IT General

MAX BUNDLES: Max is offering a few different bundle deals so you can stream from its library without making a massive dent in your wallet.

The best Max deals and bundles in March 2025: Best Bundle Deal Disney+, Hulu, Max Bundle $16.99/month with ads, $29.99/month ad-free Get Deal Best Student Discount Max Student Discount Students save 50% on Max Basic With Ads plan Get Deal Best Bundle with Hulu Hulu with Max Add Max to your Hulu base plan from $9.99 per month Get Deal

Some of the most prestigious shows and films live on Max's streaming service. From Game of Thrones to Dune: Part Two and so much more, Max is worth the investment for those looking to dive into the most talked about pieces of entertainment. And with highly-anticipated upcoming shows like the second season of The Last of Us on the horizon, there's no better time than now to start looking at plans and bundles.

The good news is that Max has a few different bundles available at the moment that are worth checking out, including the big bundle with Disney+ and Hulu. With streaming prices on the rise, a bundle like this can be a great way to save some cash while getting access to your favorite services.

SEE ALSO: The best Hulu deals and bundles in March 2025

Alongside that deal and a couple more, we've also broken down Max's standard plans in case you're just interested in its service on its own.

Best Bundle Deal Opens in a new window Credit: Max Disney+, Hulu, Max Bundle $16.99/month with ads, $29.99/month ad-free Get Deal Why we like it

The Max, Disney+, and Hulu bundle is a top-tier choice for those looking to have access to some of the biggest streaming services around. Starting at $16.99 per month, this bundle grants you access to Hulu, Disney+, and Max's streaming services for a much lower price than what you'd pay for them on their own. If you've already got Disney+ and Hulu subscriptions, this bundle is worth every cent. If you're interested, there are two plan options to choose from:

• Disney+, Hulu, Max Bundle (with ads) — $16.99 per month (save 43%)

• Disney+, Hulu, Max Bundle (no ads) — $29.99 per month (save 42%)

Max Student Discount Opens in a new window Credit: Max Max Student Discount Students save 50% on Max Basic With Ads plan Get Deal Why we like it

It's always nice when streaming services have a deal for students, and Max's offer is definitely worth taking advantage of. Students who can verify their status with UNiDAYS are eligible to get the Max Basic With Ads plan for just $4.99 per month. That's a 50% discount off its usual price of $9.99 per month. After verifying your status, you'll receive a unique code that can be used to redeem the discounted plan on Max.

• Max Student Discount — $4.99 per month (save 50%)

Best Bundle with Hulu Opens in a new window Credit: Hulu Hulu with Max Add Max to your Hulu base plan from $9.99 per month Get Deal Why we like it

If you're not interested in the Disney+, Hulu, and Max mega bundle, you can just get Hulu and Max together if you already have a Hulu base plan, which starts at $9.99 per month. Max (With Ads) can be added onto your plan for $9.99 per month, or you can splash out on the Max (No Ads) plan for $16.99 per month.

• Hulu with Max add-on — from $9.99 per month

Max's monthly plans

Max offers a few different subscription plans. If you don't mind having to sit through ads, Max's Basic With Ads plan starts at $9.99 per month or you can get the annual plan for $99.99 per year, which ultimately saves you $19. If you can't stand ads and don't mind throwing down a bit more cash, the Standard plan will cost you $16.99 per month or $169.99 per year, which saves you $33. If you really want to go big on a Max plan, you can spring for the fancy Premium plan, which costs $20.99 per month or $209.99 per year.

Below we've broken down what comes with each of these plans, per Max's website, so you can know a bit more before you buy.

Basic With Ads — $9.99 per month, $99.99 per year (save $19)

• Stream on two devices at once

• Full HD 1080p resolution

Standard (Ad-free) — $16.99 per month, $169.99 per year (save $33)

• Stream on two devices at once

• Full HD 1080p resolution

• 30 downloads to watch on the go

Premium (Ad-free) — $20.99 per month, $209.99 per year (save $41)

• Stream on four devices at once

• 4K Ultra HD video quality (as available)

• Dolby Atmos immersive audio (as available)

• 100 downloads to watch on the go

If you're wondering where to start once you've set yourself up with a Max subscription, we've got an excellent selection of recommendations to point you in the right direction. Looking for a great TV show to kickstart your next binge-watching session? Have a look through our roundup of the 20 best TV shows streaming on Max. Or if you prefer movies, we narrowed down the 25 best movies on Max to make your next movie night a spectacular one.

The Mini is a bite-sized version of The New York Times' revered daily crossword. While the crossword is a lengthier experience that requires both knowledge and patience to complete, The Mini is an entirely different vibe.

With only a handful of clues to answer, the daily puzzle doubles as a speed-running test for many who play it.

So, when a tricky clue disrupts a player's flow, it can be frustrating! If you find yourself stumped playing The Mini — much like with Wordle and Connections — we have you covered.

SEE ALSO: Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more: Play games on Mashable

Here are the clues and answers to NYT's The Mini for Thursday, March 6, 2025:

AcrossWhat "OOO" can mean

• The answer is Hugs.

"You've Really Got ___ on Me" (1962 hit)

• The answer is Ahold.

Indian currency

• The answer is Rupee.

What "III" can mean

• The answer is Three.

Call of Duty: Black ___ (video game series)

• The answer is Ops.

DownRoxie ___, lead character in "Chicago"

• The answer is Hart.

"Nope"

• The answer is Uhuh.

Camera attached to a ski helmet, perhaps

• The answer is GoPro.

What "ZZZ" can mean

• The answer is Sleep.

The middle of "middle"

• The answer is Dees.

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

Featured Video For You The Wordle Strategy used by the New York Times' Head of Games

Are you also playing NYT Strands? See hints and answers for today's Strands.

Not the day you're after? Here's the solution to the latest Mini Crossword.

As a [weather](https://www.noaa.gov/) and [Home Assistant](https://www.home-assistant.io/) enthusiast, I've been looking for a way to integrate my [Davis Vantage Vue](https://www.davisinstruments.com/pages/vantage-vue) weather station with Home Assistant. After some research and purchasing the [Davis WeatherLink Live](https://amzn.to/4iy0OYr) radio receiver, I've come up with a custom integration that...

Poorna Jagannathan, who plays crime boss 'Lucky' in the new Hulu series, Deli Boys, may have just carved out a new corner of the crime boss trope. She and the cast chat to contributing reporter Sucharita Tyagi about how this immediately iconic character came to life.

Deli Boys is now streaming on Hulu and Disney+.

If you've ever engaged with the "cyberpunk" genre in books, movies, and video games, you might have run into the fictional concept of a "cyberdeck", but there's a subculture of geeks who just can't live in a world where cyberdecks aren't real, so they're making them a reality.

A 15-foot-tall spacecraft had an imperfect landing on the moon.

The NASA-funded mission to the moon, operated by the Houston space exploration company Intuitive Machines, touched down on March 6, but engineers are still uncertain about its orientation and overall condition. Is the spacecraft, for example, lying on its side?

Though the robotic craft, called Athena, performed excellently on its flight to and around the moon, this landing mishap comes a year after Intuitive Machines' first government-supported attempt resulted in the spacecraft landing hard, breaking a leg, and settling on its side.

"I think we can agree, particularly today, that landing on the moon is extremely hard," Nicola Fox, who leads NASA's Science Mission Directorate, said at an agency news conference on March 6. 

SEE ALSO: Why landing a spaceship on the moon is still so challenging

Athena fired thrusters to brake at speeds of some 4,000 mph during its final descent. Intuitive Machines is confident the craft landed on the towering Mons Mouton, a lunar mountain near the moon's south pole rising 20,000 feet above the surrounding terrain. It's unclear, however, how far Athena may be from its intended landing site within Mons Mouton. This southern region is rich in water ice, and is relatively close to where NASA intends to bring astronauts in mid-2027.

Athena is currently charging on the lunar surface — meaning some sunlight is reaching the craft. It's communicating with Intuitive Machine's engineers, too. But much of the mission now remains in limbo. 

"We think we've been very successful to this point," Steve Altemus, the chief executive officer of Intuitive Machines, said at the press conference. "But we don't think we're in the correct attitude on the surface of the moon again."

This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed. An artist's conception of an Intuitive Machines' spacecraft landing upright on the moon. Credit: Intuitive Machines

Crucially, the lander is equipped with a NASA drill, called PRIME-1, to investigate south pole resources in anticipation of astronauts returning to the moon. The instrument is designed to drill some three feet below the lunar surface, and another instrument, called a spectrometer, looks for water and other materials. It remains unknown if the drill will be able to function in a non-optimal orientation, but NASA and Intuitive Machines will discern that capability in the coming weeks. 

The drill is important. Harvesting water ice, the space agency has emphasized, is crucial for making drinkable water, oxygen, and fuel for rockets. Over eons, comets and meteors striking the moon could have transported bounties of water to the moon's surface. Other sources could be water vapor that naturally seeped out of the lunar underground, or chemical reactions between oxygen in the lunar soil and the relentless solar wind.

But without finding and mining this ice, the U.S. cannot establish a permanent presence on the moon, a pivotal part of its Artemis program.

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

In a sign of burgeoning commerical space exploration in the 21st century, Athena (however impaired) joins the Blue Ghost lander, built by Texas-based Firefly Aerospace, which successfully touched down on the moon's near side on March 2. That craft is also part of NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services program, which consists of robotic technical and science endeavors that support looming crewed lunar missions.

"The risk will always be there."

Landing on the moon remains daunting, largely because it's a world with virtually no atmosphere to slow spacecraft down. A craft must plummet to the surface perfectly, as thrusters fire to slow its descent onto a surface teeming with pits and craters. Although Chinese and Indian craft have had recent landing successes, the Intuitive Machines' spacecraft Odysseus sustained damage while landing awkwardly in 2024. The same year, a Japanese craft landed upside down, on its head.

Athena also carried both a small rover and hopper, designed to test moon exploration technologies in a crater-blanketed world. We'll soon find out if these machines can depart Athena, and bound over the lunar surface.

Such robotic landing missions are high-risk and high-reward endeavors, NASA's Fox emphasized.

"The risk will always be there," she said.

Over the years, I've collected a large bundle of items that accompany me every time I head out stargazing. Starting with astronomy-specific tools and finishing with items that will keep you comfortable, here's a checklist of essentials that will help you optimize your stellar experience.

NVIDIA's RTX 5000 launch hasn't been its best. Amid issues with the company overpromising on its GPUs' performance, it also turns out a whole lot of graphics cards are defective. NVIDIA wants to assure you that this is not the case for its laptop GPUs, though.

SAVE 25%: The Ninja Woodfire 8-in-1 Outdoor Oven is on sale for $299.99, down from the usual price of $399.99. That's a savings of $100.

Opens in a new window Credit: Ninja Ninja Woodfire 8-in-1 Outdoor Oven $299.99 at Ninja
$399.99 Save $100 Get Deal

We're just days away from pushing the clocks ahead an hour. While that means we'll all lose an hour of sleep, it also means we're in for later sunsets. With that comes the allure of evenings spent in the backyard and soon summer barbecues. If your outdoor cooking setup could use an upgrade, check out this sweet deal.

As of March 6, the Ninja Woodfire 8-in-1 Outdoor Oven is on sale for $299.99, marked down from the standard price of $399.99. That's a 25% discount and a savings of $100.

Instead of heating up the kitchen this summer by turning on the oven, take your cooking outside thanks to the Ninja Woodfire Outdoor Oven. This model comes with extra versatility thanks to the eight cooking functions that include bake, broil, warm, dehydrate, pizza, max roast, specialty roast, and smoker.

SEE ALSO: Snag a refurbished Ninja Slushi machine for $240 and stay cool all summer

Overall, the oven temperature can range from 105 to 700 degrees Fahrenheit, which you can control manually with the temperature dial. The high temperatures are designed to replicate what you'd get from a brick oven, like a great char, caramelization, and blistering on pizza crust.

The capacity of the Ninja Woodfire is perfect for summer hangs, and the brand mentions this model can hold a 12 pound turkey, a 12 pound rib-eye with vegetables, or a nine-pound pork shoulder.

With a special pizza setting and an included pizza stone, this can be the summer of perfect patio pizzas. The pizza setting gets even more precise since it offers you the option of Neapolitan, thin crust, pan pizza, New York, and frozen. Some of these bake up the perfect pizza in just three minutes.

The Woodfire is also capable of smoking meats, thanks to its woodfire technology. With just half a cup of pellets, the outdoor oven will perfectly cook meats low and slow while infusing with that perfect smoked flavor. Keep in mind the power source is electric which means this model won't require heaps of pellets. Ninja says the oven can smoke two racks of ribs at once or an eight pound chicken.

Get a head start on summer cooking and grab the Ninja Woodfire 8-in-1 Outdoor Oven on sale for just $299.99. Not only will you be keeping your home cooler by not turning on the oven, this model is perfect for those who aren't allowed to have charcoal-fueled barbecues in their apartment or condo complex.

Excel's AVERAGEIF and AVERAGEIF functions let you find the average of a set of data. However, where they differ from the more straightforward AVERAGE function is in their ability to include or discount certain values within the calculation.

Like it or not, Google is doubling down on AI-generated search.

On Wednesday, the tech giant announced that it's expanding AI overviews to more Google Search queries, starting with advanced math, coding, and multimodal searches. That's made possible due to Google's more advanced model, Gemini 2.0,, which now powers AI overviews.

AI Overviews is also expanding access to more users outside of the U.S. by allowing people who aren't logged in to see the AI-generated summaries, including teens. 

Last but not least, Google is experimenting with a dedicated AI search chatbot, akin to ChatGPT search mode and Perplexity. It's like Gemini but combines Google's real-time search capabilities for the most up-to-date responses. The new feature, AI Mode, is currently available in Google's testing ground called Labs. But it's an indication that Google Search might soon have only AI-generated search results. 

AI Mode is an experiment that uses Gemini for AI-generated search results. Credit: Google

Recommendations to put glue on pizza and eat rocks be damned, Google has signaled that injecting AI into all of its apps and services is the driving force of its business strategy. In the announcement, Google's VP of Search Robby Stein said, "People are using Google Search more than ever as they get help with new and more complex questions." But that obscures the fact that AI Overviews can't be turned off and it doesn't address the hallucinations that still plague the model and might never go away. 

Former Mashable editor Mike Pearl did an audit on the first six months of AI Overviews and found that while it's fine for simple queries, it still hallucinates on more "uncommon queries" by misinterpreting what's found on the web. It also erroneously builds on faulty queries like using baking soda to thicken soup (which you definitely shouldn't do.) 

"If the basis for a search is wrong or flawed, and the AI Overview doesn't catch the problem, then it stands to reason the user won't notice it either," said Pearl. That's to say, at best, it could weaken Google's reliability as a search engine, and at worst, it could reinforce misinformation. 

Despite persistent inaccuracies that have become something of a running joke (seriously, just Google "Google AI search fails"), the company is barreling ahead with new experiments. 

we should give this $100 trillion more dollars!

[image or embed]

— Themperor Kennedy🐸🏳️‍🌈 (@kennedytcooper.bsky.social) March 4, 2025 at 1:32 PM

AI Mode is clearly an effort to compete with AI-powered search engines like Perplexity and ChatGPT search mode. These tools have capitalized on users leaning more into chatbots as a source of information, which threatens Google's core product. 

In Labs, screenshots display AI Mode as a tab at the top of the Google Search app next to prominent filters like All, Places, Maps, and Images. According to the description page, the underlying model is Gemini 2.0, which has reasoning capabilities, meaning it breaks down queries into step-by-step instructions to search and verify. 

This approach purportedly reduces hallucinations since it allows the model to check its work rather than spewing out the probabilistic next word. 

Google One AI Premium subscribers who pay $20 a month get access first, and those enrolled in Labs can sign up for the waitlist.

SAVE $26.50: As of March 6, get the Anker Prime Charging Station for $59.49 at Amazon, down from its usual price of $85.99. That's a discount of 31%.

Opens in a new window Credit: Amazon Anker Prime Charging Station $59.49 at Amazon
$85.99 Save $26.50 Get Deal

Are you the type of person who lets your tech gadgets languish and then forgets to charge them? It can be frustrating to have to find the right charger, the right cable, and then plug everything in after finding an outlet. Anker has a ton of different options to help mitigate these problems, and there's one on sale today that should work fantastically the next time you find yourself in this situation.

As of March 6, get the Anker Prime Charging Station for $59.49 at Amazon, down from its usual price of $85.99. That's a 31% discount.

This 200W charger has six USB ports so you can charge six devices all at the same time. That includes two MacBook Pros that you can juice back up to 50% in 28 minutes, which is admittedly a very fast charge. Each USB-C port gives you up to 100W max, and when you use them at the same time, they can still offer that massive boost in power.

Plus, Anker's MultiProtect and ActiveShield systems monitor charging temperatures so if things get too hot, you don't have to worry about damaging your phones, laptops, tablets, or other components. This charger also comes with a 5 ft power cord so you don't have to worry about providing that like with some devices.

If you're in need of a new charger, you can't go wrong with one that offers this kind of convenience, so better snag it while you can at a discount.

A new immigration policy could mandate prospective citizens give up their social media profiles for review, adding to President Donald Trump's push for stronger border policy and a bottleneck on legal migrant entry.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has opened a 60-day comment period on the proposed change, which would add a request for social media handles to immigration benefit applications for those already residing in the U.S. The requirement would affect those applying for green cards and naturalization, asylum-seekers, refugees, and the relatives of people who have been granted asylum or refugee status, the Verge reported. According to the USCIS, the change would affect approximately 3.5 million people.

SEE ALSO: Report: Thousands of harmful AI chatbots threaten minor safety

The State Department already has a policy in place that requires the disclosure of five years of social media history for foreign nationals applying for visas before they enter the U.S., but the new policy would apply to current U.S. residents who are only seeking to update or change their status.

"These are people who could have been residing in the U.S. for 30, 40 years, as a Green Card holder who are seeking citizenship, or people who are residing on other types of visas who are seeking a Green Card," Saira Hussain, senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told Newsweek. "It really creates a massive chilling effect about people who could be vetted for their online speech, who have every right to be here in this country and could be chilled from sharing their opinions because they are concerned they are going to be vetted and denied immigration benefits such as naturalization."

The federal agency argues the collection of such data would support more "rigorous" vetting of citizen applicants and modernize the immigration system: "In a review of information collected for admission and benefit decisions, USCIS identified the need to collect social media identifiers ('handles') and associated social media platform names from applicants to enable and help inform identity verification, national security and public safety screening, and vetting, and related inspections," the policy filing reads.

SEE ALSO: Immigration red cards: The internet rallies to protect undocumented community

The proposal also invokes a recent Trump administration Executive Order titled, "Protecting the United States from Foreign Terrorists and Other National Security and Public Safety Threats" — a mandate to amp up scrutiny (and rejections) during the visa-issuance process. At large, the administration has committed to an overhaul of U.S. immigration policy, including mass deportations, an expedited ban on asylum entries at the southern border, and the disempowering of sanctuary cities.

The proposed USCIS policy change will remain open for public comment until May 5. Comments can be submitted on the Federal eRulemaking Portal website, and can be found by inputting the e-Docket ID number: USCIS-2025-0003

A monthlong bug that presented advertisements to Spotify Premium subscribers is now resolved, according to Spotify support. This is not the first time that Spotify has announced a fix for this bug, so I suggest that you hold off on celebrating for at least a couple days.

DuckDuckGo is not everyone's first option, but a lot of people like it because it puts a focus on privacy and because it's otherwise pretty lightweight and straightforward to use. DuckDuckGo is also widely rollout out AI summaries of search pages, although you might like these better than Google's.

If you have a compatible iPhone, a MagSafe car mount is a fantastic upgrade from clamp-style mounts or placing your phone in a cup holder. Now you can get a UGREEN MagSafe mount for just $8 on Amazon, but you have to click the ‘Apply 20% coupon’ button.

As we plan longer missions to space, the moon, Mars, and beyond, we'll need a way to keep our astronauts fed when they can't get resupply packages from Earth. That means figuring out how to grow food in space.

The word "spaceplane" brings up an instant image of some sort of high-altitude sci-fi craft, but real-world spaceplanes aren't quite that exciting, at least not yet. That doesn't make them any less cool, and I suspect during this century spaceplanes may become quite important.

Microsoft is experimenting with a new way to improve browser performance across Edge and (potentially) other web browsers. The idea is a simple one: restrict the performance of embedded web content, so one buggy element doesn’t bring down the whole page.

Microsoft and uBreakiFix by Asurion have teamed up to provide repair services for Surface devices that are still under warranty. This is a great win for uBreakiFix, but it also seems like a natural step forward after Xbox let the company fix its consoles.