IT General

xAI’s notorious data centers near Memphis, Tenn., are appropriately named Colossus 1 and Colossus 2. The supercomputers that power the Grok chatbot are indeed enormous — they’re also environmental menaces, according to the NAACP.

The civil rights organization filed an intention to sue Elon Musk's xAI last year over Colossus’ numerous methane gas turbines, saying the company used a legal loophole to install them without permits and, in doing so, threatened the health of the nearby Black-majority community of Boxtown. Somewhat shockingly, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) agreed with the NAACP, ruling in January 2026 that Colossus’ turbines were not exempt from air quality permit requirements. Curtailing the turbines, which emit nitrogen oxide into a community already dealing with high levels of pollution, was a victory for the NAACP and Abre’ Conner, director of the organization's Center for Environmental and Climate Justice.

Just this month, Conner and the NAACP were buoyed when New York state introduced a three-year moratorium on data center construction, potentially giving legislators time to enact regulations for the energy-sucking facilities. Conner, a lawyer and longtime environmental justice leader, spoke with Mashable about her mission and how the data center build-out is reminiscent of the destructive highway construction of the last century.

Tell us why the NAACP is making data centers a priority.

Conner: A lot of the time, people will attribute the AI bubble that may pop up on their search screen to something that lives in the cloud, but it doesn’t. It uses physical infrastructure to power these AI requests.

The reason we’re so interested and concerned about this is that for decades, the NAACP has understood that environmental and climate justice issues are racial justice issues. A lot of the technology and promises, as it relates to energy, have shown up in Black communities and frontline communities in the past, from fracking to crypto mining.

SEE ALSO: Data center investments reached $61 billion in 2025, report finds

A lot of this industrial build-out tends to be concentrated in particular places, and we saw that very pointedly last year when Elon Musk and xAI decided to build a data center near Boxtown, which is in south Memphis, and that’s a historically Black community. What was even more concerning was that there was a typical process you went through to get a permit, and then, at that point, it would be decided whether you could operate and what that operation should look like. And that data center was operating with unregulated methane gas turbines.

So we had concerns about whether we would see more of these operations now that you have tech billionaires [showing interest] in other communities. Of course, we did start to see the AI boom [manifest] throughout the year in different ways; different nondisclosure agreements being signed, backroom deals, and more pollution that was starting to be more concentrated in communities that have been fighting back against environmental and climate justice concerns for years.

[B]ecause it’s people in the tech space, they’re promising that somehow [the data centers are] different. Even though they’re using the same industrial build-out — the same types of diesel generator backups, methane gas — somehow that’s going to be less harmful to people’s health when it was done in the past. What have these tech companies been telling community members?

[That's] if they even show up and talk to the community members at all. A lot of times, they’re not talking to community members; they might be talking to one or two elected officials. They might talk to someone at an agency level, maybe. But there aren’t a lot of conversations actually happening with the people most impacted. That’s part of the problem — there’s not a lot of transparency. By the time people find out about it, the zoning is being redone, and construction may already be happening. In the case of xAI, they’re already operating, and then they want to go and have a conversation with the community after they’re already in it.

Because [the tech companies are] going into places where there’s been disinvestment over decades and decades, we're seeing the same playbook used, like promising a community fair or investment in a school. That has nothing to do with the pollution they’re actually bringing into the communities, or the hundreds of millions of gallons of water they’re utilizing in order to run the data center, or the noise concerns. We’re seeing some of the same plays we saw in the coal-fired power plant boom, from fracking and crypto mining.

But what’s interesting and different is that because it’s people in the tech space, they’re promising that somehow [the data centers are] different. Even though they’re using the same industrial build-out — the same types of diesel generator backups, methane gas — somehow that’s going to be less harmful to people’s health when it was done in the past.

Abre’ Conner at an NAACP event in Los Angeles. Credit: Photo by Leon Bennett/Getty Images For NAACP It seems reminiscent of the construction of the U.S. highway system in the 20th century, when Black and minority neighborhoods were leveled for the expressways. Are there parallels?

Absolutely. Redlining, the idea of NIMBYism, all that kind of framing is what we’re seeing now. There’s also this promise of a better future, but when people working at these companies are asked, “Would you want that data center in your backyard?” They’re like, “Well, let’s take a pause.”

When we look at redlining to highways to trains, there was a systemic racism component to it. If the [tech companies are] getting advised to, for example, build in places where there is already existing infrastructure, that is just going to deepen the environmental and climate concerns from people who don’t want more pollution in [their] communities.

I imagine the reaction from governments to data centers is very different depending on where they are. Tennessee, for example, is not a hotbed of environmental activism, while a state like New York is considering moratoriums on data centers. How does that geographic inconsistency affect your efforts?

For me, as someone who’s been doing environment and climate justice work for a decade and a half, what’s extremely hopeful for me is where seeing people across political lines, in urban and rural communities, all asking questions. They're saying, “Do we have enough answers in order to move forward with a data center in our community?” That is something that’s really different than what we’ve seen in other industrial build-outs in the past.

People are asking, “Why are you signing a nondisclosure agreement about our public resources? Shouldn’t we be able to see what you’re all talking about if we’re paying taxes in this community? Shouldn’t we be part of that conversation?"

Because people are seeing their utility bills go up, they’re seeing the impacts of data centers even before one shows up. That’s changed the landscape of the conversation. That’s why we’re seeing places like New York, saying, “Do we have enough information to move forward?” In [the NAACP's] playbook for 2026, that was something we shared. If there’s not enough information, call for a moratorium until you have the information needed to move forward in a way that feels responsible to the community that will feel those impacts.

Questions are being asked [of the tech companies, like], “OK, you’re saying jobs. How many?” The highest we’re seeing is in the dozens; a lot of them are temporary. Are the tech companies trying to sell the idea of job creation with these data centers?

It’s absolutely the same playbook of, “There’s going to be jobs. It’s going to be good for the local economy. This is something we’re going to do in the cleanest way possible.” Questions are being asked [of the tech companies, like], “OK, you’re saying jobs. How many?” The highest we’re seeing is in the dozens; a lot of them are temporary, a lot of them are on the construction side, a lot of them are going to deepen the same concerns that we see when it comes to working on sites when you’re going to be exposed to a bunch of pollution non-stop.

In our frontline framework that we released last year, over 100 organizations, allies, and coalition partners came together to say that jobs cannot be more important than the health of the community members who live there.

What is it like working in environmental justice in 2026, when the federal government is so pro-AI and has expressed very little concern about the environment and minority communities?

When we saw Project 2025, we knew what that was going to look like. We knew there wasn’t going to be a rollback of our environment and climate protections. We knew that was coming.

For the NAACP, at our roots, it’s always been about people power. It’s been about highlighting what we could do with or without government support on the federal level.

Back in North Carolina, in Warren County, when you had a Black community saying, “We don’t want dumping in our community,” there wasn’t any federal government support per se at that time. The state was even saying, “Well, we’re not really sure we want to be involved in that.”

It was the people on the ground who mobilized and said, “We will not take this anymore.” They created the audience that was needed on the national level, and that’s what we’re seeing now. Even though we don’t have an administration at the federal level that is helpful, hopefully people are understanding just what this means. We’re in a midterm year; we have an opportunity to have people in office who represent our perspectives. The mobilization, the organizing, the work on the ground will always be there, and as long as we’re there with the communities willing to push back, I think we still have a fighting chance regardless of who’s in office.

Read more about the NAACP's environmental work here.

The winter doldrums are almost behind us, and that means new Android phones are on the horizon. Samsung has announced the date for the first Galaxy Unpacked event of 2026, which is when the Galaxy S26 series will be officially shown off. The company has also shared information about pre-order promotions.

Home Assistant is incredibly powerful, but there are so many features that navigating your way through all the menus can be a chore. You can do things much faster if you stick to using your keyboard.

Our long national nightmare is over. We finally know when Samsung is going to show off the Galaxy S26 lineup.

The Korean tech giant confirmed that the next Galaxy Unpacked livestream will take place on Wednesday, Feb. 25 at 10 a.m. PT (9 a.m. ET). The event is in San Francisco this year, and it's widely expected that Samsung will show off three new Galaxy S26 phones.

As per usual, you can watch the event on Samsung's website or Samsung's YouTube channel.

Mashable will be at the event and reporting live on all of the announcements, so keep checking back for the latest updates on Galaxy Unpacked.

SEE ALSO: Samsung Galaxy Z TriFold Phone quickly sells out online despite near $3,000 pricetag

Hosting the event this late in February is highly unusual for Samsung, which usually launches its next-gen Galaxy phones in January. It's not really clear why Samsung took as long as it did to put Unpacked together this year, as it doesn't seem like the S26 lineup is doing anything too wild to shake up the formula, though production delays and the global memory shortage may be factors.

All reports point to the usual lineup (S26, S26 Plus, and S26 Ultra) returning this year, with typical upgrades like a newer processor and bigger batteries.

It also wouldn't be surprising to see some camera upgrades or new AI features, and we've already reported on a ton of S26-related leaks and rumors. We'll all find out together in a couple of weeks.

SAVE OVER $100: As of Feb. 10, the Apple MacBook Air M4 is on sale for $849.99 at Amazon. This 15% discount saves you $149.01 off its list price of $999.

Opens in a new window Credit: Apple Apple MacBook Air M4 $849.99 at Amazon
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Amazon has knocked nearly $150 off the price of the Apple MacBook Air M4. If you've been hoping to upgrade your laptop for the year ahead, this is a great time to scoop up this popular model at a cheaper price.

The 2025 13-inch MacBook Air usually comes with a price tag of $999, but it's currently available for $849.99. In total, this saves you $149.01 off its list price. If you're in the Apple ecosystem already, it's a laptop that's certainly worth picking up on sale.

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We consider the 2025 13-inch MacBook Air to be the best MacBook for students, thanks to "its greater portability and even cheaper price," but it's an option for everyone. Whether you're using it for work or personal use, the M4 chip offers up speedy and smooth processing power, and with up to 18 hours of battery life, it'll keep you going throughout the day.

Its Liquid Retina display offers up crisp, colorful visuals. This particular model comes with 16GB of Unified Memory and a 256GB SSD.

Don't miss this excellent deal on the Apple MacBook Air M4 at Amazon.

TL;DR: A lifetime license for Microsoft Office Professional 2021 bundled with Windows 11 Pro is on sale for $44.97 (reg. $418.99) through Feb. 22 at 11:59 p.m. PT.

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Microsoft Office remains a fundamental software for work and school, but subscription fees aren’t for everyone. For those who prefer a one-and-done approach, this bundle pairs a lifetime license for Microsoft Office Professional 2021 with Windows 11 Pro for $44.97 (reg. $418.99) through Feb. 22 at 11:59 p.m. PT.

Office 2021 Professional delivers the core suite that remains central to many daily routines: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote, Publisher, Access, and Teams. These are full desktop versions, which are ideal for those who want offline access and a traditional layout. The familiar ribbon interface streamlines document creation and analysis, offering customization for layouts, fonts, and formatting. For those who don’t need cloud-first tools, Office 2021’s setup is a practical advantage.

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The bundle’s other half is Windows 11 Pro, Microsoft’s current professional-grade operating system. Along with a streamlined design, it offers productivity and security features like BitLocker encryption, Windows Sandbox, Hyper-V virtualization, and advanced account controls. Copilot, Microsoft’s AI assistant, is also integrated — ready to summarize web pages, generate drafts, answer questions, or change settings from the taskbar.

This is a one-time purchase, not a Microsoft 365 subscription, so it does not include ongoing feature updates or cloud storage perks. Hardware requirements are modest — 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage — but users should still check compatibility before upgrading.

This deal is well-suited for professionals, students, or small-business owners who prefer to own their software and skip subscription extras. If you fall into that group, $44.97 is a stellar price for securing both Office tools and Windows 11 Pro with no recurring fees. For those weighing their options, this bundle offers value and simplicity in one purchase. Get it today at this low price until Feb. 22 at 11:59 p.m. PT.

StackSocial prices subject to change.

I have a lot of storage for my Plex server—over 60TB, actually. However, even I sometimes run into space issues and have to find ways to free up hard drive storage without deleting things. That’s where Tdarr comes in, and here’s how I used it to free up over 7TB of space on my server.

The third-generation AirPods Pro come with several upgrades over the previous model, especially in sound quality and noise cancellation. While those improvements may not sound dramatic on paper, they do make a noticeable difference, whether you’re listening to music alone or in public.

Charli XCX is going from pop star to movie star with a string of films, including the queer fantasy 100 Nights of Hero, the mockumentary The Moment, and the sapphic romantic drama Erupcja.

Charli XCX co-wrote the script for Erupcja with director Pete Ohs and co-star Lena Góra. Set in Warsaw, the film focuses on two women, a local florist named Nel (Góra) and a tourist named Bethany (XCX), who has repeatedly crashed her love life. But this time, Bethany's brought her current boyfriend Rob (Will Madden), who is looking for the perfect moment to propose.

In my review out of the film's premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, which is quoted in the above trailer, I cheered: "Shot with the kinetic yet poised cool of the French New Wave, this Polish production feels timeless. Its scenes play out with enough specificity for audiences to hook in, but enough ambiguity that they can feel like a dream. There's a touch of fairy tale to that. Ohs keeps his characters curious and fluid, refusing to shove them into easy-to-define roles of hero and villain. Instead, Erupcja embraces the feral nature of love, messy and wondrous.... Erupcja is a thundering rumble of drama and romance, leaving its audience excited and rattled."

Erupcja opens in theaters April 17.

Years before I started buying Samsung phones, you could unlock your phone by scanning your eyes. This went away with the release of the Galaxy S21. Now iris scanning is back, not on the latest Galaxy phone, but on a device where it inherently makes sense.

The dating app Bumble has been known for "women making the first move" (messaging first) in straight matches since its 2014 launch. Now the company is reversing a more recent change to let men message first — but only in a couple of areas.

Last week, Bumble announced that it's removing the Opening Moves feature in Mexico and Australia. The feature has been removed automatically for those users.

SEE ALSO: All your Bumble questions, answered

Opening Moves was introduced in 2024 as a way for men to send the first message to women and was advertised as a way to lessen exhaustion with dating apps. The company's former CEO Lidiane Jones led the charge after taking over from founder and first CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd, who shortly thereafter returned to the CEO role after Jones held the position for only a year.

While the reputation of dating apps overall has been slipping in recent years due to burnout and bad actors, Bumble has been especially hit financially. The company laid off 30 percent of its workforce last year, and its stock price has fallen 95 percent from its IPO as of this writing.

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Bumble seems to be returning to its original ethos even amid legal challenges. The Observer reported Bumble introduced Opening Moves following lawsuits and legal threats in California, claiming that the app discriminated against men, according to sources familiar with the matter. The Observer states that the company is starting to remove Opening Moves in Australia and Mexico due to lower legal risks in those markets.

"At Bumble, we regularly test and innovate our features to foster healthy, respectful connections while staying true to our women-first mission and prioritizing member safety," a Bumble spokesperson told Mashable. "Supporting our community as they go from match to message is a key part of that work. As with all testing, we evaluate our learnings before considering a wider rollout, ensuring any changes continue to meet our community’s needs and deliver a positive experience for our members."

The first major release of Windows 11 for 2026 has arrived, as Windows 26H1. However, it won't be rolled out to any existing PCs, and it will only exist as a starting point for specific new PCs.

Facebook is rolling out a new, Meta AI-powered feature that will allow users to animate their profile pictures.

Was the online public necessarily clamoring for Facebook profile pictures that waved via AI? Well...not really. But it's here nonetheless.

Users will have access to preset animations that will turn a photo into an AI-powered, GIF-like moving profile picture. Wrote Facebook in a press release:

"You can now animate your profile picture, turning a still photo into a playful animation in seconds. Choose from preset animations — like natural, party hat, confetti, wave, and heart — to bring your profile picture to life depending on how you’re feeling. We’ll add more animation options throughout the year so you can celebrate and express yourself during seasonal moments and special events.

For the best results, we recommend using a photo that features a single person facing the camera with their face clearly visible, and not holding other objects. You can select photos to animate directly from your camera roll or choose photos you’ve already uploaded to Facebook. Once a photo is animated, you can share it to your Feed and view it on your profile."

How the animation process looks. Credit: Meta

Is it the coolest thing to animate your profile picture to make it look like you're making a heart with your hands? Not really. But honestly, I can imagine a kooky aunt or uncle loving it. And kooky aunts and uncles love Facebook as much as they love AI photos and images.

Facebook also announced it had added a "restyle" feature that uses AI to touch-up or change photos in Stories. So, a normal photo with a friend, for instance, could be reimagined to look like an illustration. The restyle feature has preset options and can also reimagine a photo based on a text prompt.

Bad Bunny's halftime show at the Super Bowl made waves even among porn watchers. During the game, Pornhub's traffic crashed the hardest not during the (admittedly snoozy) four quarters, but during the Benito Bowl.

Credit: Pornhub

Compared to an average Sunday, Pornhub's traffic dropped 46 percent at 8:31 p.m. ET — right around the ending of Bad Bunny's performance. The big dip began between 8:11 and 8:19, and according to Men's Journal, the halftime show started at 8:12. Football and non-football fans alike turned off explicit content for a few minutes to tune in.

SEE ALSO: 11 Super Bowl ads from the past that were actually funny

Despite the Patriots' performance, Massachusetts fans had a bigger drop-off on Pornhub around halftime than fans in the Seahawks' home state of Washington: Massachusetts traffic was 44 percent below average at that time, while Washington's was only 14 percent below average. Once the game was over, though, Pornhub traffic in The Bay State crept up to 15 percent above average — maybe they were soothing their loss. Washington fans were celebrating, with traffic at a one percent below average at the same time.

Credit: Pornhub

Surprisingly, Pornhub traffic in Bad Bunny's home of Puerto Rico had a smaller dip below average during halftime (29 percent below an average Sunday).

Credit: Pornhub

Overall, the decline in Pornhub traffic during the Big Game was pretty typical. According to this graph from the tube site, it usually sees a 15 to 28 drop in traffic during those times. This year's game was somewhere in the middle (24 percent). Considering it wasn't the most exciting game of football, it's no wonder that most locked in to see Bad Bunny.

Credit: Pornhub

There aren't many mainstream sedans that come to mind when you think luxury, but one affordable midsize four-door delivers comfort, refinement, and premium features once reserved for upscale brands, without the luxury-brand price tag. While many shoppers settle for basic transportation in this segment, this model’s higher trims bring near-luxury appointments and thoughtful touches that feel a level above the mainstream.

3D printing gives you a way out of boring mass-market limitations, letting you create custom solutions and enjoy being completely self-sufficient. Unfortunately, that enthusiasm often means people rush into neat projects that everyone sees circulating online, without thinking about how usable the end result really is.

Android phone in a bit of a lull? Before you give it a kick and toss, a small change here and some optimization over there can dramatically improve the speed, performance, and efficiency of your smartphone.

CrossOver, the Windows app compatibility layer for Linux and Mac, just got a massive upgrade. The latest update is now based on Wine 11, allowing Borderlands 4, Helldivers 2, Starfield, and other games to finally work on Mac.

NVMe SSDs are all the rage because they're small, cost-effective, and blazing fast. Unfortunately, if you've built or purchased a PC in recent years, you may have noticed that there aren't nearly as many M.2 NVMe slots on your motherboards as you might like. That is where PCIe bifurcation comes in.

If you want a glimpse at how far AI video generation has come since 2023, look no further than the "Will Smith eating spaghetti" test, which has basically become the Hello World of generative AI.

In a video from a Reddit user on the r/OpenAI subreddit, the post shows the evolution of the test — from its humble beginnings as a monstrous, pixelated mess to something far more cinematic, even if you can still tell it’s AI. This version was made using the Kling 3.0 video generator, developed by Chinese tech company Kuaishou Technology. In it, Will Smith is seen at a dinner table not just eating spaghetti, but actually talking with a younger man seated across from him.

Reddit Reddit

They discuss the capabilities of Kling AI to create videos like the one you’re watching, making it pretty clear that this is an ad. Still, it offers a striking look at just how much generative video has matured in a remarkably short period of time. Three years isn’t that long — though, in AI terms, it kind of is.

SEE ALSO: 9 ways to spot an AI-generated viral video

If you recall, the very first version of AI Will Smith eating spaghetti was made with ModelScope and could barely keep the actor’s face consistent from one frame to the next. By the following year, the video — and countless variations of it — had taken off as a meme, to the point that Smith himself poked fun at it, before later being caught using generative AI for a TikTok video of his own. Here's an example of the test in Veo 3.1 from last year.

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Among today’s major players in video generation, like Grok and OpenAI, passing the spaghetti test has become much harder. These companies have put extremely strict guardrails in place around third-party likenesses and copyrighted material, especially as Hollywood continues to crack down on AI models trained on its IP.

Mashable attempted to recreate the test using OpenAI’s Sora and Google Gemini’s Veo 3.1, but both attempts were denied on copyright grounds. For now, it seems that as more AI generators — particularly U.S.-based ones — pull back on the use of third-party likenesses, the spaghetti test may finally be nearing the end of the line.