IT General

TL;DR: Save 80% on a lifetime subscription to Headway, an app that summarises books into 15-minute summaries. Get this app on sale for £47.06 (reg. £235.30) at the Mashable Shop.

Opens in a new window Credit: GTHW App Limited Headway Premium: Lifetime Subscription £47.06 at the Mashable Shop
£235.30 Save £188.24 Get Deal

Is reading trendy? Well, yes — if TikTok’s growing BookTok community and Facebook book club groups have anything to say. If you want to join the conversation but can’t commit to reading full-length books, this is a clever solution.

Headway’s book summary app condenses what would normally be days' worth of reading into only 15 minutes. While you don’t get access to the whole book, you’ll get its key ideas and insights in easy-to-digest summaries. Get lifetime access at the Mashable Shop for £47.06 (reg. £235.30).

How many times have you seen someone share a book online and thought, ‘I should read that,’ but you knew you’d never actually get around to it? Headway changes your mentality completely since you now only need 15 minutes to absorb its message.

As you read or listen to summaries, the app learns what you like or dislike. From that, you’ll get personalised book recommendations, just like you’re in a real book club. 

Explore over 1,500 nonfiction book summaries and some fiction ones, too. There’ll be something new to check out whenever you open the app. You may even recognise a lot of these titles from your reading list: 

• Atomic Habits

• Total Recall (Arnold Schwarzenegger’s autobiography)

• The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck

• To Kill a Mockingbird

• Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff … and It’s All Small Stuff

The Headway app also motivates you to come back with a daily learning streak, trophies and achievements, and challenges. You might take a 14-day Self-Confidence challenge, listen to the pre-selected books each day, and earn three trophies by the end. 

Get a Headway lifetime subscription for £47.06 (reg. £235.30) — an 80% discount from the usual price.

StackSocial prices subject to change.

A new report by Human Rights Watch documents the continued exploitation of webcam models abroad, many of whom operate on popular sites like Chaturbate and are streamed by millions around the world — but aren't protected by either the platforms' Terms of Service or the larger labor movement.

An extensive documentation of webcam studio conditions in Colombia, the international human rights group's report outlines an increasingly abusive environment within webcamming studios hosted in cities like Bogotá, Cali, Medellín, and Palmira. The organization spoke to 55 studio-based webcammers, Colombian authorities, U.S. State Department officials, and anti-trafficking experts.

SEE ALSO: How porn performers feel about Trump, Harris, and Project 2025

Many of the models interviewed by Human Rights Watch and Colombian sex worker-led organizations La Liga de Salud Trans and Corporación Calle 7 Colombia recounted being coerced into "abysmal" sanitary and physical working conditions under constant surveillance, for periods of up to 24 hours. Even more recounted having never read or signed the Terms of Service of the platforms their content appeared on, with their accounts being made and overseen by the studios — guidelines that could offer them insight into further wage theft and sexual exploitation. For example, few of the webcam platforms offer protections for models to take breaks during live cam shifts. Studios reportedly pressured models into staying online for extended periods of time, using the threat of docked pay and decreased traffic.

Colombia has decriminalized sex work — a globally supported policy position among sex worker, labor, and human rights activists — and all of the models interviewed had consented to their work, yet adult content platforms, especially those in the webcam industry, continue to slip through the regulatory cracks and threaten the safety of models. “Sex workers deserve the same labor protections as all workers under international human rights law, but the billion-dollar webcam industry has largely avoided scrutiny for abuses in its supply chains,” writes report author and Human Rights Watch researcher Erin Kilbride. "Sexual exploitation is not inherent to webcam modeling, but our research indicates that the risk of exploitation in Colombian studios is extremely high."

Labor violations among webcam studio operators overseeing adult content models are well documented. While streaming platforms take anywhere from 50 to 65 percent of a model's earnings already, Human Rights Watch explains, studios like those documented in Colombia retain as much as 70 percent of what is paid out by the platform, reducing model earnings to meager numbers. In addition, many studios retain ownership of models' accounts, forcing them to stay with the studio or risk losing their followings and living wages. The organization reports that this is also a way for studios to circumvent verification systems that protect minors from entering the platform.

"Webcamming exists at the intersection of feminized labor, anti-sex work stigma, the informal economy, and the platform-mediated gig-economy. This combination makes it a ready site of multiple forms of labor exploitation," Human Rights Watch explains in the report. "Adult webcam platforms have remained largely immune to rebuke for their direct participation in and enabling of the exploitation of studio-based webcam workers."

It feels like just yesterday that illegal music downloads were going to destroy the music industry, until Steve Jobs showed us the way with the iPod and digital music sales. Today, music streaming is the most popular way to listen to your tunes, but it can be so hard to pick the right one, and once again I'm changing my service.

The holiday travel season is coming up, which means loads of empty homes and packages sitting on porches, ripe for the plucking. All the more reason to gift the people on your list, and yourself, a Ring security device that will shine a spotlight on dark places around the house, alert them to when someone’s lurking, and let them know when packages arrive, all in real time. 

Check out these top Ring picks that’ll keep tabs on their space while they’re at grandma’s — and they can uplevel their device’s capabilities with a Ring Home plan.

A Raspberry Pi "HAT" or Hardware Attached on Top is a simple upgrade component you can add to compatible models of Raspberry Pi computers to expand what they can do and make many different projects far easier than they were before.

By default, Windows 11 shows the Home page when you open File Explorer, unlike Windows 10, which displays the "This PC" page. However, you can configure File Explorer in Windows 11 to open the "This PC" page instead of the "Home" page.

Chrome has some essential security features that help protect your browsing experience, from enhanced protection against malware to performing an online safety check. Here are some simple settings I use to ensure I'm browsing safely on Chrome.

If you're hosting the holidays at your home, chances are you're going to have a lot more people using your Wi-Fi network than usual. There will be extra strain, but there are several things you can do to prepare your network for that, as well as keep it and everyone using it safe from risks.

We all have that one friend who treats their pet like it’s their child or best friend (or both). If you have one or more pet-obsessed buddies and are struggling to find them a last-minute gift for the holidays, we suggest getting them something that will also benefit their animal companion.

The best gifts for pet owners range from useful pet tech like pet cameras and GPS collars, to enrichment toys, comfy beds, and more. There are a whole lot of great pet products out there for every dog mom, cat dad, and every type of pet owner in between.

Below, we’ve pulled together a group of fantastic gift ideas for the pet owner in your life and we’re confident you’ll discover something here that your recipient will love. Now, go make your fellow pet parent’s day (and their pet’s day, too).

If you haven't been following the development of AI image generation tools, you may not be quite up-to-date on what they are capable of. The truth is that AI image generators can in fact create photorealistic images, and that's both amazing and deeply problematic.

One of the most highly-anticipated AI-related products has just arrived: OpenAI's AI video generator Sora launched on Monday as part of the company's 12 Days of OpenAI event.

OpenAI has provided sneak peeks at Sora's output in the past. But, how different is it at launch? OpenAI has certainly been hard at work to update and improve its AI video generator in preparation for its public launch.

YouTuber Marques Brownlee had a first look at Sora, releasing his video review of the latest OpenAI product hours before OpenAI even officially announced the launch. What did Brownlee think?

What Sora is good at

According to Brownlee, his Sora testing found that the AI video generator excels at creating landscapes. AI generated overhead, drone-like shots of nature or famous landscapes look just like real-life stock footage. Of course, as Brownlee points out, if you are specifically well-versed in how the surroundings of a landmark look, one might be able to spot the differences. However, there's not too much that looks distinctly AI-generated in these types of Sora-created clips.

SEE ALSO: How to try OpenAI's Sora right now

Perhaps the type of video Sora is best able to create, according to Brownlee, are abstract videos. Background or screensaver type abstract art can be made quite well by Sora even with specific instructions.

Brownlee also found that Sora-generated certain types of animated content, like stop-motion or claymation type animation, look passable at times as the sometimes jerky movements that still plague AI video look like stylistic choices.

SEE ALSO: 7 wild Sora videos blowing up social media after its launch

Most surprisingly, Brownlee found that Sora was able to handle very specific animated text visuals. Words often show up as garbled text in other AI image and video generation models. With Sora, Brownlee found that as long as the text was specific, say a few words on title card, Sora was able to generate the visual with correct spelling.

Where Sora goes wrong

Sora, however, still presents many of the same problems that all AI video generators that came before it have struggled with.

SEE ALSO: OpenAI's Sora is officially here

The first thing Brownlee mentions is object permanence. Sora has issues with displaying, say, a specific object in an individual's hand throughout the runtime of the video. Sometimes the object will move or just suddenly disappear. Just like with AI text, Sora's AI video suffers from hallucinations. 

Which brings Brownlee to Sora's biggest problem: Physics in general. Photorealistic video seems to be quite challenging for Sora because it can't just seem to get movement down right. A person simply walking will start slowing down or speeding up in unnatural ways. Body parts or objects will suddenly warp into something completely different at times as well.

And, while Brownlee did mention those improvements with text, unless you are getting very specific, Sora still garbles the spelling of any sort of background text like you might see on buildings or street signs.

Sora is very much an ongoing work, as OpenAI shared during the launch. While it may offer a step up from other AI video generators, it's clear that there are just some areas where all AI video models are going to find challenging.

OpenAI officially launched Sora on Monday, Dec. 9, and people are already testing its capabilities.

The company showed off its AI video generator last year before launching it during its 12 Days of OpenAI series of announcements. It was made available to the U.S. and lots of countries earlier today. Mashable's Cecily Mauran has all the details about the launch.

SEE ALSO: OpenAI's Sora is officially here

The general idea behind Sora is that, much like a chatbot, you give the AI tool a prompt, and it spits out results. But instead of text or images, you get videos. That is both pretty amazing and quite concerning.

There are already a number of videos created by Sora that are going viral online. Here are seven examples.

1. Here's an AI-generated news clip from Marques Brownlee, the popular tech YouTuber, who got to test Sora early. Tweet may have been deleted 2. Brownlee showed off Sora's impressive ability to create landscape videos. Tweet may have been deleted 3. Here is some fake historical video from Sora. Tweet may have been deleted 4. Here's a pelican on a bike...for some reason. Tweet may have been deleted 5. This person made a quick clip of Plato speaking. Tweet may have been deleted 6. Ever seen flying jellyfish? Tweet may have been deleted 7. The Roman Empire is definitely this dude's Roman Empire. Tweet may have been deleted

The tool from OpenAI just dropped, and there are already a number of videos out there.

Obviously, with time, folks will get the hang of Sora, and there will be more and more AI-generated video on our social feeds. Just be sure to stay on your toes and look out for fakes designed to fool you for nefarious purposes.

SEE ALSO: How to identify AI-generated videos

Since the Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold has a lot more going on than the Pixel 9 Pro, it comes at a greater cost, and that's all the more reason to protect it with a case. Why leave it exposed to the elements? Why risk dropping it without protection?

ChromeOS 131 is rolling out now to Chromebooks with a few useful improvements. Namely, it introduces the new "Safety reset" feature, which feels like a light version of a factory reset.

Sora is here.

On Monday, Dec. 9, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman announced that users in "most countries" will have access to its AI video generator, Sora — all you have to do is head to Sora.com and use your ChatGPT account.

This was the company's biggest announcement so far in its ongoing 12 Days of OpenAI event, in which it discusses new products every day for the first 12 business days in December.

"This is going live today in most of the world," Altman said during the livestream, adding that it won't actually go live in most of Europe or the UK. "If you have an open AI Plus subscription, you get 50 generations a month. If you have an open AI pro, you get unlimited generations in our sort of slow queue mode and 500 normal faster generations. You can also get fewer generations at the higher resolution. And anybody with any account can enjoy the feed."

The livestream also featured a demo of Sora, showing users how to check out videos made in Sora by scrolling through them in the "Featured" tab, which you can find under "Explore." OpenAI showed off how to prompt video, choose resolutions, length and aspect radio, and took viewers through how to use its new Storyboard feature.

"We're really excited to see what you all will create," Altman said. "We're really excited to see all of the new ways that this new kind of entertainment and tool will be used. You all did incredible work on this. I'm super proud of the team. I love the product."

Microsoft Office’s assistant Clippy lives as an unkind memory among those of us old enough to remember it, seventeen years after it disappeared for good. But I reckon Clippy was ahead of its time. It doesn’t deserve the bad rep it had back then, and I’ll explain why.

OpenAI has officially launched Sora.

On Monday, CEO Sam Altman immediately kicked off the livestream by announcing the Sora public release. As of today, Sora will be available today to ChatGPT Plus and Pro users in the U.S. and other countries — excluding the UK and countries within the EU.

SEE ALSO: Sora reportedly shipping as part of '12 Days of OpenAI' livestream marathon Tweet may have been deleted

Early last year, OpenAI introduced the AI video generator. But it has been quietly in development to a select group of testers, until being unleashed to the public today, allowing plenty of hype to build up in between. Early demos of Sora's photorealistic details and advanced sense of physics and accuracy has wowed AI enthusiasts. But it has also drawn controversy over how it got so good. OpenAI hasn't revealed what Sora was trained on, but reportedly transcribed over a million hours of YouTube videos, suggesting the AI video was trained on videos from the web without the credit or compensation of the video creators. Recently, a group of artists working as early testers for Sora leaked the API credentials in protest of what they call "art washing."

Perhaps, in an indirect response to criticisms that tools like Sora are exploiting and replacing the work of creatives, Flynn emphasized that "Sora is a tool" and an "extension for the creator behind it."

In the livestream, OpenAI product lead Rohan Sahai and product designer Joey Flynn wasted no time in sharing Sora's capabilities. The tool lives on a standalone website, sora.com, with an explore tab for discovering what other users are creating. By clicking into one of the videos, users can see the methods used to the create the video, such as simple text prompt, video or image extension, or Sora's storyboarding tool.

In the library tab, users can get started making their own video with a text prompt or uploading an image. From here, users can select aspect ratio, resolution up to 1080p, duration up to 20 seconds, and multiple variations of the prompt. There are also certain default presets like "stop motion" and "balloon world."

Sora also comes with a more advanced tool called Storyboard, which allows users to shape the video with specific directions. Storyboard bears a similar resemblance to other video editing tools with frame views on the bottom and various editing tools. Each "storyboard card" or frame can be generated from a text prompt or image upload. Users can use the recut feature to shift cards around, the remix feature to describe specific changes to the sequence, the loop tool to play the video on repeat, or blend to create a transition between multiple scenes.

In OpenAI's announcement, the company shared some of its safety measures. All Sora-generated videos come with C2PA invisible watermarks, and visible watermarks by default. Sora will block "damaging forms of abuse, such as child sexual abuse materials and sexual deepfakes," and limits uploads of people.

ChatGPT Plus users get 50 videos a month at 480p (or 720p for less videos) and ChatGPT Pro users get 10 times more usage.

SAVE $25: The rarely on sale Kindle Paperwhite is $25 off at Best Buy and Amazon. Get it now for $134.99 and 16% off.

Opens in a new window Credit: Amazon Amazon Kindle Paperwhite $134.99 at Amazon
$159.99 Save $25.00 Get Deal

Amazon is known for good deals, even on their own products, discounting Fire tablets and Echo devices frequently. However, when it comes to their Kindle e-readers, the deals are few and far between. Unless it's a shopping event like Prime Day or Black Friday, Kindles rarely see discounts, and you're left paying full price. Yet, a week after Cyber Monday, Best Buy is offering a sweet discount on the latest Kindle Paperwhite.

Back in October, Amazon launched its 2024 line-up of Kindles that included the upgraded basic Kindle as well as the Paperwhite and Paperwhite Signature Edition. Luckily, during Black Friday and Cyber Monday, we saw record low prices on the devices. However, as quickly as the deals came, off they went when Cyber Week ended.

The Kindle Paperwhite is my favorite e-reader. It's Amazon's fastest e-reader, turning pages quickly, and not stuttering when switching between books. The screen has a crisp, high-contrast screen with adjustable warmth so you can read at night without any eye strain. Plus, with its Libby integration and Kindle Unlimited, you can read all you want without spending a dime.

As a special holiday treat, Best Buy is offering $25 off the 2024 Kindle Paperwhite. This brings the e-reader down to $134.99, giving you 16% off — this is just $5 more than it's lowest price ever. And since first spotting this deal at Best Buy, Amazon has decided to get in on the savings too, matching Best Buy's price. That gives you the freedom to buy from your preferred retailer.

Safari is my preferred browser on macOS. However, from my experience, some of its default settings, despite being helpful, can slow down browsing, drain system resources, and even create security risks. To improve both security and performance, I make sure to keep these Safari features turned off.

SAVE $6.98: As of Dec. 9, select Verizon customers can get Netflix and Max (with ads) for just $10 a month, a $6.98 savings.

Opens in a new window Credit: Verizon Netflix & Max (with ads) Get Deal

If your subscription services are pinching your wallet, you might be able to save money with the latest Verizon bundle.

As of Dec. 9, select Verizon customers can get Netflix & Max (with ads) for just $10 a month. That’s about $6.98 off per month if you subscribe to Netflix Standard and Max with Ads separately.

To get this deal, you’ll need to be a Verizon Unlimited Ultimate ($65/month), Unlimited Plus ($55/month), or an Unlimited Welcome ($65/month) customer. Verizon customers with 5G Home, LTE Home, and Fios home internet plans are also eligible.

If you’re already on an eligible plan and a current Netflix or Max subscriber, all you have to do is sign into your Verizon account (select “services & perks” or “recommended perks”) and add the bundle. It’ll ask for your login credentials, and you'll be all set.