-use devices are my love language.

This Anker power bank includes either a short Lightning or USB-C cable, a USB-C port, and an AC plug. Overnight, I plug the power bank into an AC outlet and plug my phone into the built-in lightning cable, and wake up to a fully charged phone and power bank. That's certainly not novel for a charger; however, in the months of use, it's never once faltered. Plus, it can charge two devices at once. Using the USB-C port, I charge both my phone and Apple Watch overnight.

The Anker Nano 3-in-1 charges phones and laptops on the go When plugged in, the Anker Nano tells you it's power percentage. Credit: Samantha Mangino / Mashable

Where the Anker really impresses me is when plugged into an AC outlet and simultaneously charging multiple devices, it also charges the power bank. If I plug it in overnight, it has a full battery by the morning. That way, I can just throw the power bank in my bag, and it's ready to go for the day.

This was clutch while covering VidCon, where I was on the go for over 12 hours a day. Rather than worrying about where to find an outlet in the bustling Anaheim Convention Center, when my phone battery was low, I could just plug it into the power bank and keep it inconspicuously charging in my bag. It holds enough power to fully charge my iPhone 14 Pro twice over, but it's compatible with plenty of other devices. With the USB-C port, I could plug in my laptop charging cord to the Anker Nano and juice up my MacBook Pro.

It has one design flaw...

Having the built-in lightning cord (it's also available with a built-in USB-C cord) on the Anker Nano is great, and means you never have to haul around extra cords in addition to the power bank. However, that built-in cord is so short. If you're using it as a power bank, that's not really a problem, but as a charger, it's definitely annoying. I like to indulge in pre-bed phone time while my phone is charging, but with how short this cord is, it's nearly impossible to hold onto your phone while charging. Plus, if you want to charge your phone while it's plugged into an AC outlet, unless you're close to a table, the phone tends to end up dangling.

I've maneuvered my way around this pretty easily. On my honeymoon, our charming Cape Cod cottage didn't have any well-placed outlets for overnight charging, so I plugged the power bank in during the day and used it in power bank mode to charge my phone overnight.

I use the Anker Nano at home, too The Anker Nano has a permanent spot in my travel bag. Credit: Samantha Mangino / Mashable

While the Anker Nano 3-in-1 has a permanent home in my travel bag, I still reach for it when I'm not on the road. Our living room has poorly placed outlets, so there's no good spot for a charger. When I want to keep my phone charged but still within reach while lounging on the couch, I grab my Anker Nano.

I purchased the Anker Nano 3-in-1 for $34.99, $10 cheaper than its full price of $44.99, but I'd still tell you to buy it at full price. It's a convenient multi-use power bank that keeps all your devices fully charged on the go and at home.

Not everything can take AirTags, but a lot of our stuff could definitely be trackable. If you want to make your wallet trackable, this UGREEN wallet tracker is a nice find, and it's just $20 right now.

On Thursday, The Verge reported that ChatGPT 5 from OpenAI will be arriving in August. We were already expecting a summer launch, but big models are often subject to delays. So, this is great potential news for fans of the popular AI chatbot, though official details remain scarce.

Unofficial details, rumors, and leaks, on the other hand, are plentiful.

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So, what can we expect from ChatGPT 5?

ChatGPT 5, explained

If you're a casual ChatGPT user, then chances are most of your prompts are handled by GPT-4o. That's the default version of the chatbot that OpenAI describes as "great for most tasks." However, OpenAI is always cooking up new releases. In fact, the AI company has been releasing new AI tools at a breakneck pace in 2025. (Whether it can sustain that pace after Meta went on an AI talent poaching spree, we'll have to wait and see.)

So far this year, OpenAI released a hugely popular image generation tool (Remember the Studio Ghibli image trend, right? What about the Studio Ghibli trend backlash?). Then, in April, the company dropped two new reasoning models, o3 and o4-mini. The company also delivered its Operator AI agent, a new education initiative with Microsoft and teachers, and another, smarter reasoning model, o3-pro. And in addition to ChatGPT-5, the company announced it will be making an AI wearable with iPhone designer Jony Ive, and is also rumored to be working on an AI browser, among other projects.

However, ChatGPT-5 will be a particularly notable release, as it should bring noticeable improvements to the everyday ChatGPT experience.

What do we know about GPT-5?

We don't know much officially yet, except that GPT-5 is actively being tested. On July 23, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman sat down with podcaster Theo Von, and he brought up GPT-5 repeatedly, saying, "5.0 I think is going to be great."

Later, he described what it's like testing the new model:

This morning I was testing our new model, and I got a question. I got emailed a question that I didn't quite understand. And I put it in the model, this GPT5, and it answered it perfectly. And I really kind of sat back in my chair, and I was just like, oh man, here it is moment. And I got over it quickly. I got busy onto the next thing, but it was like...I felt, like, useless relative to the AI in this thing that I felt like I should have been able to do. And I couldn’t, and it was really hard, but the AI just did it like that. Yeah, it was it was a weird feeling.

Of course, I feel like I've heard AI leaders tell a version of this anecdote every time they're promoting an imminent release.

We expect GPT-5 to offer more agentic capabilities.

ChatGPT-5 could combine multiple models and tools

Currently, ChatGPT users can toggle between different models, from GPT-4 to advanced reasoning models. OpenAI also has tools like Sora, for video generation, and Operator, a web-based AI agent.

However, Tech Radar points to rumors from early testers that GPT-5 will combine these various tools into a single interface, which would let you generate images, conduct deep research, or write code.

Better coding abilities

Earlier this month, Altman shared this story on X, which many users assume refers to GPT-5.

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Big model releases usually deliver incremental improvements on core abilities like image generation and coding, and we expect that will be the case with the new model from OpenAI.

GPT is "coming soon," OpenAI leaders promise

We know that Altman isn't the only one testing GPT-5. And while discussing OpenAI's recent gold medal at a math Olympiad, OpenAI research scientist Alexander Wei promised, "we are releasing GPT-5 soon."

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Tech Radar also cites independent researchers who spotted a reference to the model in "OpenAI’s internal BioSec Benchmark repository, suggesting the model is already being trialed in sensitive domains like biosecurity."

Larger context windows

With each new model, OpenAI expands ChatGPT's context window. That term refers to how much data a model can "remember" when responding to a prompt. ChatGPT developers and users are actively calling for larger context windows (the exact size varies by model), and we'd be shocked if this wasn't a part of GPT-5.

To be candid, OpenAI has done a pretty good job of keeping GPT-5 leaks to a minimum. Besides a few cryptic references that the model is coming soon, OpenAI has kept pretty strict message discipline around the upcoming model.

On the afternoon of Thursday, July 24, Starlink customers reported trouble accessing the satellite internet service, and the company acknowledged a network outage.

At 4:05 p.m. ET, the Starlink X account stated, "Starlink is currently in a network outage and we are actively implementing a solution. We appreciate your patience, we'll share an update once this issue is resolved."

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The website Down Detector recorded a spike in Starlink user error reports beginning around 3 p.m., with error reports peaking around 3:30 p.m. As of this writing, the number of reports had dropped, but they were still significantly higher than the hours prior to the incident.

A message on the Starlink website said the company was investigating the problem. It's not yet clear how widespread the outage is. However, Starlink operates the world's largest satellite constellation, with more than 6,700 satellites in use serving millions of customers around the world, the company says. Thus, a Starlink network outage could have a wide-ranging global impact for customers who depend on Starlink to access the web.

Starlink is a satellite internet company capable of bringing high-speed internet to communities and locations that don't normally have access to the web. Starlink is owned by Musk's SpaceX aerospace company.

This is a developing story, and we'll provide updates if new information becomes available...

Google Maps is one of the most popular navigation apps around, so when something drastic changes, people notice. Earlier this week, an update removed media playback controls during navigation. Google said the change was a "bug," and thankfully, they're back.

Blender, the free and open-source 3D graphics software, is finally moving beyond desktop computers. The Blender team announced that it’s working on a version for iPad and Android tablets.

Apple released the public beta for iOS 26 today. However, you probably shouldn't install it without a plan.

The latest edition of iOS brings about a huge new design language, new quality of life features, new AI tricks, and more. There's a lot to dig into, and this article won't cover every single new thing you can try on iOS 26. But once you've installed the public beta, here are some of the best new features to check out.

SEE ALSO: iOS 27 is reportedly focused on foldable iPhone features The 5 best new features to try in the iOS 26 beta

Again, this is not a full, comprehensive list of every single change in iOS 26, because there are a lot. Let's stick with the biggest and best for now.

Liquid Glass Credit: Apple Credit: Apple

Introduced at WWDC earlier this year, Liquid Glass is an all-encompassing term for Apple's new design language being introduced with iOS 26.

As its name suggests, Liquid Glass changes the look of all your app icons and other UI elements so they resemble, well, liquid and glass. When you drag something around with your finger, it'll animate nicely in a liquid-like fashion, and everything has a glassy, somewhat transparent texture to it. There isn't much more to say about this, other than that you should install the iOS 26 public beta and see it for yourself.

iOS 26 will also allow you to personalize the appearance of widgets, so if you don't love the "all clear" style, you can tone down Liquid Glass to your liking.

Changes to the Phone app Credit: Apple

One big thing Apple did with iOS 26 is totally redesign several core everyday apps, like Phone, Messages, and Photos. Let's start with the Phone app.

For starters, things like Recents, Voicemails, and Favorites all now live together on one screen rather than in separate tabs. There's also a new call screening feature which will answer any phone call for you and ask the caller who they are and why they're calling. If the answer is satisfactory, you can pick up the phone. If not, you can tell them to take a hike and get on with your day.

Hold Assist will also free you from the burden of listening to awful hold music on customer service calls. You can put the phone down and wait for a notification to pop up, which tells you when a human is on the other end. That sounds lovely.

New Messages features Credit: Apple

Messages, the home for all your texts and group chats, has also gotten some new toys to play with.

One of my favorites is the ability to make polls in group chats, which is nominally a feature for deciding where to get dinner, but will really be a feature that's used to settle incredibly arcane, nonsensical inside-joke arguments among friend groups. Group chats have also gotten the much-needed ability to see who is typing, plus a new feature that lets users set custom backgrounds for their chats.

Group chats are about to get so, so silly.

Photos app overhaul Credit: Apple

One of the more hotly anticipated iOS 26 changes will undoubtedly be the overhaul that the currently not-especially-good Photos app is getting.

There are only two tabs on the bottom now, Library and Collections. One of them (presumably) shows you all the stuff on your phone, while the other shows everything you've put into folders. That sounds much cleaner and less confusing than the current disaster of a Photos app interface. This seems like a small thing, but considering how bad Photos has gotten with recent updates, I'm really looking forward to it.

Live translation Credit: Apple

The new iOS introduces a suite of new Apple Intelligence-powered features, such as news summaries and shortcut actions that could theoretically make complex tasks an automated breeze. However, one of them stands out above the rest, at least to me.

Specifically, Live Translation has gotten a big power boost. It now works in the Messages app, which is cool, but what's even cooler is that it now interfaces with phone calls and FaceTime calls. You can now, in theory, have a conversation with someone over the phone without speaking the same language as them in iOS 26. Apparently, it'll even work if the other person doesn't have an iPhone, which is kinda nuts.

There is so much more to iOS 26 that we'll be looking at over the next couple of months, but for now, these features are plenty to chew on.

Honorable mention: New Genmoji creation tools, with a boost from ChatGPT Credit: Apple

If you want to take advantage of the new Apple Intelligence features coming with iOS 26, you'll need a relatively new iPhone. Specifically, iPhone 16 models, iPhone 15 Pro, and iPhone 15 Pro Max devices (with Apple Intelligence activated).

In iOS 26, you'll get new tools for creating custom Genmoji using ChatGPT. According to Apple, "Genmoji and Image Playground provide users with even more opportunities for self-expression, including mixing their favorite emoji, Genmoji, and descriptions together to create brand-new images."

We've covered the new Image Playground and Genmoji tools previously, but we haven't tried them out yet.

South Park goes right for President Donald Trump's jugular in the first episode of Season 27.

The episode sees Trump in bed with Satan, a callback to 1999's South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut, which featured Satan in a relationship with Saddam Hussein.

"You remind me more and more of this other guy I used to date," Satan tells Trump. "Like, a lot. Like, you guys are exactly alike."

SEE ALSO: Stephen Colbert has a blunt response to Trump gloating over his show's cancellation

South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone don't stop there, though. They also show Trump as having a micropenis and mention rumors of him being on the "Epstein list."

The Season 27 premiere also skewers Paramount's $16 million settlement with Trump over a lawsuit in which Trump alleged that a 60 Minutes interview with Vice President Kamala Harris contained "deceitful" editing. (CBS News itself called the suit "completely without merit.") In the episode, the town of South Park protests against Trump. In retaliation, Trump sues the town, forcing them to pay Trump a considerable sum and produce a number of pro-Trump PSAs as part of a settlement.

The PSA shown at the end of the episode is extra-NSFW, showing an AI deepfake of Trump taking off his clothes in the desert. Once he's fully naked, his penis pops up and states, "I'm Donald J. Trump, and I endorse this message."

The PSA's voiceover declares: "His penis is teeny tiny, but his love for us is large."

Trump's White House is decidedly unhappy about the episode. According to Rolling Stone, a Trump adviser who has long been a fan of the series found it "disappointing."

In a statement sent to Variety, Rolling Stone, and The Hollywood Reporter among other outlets, White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers said: "The Left’s hypocrisy truly has no end — for years they have come after South Park for what they labeled as 'offense' (sic) content, but suddenly they are praising the show. Just like the creators of South Park, the Left has no authentic or original content, which is why their popularity continues to hit record lows."

Hours before South Park Season 27 premiered, Paramount reached a five-year deal with Parker and Stone for 50 new episodes on Comedy Central and a streaming partnership with Paramount+. The deal is valued at $1.5 billion.

South Park's takedown of Trump and specifically the Paramount settlement comes a little over a week after Stephen Colbert ripped into that same settlement on The Late Show. He called it a "big, fat bribe" meant to encourage the approval of a merger between Skydance Media and Paramount, which owns CBS. Days later, The Late Show was cancelled, although CBS claimed it was "purely a financial decision."

However, South Park thinks otherwise. Towards the end of the episode, Jesus Christ himself encourages South Park's citizens to settle with Trump, asking them, "Do you really want to end up like Colbert?"

Surprise: We're getting another new Nintendo console this year (sort of). On July 23, Lego unveiled a new Nintendo Game Boy building set that's a near 1:1 recreation of the classic handheld gaming system from 1989. It's priced at $59.99, making it $20 cheaper than the Switch 2's signature launch game.

You can preorder the Lego Game Boy set now at Amazon, Best Buy, and Walmart ahead of its formal release this fall. It was initially available directly through the Lego Store, too, but preorders sold out there early Thursday morning, according to @Wario64, a social media account that tracks video game deals and drops.

Opens in a new window Credit: Lego Lego Super Mario Game Boy $59.99 at Amazon
Pre-order Here

The set contains 421 pieces, including bits for the Game Boy's control pad, buttons, and volume and contrast dials. Lego also throws in interchangeable Game Paks for The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening and Super Mario Land. You even swap out the Lego Game Boy's screen to display its start screen or a 2D screencap from one of the aforementioned game cartridges.

Credit: Lego

"Designed for people who enjoy hands-on creative activities, this is part of a large assortment of Lego sets for adult designers and with step-by-step instructions newcomers to Lego can also enjoy the challenge," said Lego and Nintendo in a joint press release.

Credit: Lego

Initially teased on Instagram back in January, the brickified Game Boy marks yet another entry in Lego's Super Mario series made in partnership with Nintendo, which kicked off in 2020 with a 2,646-piece Nintendo NES build. (Lego has since retired that set, but Amazon is still selling it at an upcharge.) Other recent releases from the series include a trio of Mario Kart Lego sets that shoot turtle shells, which had Mashable's Timothy Beck Worth asking, "Where were these when I was growing up?"

The Lego Game Boy is set for release on Wednesday, October 1, making it another great holiday gifting option.

Where to preorder the Lego Game Boy: Amazon Lego Super Mario Game Boy $59.99 Pre-Order Here Best Buy Lego Super Mario Game Boy $59.99 Pre-Order Here Walmart Lego Super Mario Game Boy $59.99 Pre-Order Here

UPDATE: Jul. 24, 2025, 5:15 p.m. EDT The Lego Game Boy is no longer available for preorder directly through the Lego Store. However, Best Buy and Walmart's listings for it are now live. We've updated this story accordingly.

I love playing classic games from decades gone by, but sometimes I want something that feels old without actually being old. Modern games showcase modern design philosophies, but I still want to play something that reminds me of the old days. Thankfully, these games fit the bill.

Thousands of educational institutions that use popular ed-tech platform Canvas to assign coursework, score tests, and design lesson plans will soon receive even more AI features in coming months.

Part of a series of industry-wide collaborations, the platform's parent company, Instructure, has signed on to a new partnership with OpenAI, an initiative that will see the learning software leverage OpenAI's tech to build out more AI experiences for users.

SEE ALSO: The FDA's new drug-approving AI chatbot is not helping

Teachers, for example, will gain access to AI-powered personalization, feedback, and assessment data, the companies explain. "Routine and low-value tasks," will be automated, and students will experience more "personalized, adaptable learning journeys" with additional assignment and evaluation interactions with its AI.

Canvas' first collaboratively designed AI tool is a new "LLM-Enabled Assignment" feature, an additional assignment option for teachers that lets them create a classroom chatbot experience for students, customizing how students interact with, receive learning objectives from, and prompt the GPT-like tool. Teachers can then use insights from the LLM to evaluate student submissions. "This feature provides a meaningful way to teach students how to use these tools responsibly and effectively, all within a high-quality pedagogical framework that encourages critical thinking and supports higher-order skills," said Shiren Vijiasingam, chief product officer at Instructure.

Anthropic, makers of chatbot Claude, announced an integration with Canvas' Learning Tools Interoperability in June, which lets students use Claude directly in the Canvas platform while doing coursework — users will still be able to enable Claude (and other integrated tools) alongside the OpenAI partnership. Across the board, AI's biggest players have chosen to invest heavily in the technology's educational applications, including teacher tools, student skill building, and a free, nationwide training program for educators in partnership with the American Federation of Teachers (AFT).

“This collaboration with OpenAI showcases our ambitious vision: creating a future-ready ecosystem that fosters meaningful learning and achievement at every stage of education" wrote Instructure CEO Steve Daly. "This is a significant step forward for the education community as we continuously amplify the learning experience and improve student outcomes."

President Donald Trump is siding with tech companies in the hotly contested AI copyright battle.

On Wednesday, the president outlined his AI Action Plan in remarks at the AI Summit, an event hosted by the All-In podcast and the Hill and Valley Forum. In announcing the plan, Trump called for a "common-sense application" of AI and intellectual property rules (starting at minute 19:48 in the video).

"You can't be expected to have a successful AI program when every single article, book, or anything else that you've read or studied, you're supposed to pay for," the president said. "When a person reads a book or an article, you've gained great knowledge. That does not mean that you're violating copyright laws or have to make deals with every content provider." Notably, he also said, "China’s not doing it."

The rhetoric reflects the stance big tech companies like Meta and OpenAI have taken when it comes to AI model training and copyright infringement.

AI companies say copyright law is slowing them down

A fierce legal debate is raging that pits copyright holders against AI companies. Authors, musicians, and artists have sued OpenAI, Meta, Anthropic, and others, claiming the use of their creative works (some of which were pirated) as training data is copyright infringement. For instance, in its suit against Midjourney, Disney called the AI image generator "a bottomless pit of plagiarism." However, AI companies claim they are protected by the fair use doctrine, which allows the unlicensed use of copyrighted works in specific circumstances.

In its March recommendations for development of an AI Action Plan, Meta said, "the Administration should clarify that the use of publicly available data to train models is unequivocally fair use." OpenAI similarly argued that "applying the fair use doctrine to AI is not only a matter of American competitiveness — it’s a matter of national security," in their submitted recommendations. Companies like OpenAI have claimed they need the green light to use copyrighted works without consent to win the AI race against China.

SEE ALSO: Trump's AI Action Plan revives regulation showdown between states, feds

As part of its AI Action Plan, the White House also issued a trio of executive orders about AI, which Trump signed after giving his remarks. There was no explicit mention of copyright issues or fair use in these orders, but Trump's comments clearly signal that the administration is siding with big tech on this issue. The action plan also calls for easing regulations on tech companies in general. "To maintain global leadership in AI, America’s private sector must be unencumbered by bureaucratic red tape," said the AI Action Plan.

Fact check: You do have to pay for knowledge

Trump's comments about not having to pay for gaining knowledge is actually a common argument. Tech companies have claimed that because their AI models are generally learning from the data, they are not subject to copyright laws.

However, many copyright lawyers disagree.

"When the president raises the difficulty of paying for every 'single article, book, or anything else,' – that’s legit," said Justin Hughes, a law professor at Loyola Law School. "But nothing in that is inconsistent with the AI companies licensing large repositories of copyrighted materials – as they are doing, AI companies reaching settlements with certified classes of copyright owners in litigation – as they should, and AI companies paying exemplary damages when they rapaciously copy stuff without permission."

In a previous interview with Mashable about the Kadrey v. Meta case, Hughes also pointed out that "people pay to learn and they have to buy copies of books to learn."

Dozens of AI copyright cases are making their way through the courts right now. AI blog ChatGPT Is Eating the World counts 47 active cases. Recently, Anthropic and Meta both won their fair use rulings, but the judge presiding over the Meta case had this to say: "As should now be clear, this ruling does not stand for the proposition that Meta’s use of copyrighted materials to train its language models is lawful," and even postulated that "it will be illegal to copy copyright-protected works to train generative AI models without permission."

It's unclear how Trump's copyright remarks will turn into concrete action. But he seems to be out of sync with the U.S. Copyright Office's position on AI training and fair use, according to a pre-publication version of its AI Copyright Report. That report concluded that fair use likely doesn't provide a blanket exception for AI companies using copyrighted works. In Congress, Senators Josh Hawley and Richard Blumenthal recently introduced a bipartisan bill that would ban AI companies from training on copyrighted works and allow people to sue tech companies for the use of their personal data for model training.

And then there's the possibility that Trump's stance might change, as Hughes theorized. "I think the president may feel very differently if and when he learns about AI companies training on episodes of The Apprentice without paying a dime."

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

Paid apps can be a bit tricky to commit to, especially when you don't know what you're getting into. But many premium iPhone apps come with big advantages, like a one-time purchase for all your Apple devices, iCloud sync, and unlimited access to features, which skips any ongoing subscriptions.

Apple's next software updates are shaping up. WWDC saw the introduction of both iOS 26 and macOS 26 Tahoe, which will make their way to iPhones and Macs by the end of this year. Now, the first actual beta is here, giving us a look at a slightly more polished product.

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When people think of retro gaming, they often picture CRT TVs and retro consoles with stacks of dusty cartridges, or perhaps a complicated Raspberry Pi build. But the truth is, you already own a capable retro gaming device—it's in your hands or on your desk right now.

President Donald Trump says that "woke AI" is a pressing threat to truth and independent thought. Critics say his plan to combat so-called woke AI represents a threat to freedom of speech and potentially violates the First Amendment.

The term has taken on new significance since the president outlined The White House's AI Action Plan on Wednesday, July 23, part of a push to secure American dominance in the fast-growing artificial intelligence sector.

The AI Action Plan informs a trio of executive orders:

• Promoting the Export of the American AI Technology Stack

• Accelerating Federal Permitting of Data Center Infrastructure

• Preventing Woke AI in the Federal Government

The action plan checks off quite a few items from the Big Tech wishlist and borrows phrasing like "truth-seeking" directly from AI leaders like Elon Musk. The executive order about woke AI also positions large-language models with allegedly liberal leanings as a new right-wing bogeyman.

So, what is woke AI? It's not an easy term to define, and the answer depends entirely on who you ask. In response to Mashable's questions, a White House spokesperson pointed us to this language in a fact sheet issued alongside the woke AI order: “biased AI outputs driven by ideologies like diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) at the cost of accuracy.”

What is Woke AI? Unpacking the White House's definition

Interestingly, except for the title, the text of the woke AI executive order doesn't actually use this term. And even though the order contains a definitions section, the term itself isn't clearly defined there either. (It's possible "woke AI" is simply too nebulous of a concept to write into actual legal documents.) However, the fact sheet issued by The White House states that government leaders should only procure "large language models (LLMs) that adhere to 'Unbiased AI Principles' defined in the Order: truth-seeking and ideological neutrality."

And here's how the fact sheet defines "truth-seeking" and "ideological neutrality":

Truth-seeking means that LLMS shall be truthful and prioritize historical accuracy, scientific inquiry, and objectivity, and acknowledge uncertainty where reliable information is incomplete or contradictory.

Ideological neutrality means that LLMs shall be neutral, nonpartisan tools that do not manipulate responses in favor of ideological dogmas like DEI, and that developers will not intentionally encode partisan or ideological judgments into an LLM’s outputs unless those judgments are prompted by or readily accessible to the end user.

So, it seems the White House defines woke AI as LLMs that are not sufficiently truth-seeking or ideologically neutral. The executive order also calls out specific examples of potential bias, including "critical race theory, transgenderism, unconscious bias, intersectionality, and systemic racism." Obviously, there is a culture-wide dispute about whether those subjects (including "transgenderism," which is not an accepted term by transgender people) are inherently biased.

Critically, AI companies that fail to meet the White House's litmus tests could be locked out of lucrative federal contracts. And because the order defines popular liberal political beliefs — not to mention an entire group of human beings — as inherently biased, AI companies may face pressure to adjust their models' inputs and outputs accordingly.

The Trump administration has talked a big game about free speech, but critics of the action plan say this order is itself a major threat to free speech.

"The part of the action plan titled 'Ensure that Frontier AI Protects Free Speech and American Values' seems to be motivated by a desire to control what information is available through AI tools and may propose actions that would violate the First Amendment," said Kit Walsh, Director of AI and Access-to-Knowledge Legal Projects at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, in a statement to Mashable. "Generative AI implicates the First Amendment rights of users to receive information, and typically also reflects protected expressive choices of the many human beings involved in shaping the messages the AI writes. The government can no more dictate what ideas are conveyed through AI than through newspapers or websites."

“The government has more leeway to decide which services it purchases for its own use, but may not use this power to punish a publisher for making available AI services that convey ideas the government dislikes," Walsh said.

Is Woke AI a real problem? President Trump has said the U.S. will do "whatever it takes" to win the AI race. Credit: Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

Again, the answer depends entirely on where you fall along the political fault line, and the term "woke" has become controversial in recent years.

This adjective originated in the Black community, where it described people with a political awareness of racial bias and injustice. More recently, many conservatives have started to use the word as a slur, a catch-all insult for supposedly politically correct liberals.

In truth, both liberals and conservatives are concerned about bias in large-language models.

In November 2024, the Heritage Foundation, a conservative legal group, hosted a panel on YouTube on the topic of woke AI. Curt Levey, President of the Committee For Justice, was one of the panel's experts, and as a conservative attorney who has also worked in the artificial intelligence industry, he had a unique perspective to share.

I think it's interesting that both the left and the right are complaining about the danger of bias in in AI, but they're…focused on very different things. The left is focused mainly on the idea that AI models discriminate against various minority groups when they're making decisions about hiring, lending, bail amounts, facial recognition. The right on the other hand is concerned about bias against conservative viewpoints and people in large language models like ChatGPT.

Elon Musk has made it clear that he thinks that AI models are inheriting a woke mindset from their creators, and that that's a problem if only because it conflicts with being, what he calls, maximally truth-seeking. Musk says that companies are teaching AI to lie in the name of political correctness.

Levey also said that if LLMs are biased, that doesn't necessarily mean they were "designed to be biased." He added, the "scientists building these generative AI models have to make choices about what data to use, and you know, many of these same scientists live in very liberal areas like the San Francisco Bay area, and even if they're not trying to make the system biased, they may very well have unconscious biases when it comes to to picking data.”

A conservative using the phrase "unconscious bias" without rolling his eyes? Wild.

LLMs have biases because we have biases Credit: Cheng Xin/Getty Images

Ultimately, AI models reflect the biases of the content they're trained on, and so they reflect our own biases back at us. In this sense, they're like a mirror, except a mirror with a tendency to hallucinate.

To comply with the Executive Order, AI companies could try to tamp down on "biased" answers in several ways. First, by controlling the data used to train these systems, they can calibrate the outputs. They could also use system prompts, which are high-level instructions that govern all of the model's outputs.

Of course, as xAI has demonstrated repeatedly, the latter approach can be... problematic. First, xAI's chatbot Grok developed a fixation on "white genocide in South Africa," and more recently started to call itself Mecha Hitler. Transparency could provide a check on potential abuses, and there's a growing movement to force AI companies to disclose the training data and system prompts behind their models.

Regardless of how you feel about woke AI, you should expect to hear the term a lot more in the months ahead.

Yahoo Mail and AOL's email service appeared to have crashed on Thursday.

Users reported a "temporary Error: 15" message that kept them from accessing their email through Yahoo or AOL, which are part of the same overall company.

Down Detector showed spikes in user-reported issues starting in the mid-morning for both Yahoo and AOL. Those reports appeared to be going down Thursday afternoon, though it is not clear if the issues are resolved. (Disclosure: Down Detector is owned by Ziff Davis, the same parent company as Mashable.)

Both Yahoo and AOL acknowledged there appeared to be a problem via identical posts on X.

"We understand some users are currently experiencing difficulties accessing their accounts," the posts read. "We are actively investigating this issue and will provide updates as soon as more information becomes available. We appreciate your patience and apologize for any inconvenience this may cause."

Users online both complained about the email services being down and made jokes about folks still using AOL or Yahoo as their email provider in 2025.

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This story is developing and will be updated as necessary...