IT General

Today's Wordle answer should be easy to solve if you're familiar with British order.

If you just want to be told today's word, you can jump to the bottom of this article for today's Wordle solution revealed. But if you'd rather solve it yourself, keep reading for some clues, tips, and strategies to assist you.

SEE ALSO: Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more: Play games on Mashable SEE ALSO: NYT Connections hints today: Clues, answers for January 23, 2026 Where did Wordle come from?

Originally created by engineer Josh Wardle as a gift for his partner, Wordle rapidly spread to become an international phenomenon, with thousands of people around the globe playing every day. Alternate Wordle versions created by fans also sprang up, including battle royale Squabble, music identification game Heardle, and variations like Dordle and Quordle that make you guess multiple words at once. 

Wordle eventually became so popular that it was purchased by the New York Times, and TikTok creators even livestream themselves playing.

What's the best Wordle starting word?

The best Wordle starting word is the one that speaks to you. But if you prefer to be strategic in your approach, we have a few ideas to help you pick a word that might help you find the solution faster. One tip is to select a word that includes at least two different vowels, plus some common consonants like S, T, R, or N.

What happened to the Wordle archive?

The entire archive of past Wordle puzzles was originally available for anyone to enjoy whenever they felt like it, but it was later taken down, with the website's creator stating it was done at the request of the New York Times. However, the New York Times then rolled out its own Wordle Archive, available only to NYT Games subscribers.

Is Wordle getting harder?

It might feel like Wordle is getting harder, but it actually isn't any more difficult than when it first began. You can turn on Wordle's Hard Mode if you're after more of a challenge, though.

SEE ALSO: NYT Pips hints, answers for January 23, 2026 Here's a subtle hint for today's Wordle answer:

A noble.

Does today's Wordle answer have a double letter?

There are no recurring letters.

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

Today's Wordle starts with the letter B.

SEE ALSO: Wordle-obsessed? These are the best word games to play IRL. The Wordle answer today is...

Get your last guesses in now, because it's your final chance to solve today's Wordle before we reveal the solution.

Drumroll please!

The solution to today's Wordle is...

BARON

Don't feel down if you didn't manage to guess it this time. There will be a new Wordle for you to stretch your brain with tomorrow, and we'll be back again to guide you with more helpful hints.

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

SEE ALSO: NYT Connections Sports Edition today: Hints and answers for January 23, 2026

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

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

Not the day you're after? Here's the solution to yesterday's Wordle.

Is your boss preaching the virtues of AI at work, while you don't actually find AI helps anywhere in your role? Turns out you are not alone.

A new study from AI consulting firm Section surveyed 5,000 white collar employees, and found a major disparity between workers and their managers when it came to AI and productivity.

In the study, 33 percent of company executives said using AI saved them 4 to 8 hours a week. Another 19 percent claimed that they saved more than 12 hours each week thanks to AI. Only 2 percent of executives said AI didn't save them any time at all.

But when it came to non-managerial employees, the sentiment around AI completely flipped.

A whopping 40 percent of workers said using AI in the workplace did not save them any time at all. Another 27 percent of workers said that AI usage saved them less than 2 hours per week, and only 2 percent of employees said AI saved them more than 12 hours each week.

Meanwhile another damning AI report, from software company Workday, suggests even those estimates are overblown. In Workday's survey, 85 percent of employees who said AI saved them time actually wasted that saved time correcting errors made by AI, notes the Wall Street Journal.

AI can certainly be a productivity tool for certain industries. The technology sector has most embraced AI, according to the study. Some software developers have been able to utilize AI to help speed up monotonous coding tasks, even at the risk of making vibe coding mistakes.

Other industries have not seen the same benefits, however. Retail was at the bottom of the list in Section's study. But overall, 85 percent of respondents had either no work-related AI use cases or beginner-level use cases. 

Section's report also found that 40 percent of workers would be fine with never using AI again.

This echoes a warning on AI this week at Davos from Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, who urged the industry to look at whether the benefits of the technology are filtering down to average users.

"We will quickly lose even the social permission to actually take something like energy, which is a scarce resource," Nadella said, if AI systems "are not improving health outcomes, education outcomes, public sector efficiency, private sector competitiveness across all sectors, small and large."

Now these reports from Section and Workday suggest that social permission is rapidly fading, if AI even ever had it in the first place. And that should certainly be concerning to the companies betting big on AI.

Attorney General Pam Bondi announced Thursday that several organizers of a recent anti-ICE protest at a Minnesota church had been arrested. Soon after, The White House X account shared an image of one of the protesters, attorney and activist Nekima Levy Armstrong, being led away by law enforcement officers with tears streaming down her face.

The post quickly received a Community Notes fact-check on X, which stated: "Digitally altered image. See original arrest photo here." The Community Note also included a link to the New York Post, which shows the real version of the image, in which Armstrong is clearly not crying.

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The White House’s X post includes the all-caps caption, “ARRESTED. FAR-LEFT AGITATOR NEKIMA LEVY ARMSTRONG FOR ORCHESTRATING CHURCH RIOTS IN MINNESOTA.”

Meanwhile, the X account of FBI Director Kash Patel released images of Armstrong and other arrested activists; none of them appear to be crying, though. Crooked Media journalist Matt Berg posted on X that he asked White House officials if the crying images were altered and was reportedly told, "the memes will continue."

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The memeification of serious news events is par for the course on the Trump administration's social media accounts. As Mashable has reported previously, the Trump administration uses X and social media to dehumanize and insult its perceived enemies, often using 4chan-style memes and artificial intelligence in the process.

Bondi also posted about the arrests on X, and the Post reported the protesters have been charged with "conspiracy against rights," which is a federal charge for preventing someone from exercising their constitutional rights. Right-wing commentators have also argued that the protesters violated the FACE Act. Ironically, the FACE Act (Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act) is a law signed by President Bill Clinton to stop protesters from blocking the entrance to abortion clinics, but it also protects protesters from blocking the entrances of houses of worship.

The First Amendment does give Americans the right to peacefully protest; however, it does not give protesters the right to enter a church without permission and shut down a religious service. In fact, this type of behavior violates other people's First Amendment right to practice their free religion freely.

Videos of the anti-ICE protest at the Cities Church in St. Paul quickly went viral, with many viewers split between supporting the protesters and attacking them for going too far. Now, videos and photos of the protesters' arrests are going viral in turn.

As more Americans get their news from social media, the Trump administration has grown skilled at turning news into reality TV-style entertainment, with Trump as the star.

Rust 1.93.0 is now stable and was released today. It focuses on tightening up the compiler's safety guarantees while providing crucial new tools for performance-critical tasks. It is a solid release that makes the language feel more mature in areas that matter most.

Microsoft 365 suffered a major outage on Thursday, leaving some users unable to send or receive emails. That's obviously not ideal in the middle of a workday.

As the afternoon bled into the evening on the East Coast, the company said it was working toward a full resolution — though folks may still see issues — and shed some light on what caused the problem.

The most recent update on Microsoft's 365 status page indicated its infrastructure either mishandled or wasn't able to handle the traffic coming its way.

Under a section labeled "root cause," the status page read, "A portion of dependent service infrastructure in the North America region isn't processing traffic as expected."

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The company also said it was "carefully rebalancing traffic across all affected infrastructure in the region." It added it was "proceeding as quickly as possible and this incremental approach will also help us identify whether any additional actions may be required to ensure longstanding recovery."

We may get further details down the line from Microsoft, but, for now, it appears the company is working toward resolving the issue.

Updated at 6:15 p.m. ET on Jan. 22: Microsoft shared a new update on its recovery efforts Thursday evening.

On the Microsoft 365 status page, the company wrote: "We're carefully rebalancing traffic across all affected infrastructure in the region, while monitoring the corresponding health telemetry, to ensure the environment enters into a balanced state as our remediation efforts continue. We’re proceeding as quickly as possible and this incremental approach will also help us identify whether any additional actions may be required to ensure longstanding recovery."

As of this writing, there is still an active alert for Microsoft 365: "Users may be seeing degraded service functionality or be unable to access multiple Microsoft 365 services."

Microsoft 365 services, including Outlook, are experiencing heavy downtime today. Users have been reporting outages since the afternoon on social media and on Downdetector.

"Users may be seeing degraded service functionality or be unable to access multiple Microsoft 365 services," an update on Microsoft's status page reads.

Microsoft has now released a more detailed statement on the issue, letting users know that they are working on fixing the problem and acknowledging which services are facing outages.

"We're investigating a potential issue impacting multiple Microsoft 365 services, including Outlook, Microsoft Defender and Microsoft Purview," reads a Microsoft statement posted on X. 

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"We've identified a portion of service infrastructure in North America that is not processing traffic as expected," the company said in a follow-up statement. "We're working to restore the infrastructure to a healthy state to achieve recovery."

Microsoft's ongoing updates continued to detail that the company was working on mitigating the issues in order to restore the affected services.

"We're continuing to review what actions are required to restore the affected infrastructure to a healthy state and rebalance the service traffic to achieve recovery," Microsoft posted on the official @MSFT365Status X account.

Microsoft's final update seemed to suggest that the underlying issue was fixed, but problems stemming from the outage are currently persisting. 

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"While we've restored the affected infrastructure to a healthy state, further load balancing is required to mitigate impact," Microsoft said. "We're directing traffic to alternate infrastructure to achieve recovery."

Mashable will continue following the Microsoft 365 outage and provide more detailed updates on what happened as we find out.

TL;DR: Refresh your PC with a Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2019 for Windows license, on sale now for just $19.97 (reg. $229).

Opens in a new window Credit: Microsoft Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2019 for Windows $19.97
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This Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2019 for Windows license lets you draft a document in Word, build out a budget in Excel, keep tabs on emails in Outlook, and design a killer presentation in PowerPoint. You can also upgrade your note-taking with OneNote, manage large databases with Access, and build professional designs with Publisher.

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Lexus has always been the safe bet for people who want a luxury car without the German-car headaches. Their hybrids live up to that reputation, staying reliable while keeping maintenance costs surprisingly low.

Updated on Jan. 22 at 5:31 p.m. ET: Microsoft said it was working toward fixing a 365 outage on Thursday, though noted users may still be experiencing issues.

"We're carefully rebalancing traffic across all affected infrastructure in the region," read a statement on its 365 status page. "We’re proceeding as quickly as possible and this incremental approach will also help us identify whether any additional actions may be required to ensure longstanding recovery."

Microsoft 365 suffered an outage on Thursday, affecting U.S. users going about their workday.

"Users may be seeing degraded service functionality or be unable to access multiple Microsoft 365 services," the company wrote on its 365 status page.

Microsoft users reported being unable to send or receive email through Outlook, and services such as Teams and Defender may also be affected. Ironically, even the Microsoft 365 status page is having trouble loading for some users.

"Users may be receiving a '451 4.3.2 temporary server issue' error message when attempting to send or receive email through Outlook," read the Microsoft status page.

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User-reported issues for Microsoft 365 spiked on Downdetector on Thursday afternoon. The reports appeared to be going down as evening, Eastern time, approached. (Disclosure: Downdetector is owned by Ziff Davis, the same parent company as Mashable.)

Microsoft noted it was working toward restoring services.

"While we've restored the affected infrastructure to a heathy state, further load balancing is required to mitigate persistent impact," read its 365 status page. "We've identified and are implementing additional actions to direct requests and traffic to additional healthy sections of infrastructure to achieve withstanding recovery."

Not being able to send or receive emails is, obviously, a major pain for workers. Lots of folks took to social media to voice their frustrations and, of course, make jokes.

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Microsoft has been no stranger to outages lately. It saw two major outages in October alone, with both 365 and Azure crashing that month. There was also the infamous, massive outage in 2024, ultimately caused by an issue with the cybersecurity provider CrowdStrike.

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

This month, we’re tackling something new and broaching the topic of—wait for it—date night. Woohoo! I don’t know about you, but my perfect date night is at home with my favorite person, in front of the TV, with our favorite snacks and a good movie or two.

For Lego fans, winter is a great time to focus on building new sets. While you wait for spring weather and returning outside, Lego is a nice way to keep busy from the comfort of your home. And Lego has recently revealed a whole new batch of builds for January, so there's plenty of options to check out right now. Among them are a variety of new floral sets, which are perfect for adding a bit of color to your home ahead of spring.

There's a nice assortment of new arrangements available right now, including a delightfully colorful Tulip Bouquet and a lovely Peace Lily, but there's also some sweet smaller builds. If you're not looking to piece together a big bouquet, there are options with lower piece counts to look through, including Sunflowers, Cherry Blossoms, Roses, and more.

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No matter which Lego flower set catches your eye, it's sure to be a bright addition to your home as you wait for spring to roll around. Check out Lego's latest floral sets below.

Tulip Bouquet (11501) Credit: Lego

Lego's Tulip Bouquet is bursting with bright colors. It's a set that's recommended for adult builders and comes with 576 pieces that create five varieties of tulips in different colors and stages of bloom. There's vibrant red, yellow, and pink opened tulips in the arrangement, alongside purple closed tulips and green buds with green leaves. Put it in a vase once completed and it'll be an instant reminder that spring isn't too far away.

Opens in a new window Credit: Lego Tulip Bouquet #11501 $59.99 at Lego
  Shop Now Peace Lily (11504) Credit: Lego

The Lego Peace Lily is a wonderful set for a shelf or cabinet. Again, it's one that's recommended for adults, with a piece count of 474. These bricks combine to produce a variety of lilies in three stages — there's two furled buds in the arrangement, plus two partially open flowers, and two in full bloom — alongside green leaves and a little plant pot. Whether it's on a desk, shelf, or table, it's sure to be a standout display in any room.

Opens in a new window Credit: Lego Peace Lily #11504 $49.99 at Lego
  Shop Now Flowering Cactus (11509) Credit: Lego

Lego's Flowering Cactus is a set recommended for younger builders than the two above (those who are aged nine and up can jump into it), though it still comes with a fairly high piece count of 482. Situated in a blue plant pot, this set builds two cacti: one is larger and in full bloom with a pink flower at the top, while the other is smaller and has little pink buds. If you're looking for something a little different to the flower sets above, this is a fun option to have on display.

Opens in a new window Credit: Lego Flowering Cactus #11509 $34.99 at Lego
  Shop Now Daisies (11508) Credit: Lego

If you're not interested in one of those bigger sets with a lot of pieces, Lego's Daisies set comes with just 133 pieces and sets you up with a sweet little flower arrangement to put in a small vase. It's another build that's recommended for those aged nine and above, and comes with a nice variety of flowers, including three large daisies, two stems of smaller daisies, and three lavenders, all of which are on green stems. There's even a little ladybug piece.

Opens in a new window Credit: Lego Daisies #11508 $14.99 at Lego
  Shop Now Sunflowers (40524) Credit: Lego

Sunflowers are always a nice reminder of sunshine and warmer weather, which is what makes the Lego Sunflowers set such a great build to work on during the winter. Recommended for builders aged eight and up, it comes with 191 pieces that create two sunflowers with adjustable stems and leaves. While they're nice to have on their own, these sunflowers are worth combining with some of the other floral sets for a big vibrant bouquet of colorful flowers.

Opens in a new window Credit: Lego Sunflowers #40524 $14.99 at Lego
  Shop Now Cherry Blossoms (40725) Credit: Lego

The Lego Cherry Blossoms set is another that's recommended for builders aged eight and up, but it comes with many more pieces in comparison to the Sunflowers, with a total count of 430. These create two cherry blossom twigs that are filled with a variety of white and pink buds. This set is another that could be displayed either on its own or combined with other floral sets, if you're curious to create your own arrangement.

Opens in a new window Credit: Lego Cherry Blossoms #40725 $14.99 at Lego
  Shop Now Roses (40460) Credit: Lego

Similar to the Sunflowers and Cherry Blossoms sets, the Lego Roses set is one that can be displayed either on its own or combined with other floral arrangements. Plus, with Valentine's Day right around the corner, there's no better time to grab this classic romantic offering. Again, it's recommended for those aged eight and up, and comes with just 120 pieces to create two red roses with adjustable leaves and stems.

Opens in a new window Credit: Lego Roses #40460 $14.99 at Lego
  Shop Now

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Opens in a new window Credit: Pok Pok Pok Pok: Lifetime Subscription $59.99
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Pok Pok is the low-stimulation app parents dream of. Geared towards children ages 2 to 8, this award-winning app provides screen time that is both educational and entertaining. Hand-drawn animations and in-house-made gentle sound effects create a calm app experience, all while kids learn topics like STEM, numbers, and language.

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You have probably been greeted by the frustrating sight of your lights showing an error status in the Google Home app. Fortunately, the company is finally working on a fix for the annoying and widespread bug that causes smart lights and switches to incorrectly display as offline in its app.

Here’s a fun and somewhat terrifying fact: you’re on a planet right now. We all know this, but it’s hard to really visualize. The good news is there’s a website for that, and it can tell you exactly how far Earth has traveled through space since you arrived on it.

The fallout over Kumma the bear, a stuffed toy initially powered by ChatGPT and designed to interact with children, began in November.

A researcher for U.S. PIRG Education Fund tested the product, alongside other AI toys, and published the alarming findings. Sweet, soft Kumma would happily tell its conversation partner how to light a match as well as discuss sexual kink. 

The bear's maker, FoloToy, had licensed OpenAI's technology to program Kumma's responses. FoloToy temporarily stopped Kumma sales to conduct a safety audit. The revelations prompted OpenAI to indefinitely suspend FoloToy's developer access — even though the toy may still be relying on ChatGPT to produce the stuffed bear’s responses.

SEE ALSO: What to know before you buy an AI toy

Meanwhile, ahead of the holiday shopping season, child advocacy groups expressed urgent concern over AI toys. In December, two U.S. senators sent letters to companies inquiring about their designing and manufacturing of AI toys. In January, a California state senator introduced legislation that would put a four-year moratorium on the sale of AI chatbot toys for anyone under 18. On Thursday, Common Sense Media declared AI toys unsafe for children 5 and younger.

As for Kumma, the bear's fate is a complicated tale about what can happen when an AI toy hits the market before families, companies, and regulators have fully considered the ramifications. Legal experts interviewed by Mashable say AI toys exist in unclear and unfamiliar legal territory.

There is no obvious answer — yet — to the question: Who exactly is responsible if a child is harmed when engaging with an AI toy? 

Of course, that assumes toymakers can and will be transparent about the technology their product relies on. OpenAI no longer permits its licensees to publicly disclose that their product uses the company's technology, including ChatGPT, unless they've received "express prior written permission in each instance." 

This concerns R.J. Cross, director of the Our Online Life program for U.S. PIRG Education Fund. Cross was the researcher who discovered Kumma's "failure points." 

"When you have OpenAI specifically saying you can't publicly disclose this without our permission, that's just going to make it harder for everyone — parents, caretakers, regulators – to know what's really happening, and that's not a good thing," said Cross.

How did ChatGPT get into Kumma? 

Consumers who saw the headlines about Kumma might have wondered how ChatGPT, an AI chatbot with more than 800 million weekly users, ended up in a stuffed bear sold online by a company without household-name recognition. 

The explanation might surprise consumers unfamiliar with the licensing agreements that OpenAI makes with developers to access and integrate its large language models into their own products. Such agreements are standard and strategic in the technology industry, particularly for companies looking to scale their business quickly. 

In 2025, OpenAI inked a deal with Mattel, but the toymaker didn't launch an AI product by year's end. The AI companies Perplexity and Anthropic have been previously linked to children's toys designed and manufactured by a third party, according to Cross' research. 

Yet OpenAI's commitment to youth safety is under tremendous scrutiny. The company faces multiple wrongful death lawsuits related to ChatGPT use. Some of the plaintiffs are parents of teens who allege that ChatGPT coached their children to conceal mental health problems and take their own lives in moments of extreme distress. 

"We now know — and we think the lawsuit puts a pretty fine point on the fact — that ChatGPT is not a safe product," said Eli Wade-Scott, a partner at Edelson PC and a lawyer representing parents suing OpenAI for the suicide death of their son, Adam Raine. The company had denied the allegations in that case.   

Cross has struggled to understand why OpenAI licenses ChatGPT to developers who use it in children's products, given that the company's own terms of service prohibit chatbot use by minors under 13. 

OpenAI told Mashable that any developer that deploys one of the company's large language models in products for younger users must obtain parental consent and comply with child safety and privacy law. (Cross said FoloToy now asks for parental consent to collect a child's data via its web portal settings.)

Developers are also required to follow OpenAI's universal usage policies, which include the prohibition of exposing minors to sexual and violent content. OpenAI does run algorithms to help ensure its services are not used by licensees to harm minors, and gives developers free access to its proprietary moderation tools. 

OpenAI told Mashable that its "managed customers" work with the company's sales team on deployment strategies and safety. When OpenAI becomes aware of a user who's developed a toy or product designed for a minor that violates its usage policies, the company either warns or suspends them.

"You can put into a contract how serious you are about them using it in an ethical and safe way." - Colleen Chien, professor of law at U.C. Berkeley School of Law

Colleen Chien, a professor of law at U.C. Berkeley School of Law, told Mashable that companies can be more careful when licensing their technology by creating a "vetted partner" program that places key restrictions on the licensee. This process could include requiring licensees to complete certification or training to ensure they're using the technology safely and appropriately.

"You can put into a contract how serious you are about them using it in an ethical and safe way," said Chien, who is also co-director of the Berkeley Center for Law & Technology. "Or you can be much more loose about it." 

With the latter approach, the company might suspend a licensee if it discovers violations of the contract or receives allegations of improper use. 

"At that point, the damage has already been done, and you're not really taking responsibility ex ante for what might happen downstream," Chien said. 

What happens when AI toys harm? 

If a child has a harmful or dangerous experience with an AI toy powered by ChatGPT, OpenAI is very clear about who's to blame. The company told Mashable that its licensees are solely responsible for their product's outputs.

In addition, OpenAI's services agreement appears to absolve the company and its licensees against liabilities, damages, and costs related to a third-party claim. The agreement also prohibits class action lawsuits to resolve disputes, which could include claims related to an AI toy. 

Chien notes that consumer safety law doesn't require companies to sell a "perfectly safe" product. Instead, a company must take reasonable precautions and not subject its customers to outsized risk. Laws requiring a perfect safety record, she said, could stifle innovation, particularly in technology. 

Still, Chien said some liability should probably remain with OpenAI, because its size and resources give the company a clear advantage in detecting and avoiding risks to downstream users, like families who purchase AI toys powered by their technology. 

Either way, she acknowledges that the rapid adoption of large language models in consumer products raise novel issues about who's liable when things go wrong. Product safety laws, for example, currently emphasize physical harm, but what if a child's stuffed AI toy tells her how to lie to her parents or subjects her to conversational sexual abuse? 

Aaron P. Davis, co-managing partner of the commercial complex business and personal injury firm Davis Goldman, said he doesn't believe OpenAI should be responsible for every incident that might have involved consultation with ChatGPT. Yet he does think extra caution regarding AI toys is warranted, given their unique ability to earn the trust of vulnerable users, like a therapist, doctor, or teacher might. 

"This is going to be taken on a case by case basis, and I think that it's sort of a dangerous avenue that we're going down," he said of the product's potential risks. 

Davis, who reviewed OpenAI's services agreement for Mashable, said he wasn't sure whether key clauses related to publicity and liability would be enforceable. 

Prohibiting licensees from sharing that their product incorporates ChatGPT could impinge on fair use law, he noted. Davis was also skeptical of OpenAI's motivation for including this clause. 

"The reason [OpenAI] is doing this is because they don't want people to be able to figure out who made the AI so they get sued," Davis said. 

Confusingly, OpenAI does permit licensees to reference a specific model if their product leverages the company's developer platform.

"I think the conflicting policies underlie the platform's intention to insulate itself from liability while maintaining the utility of the product," he said.

The agreement's clause related to class actions also gave Davis pause. He argued that it effectively prevents a customer who's discovered a product defect from publicizing it widely. 

In general, Davis found the language favorable to OpenAI in ways that could significantly shield it from consumer transparency and accountability. 

What happened to Kumma?

Kumma is available for sale online again, but its return to the market comes with yet more questions.

Larry Wang, FoloToy's founder and CEO, told Mashable that the company's internal safety review led to strengthened age-appropriate content rules and tightened topic constraints, among other safety measures.

Indeed, when R.J. Cross tested Kumma again in December, it deflected the same questions she originally asked about kink and how to light a match. 

"We're glad to see that," Cross said. "It's kind of the bare minimum."

Yet Cross also noticed something inexplicable: Despite FoloToy's indefinite suspension from OpenAI's developer API, users could still select ChatGPT-5.1 and 5.1 Chat from a dropdown menu of large language models to program Kumma's responses.

Wang did not respond to Mashable's questions about whether the company continued to use ChatGPT for Kumma. OpenAI told Mashable it had not reversed FoloToy's suspension, but didn't provide further details about why or how ChatGPT could appear functional for Kumma.

As a researcher, Cross is dependent on transparency from manufacturers. Without it, she can't as easily connect problems with AI toys that rely on the same large language model. But consumers need it too, she argues. 

If a toy uses the model xAI's Grok to respond, for example, a consumer might make a different choice upon learning that the product created sexual abuse imagery using pictures of real women and children. 

"[T]hey deserve to have information available if they do want to look into things more carefully," she said. 

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

The 2026 Subaru WRX lineup offers a lot of choices if you’re ready to treat yourself to a sports car without going overboard. Similar to other beloved and affordable sports cars, the 2026 WRX doubles as a daily driver and something fun for the weekend. Like a true driver’s car, a six-speed manual transmission is standard on five of the six trim levels.

It seems like forever ago that we first read about melting GPU power connectors and small fires starting inside PCs as the wattage was cranked up to unbelievable levels. You'd think that, by now, this issue would be definitively solved, but it's still happening, and the "fixes" all seem like stopgaps. So what's happening?

I spend a ton of time scrolling through the endless documentary titles on Prime Video. And if you look hard enough, sometimes it has a way of serving up some perfect weekend (or weekday) doc gems.

Are you ready for a couple of challenging (and one more simple) Raspberry Pi projects? This weekend’s Raspberry Pi projects will put your hardware skills to the test with tasks like handling stepper motors and drivers, programming LEDs, and spinning up Docker containers.

On Wednesday, Ubisoft canceled several games and shut down multiple studios in a major company restructure. At the same time, the studio pledged to double down on generative AI in game development moving forward. On Thursday, the stock market treated the company accordingly.

Specifically, Ubisoft shares tumbled by 34 percent on Thursday morning, per CNBC. As of this writing, Ubisoft shares are now down 39.83 percent.

The company has been struggling financially for some time now, with flagship franchises like Assassin's Creed demanding huge budgets and prolonged development cycles, and other titles not necessarily making the kind of sales impact Ubisoft hoped for. Given that Ubisoft recently had to shutter studios in places like Halifax (a Canadian union argued this move was a case of union-busting) and Stockholm, on top of the litany of game cancelations announced on Wednesday, it's no surprise that the market is losing faith in the longtime games publisher.

SEE ALSO: Ubisoft axes 'Prince of Persia: Sands of Time' remake, announces major company restructure

Most of the canned projects were unannounced titles with no real information to speak of yet. However, the cancelation of the Prince of Persia: Sands of Time remake dominated headlines, and justifiably so.

The project was announced in 2020 with a 2021 release date, then went radio silent for several years before being unceremoniously killed six years later. It's not clear from the outside looking in how a remake of a PlayStation 2-era game could miss its due date by five years, but it feels emblematic of everything going wrong with Ubisoft and big-budget game development writ large right now.

In any case, hopefully those affected by these cancelations and studio closures can land on their feet.