Technology

Iyaz Akhtar looks into what happened to Google’s smart home ecosystem. Google’s move toward Gemini appears to have disrupted Google Home’s once smooth experience. The result is a system that feels less reliable and more inconsistent. Here’s what’s going wrong right now.

Stop your smart TV from tracking your viewing habits by disabling Automatic Content Recognition. This guide shows how to find and turn off these hidden privacy settings on an Amazon Fire TV. It’s a quick way to limit data tracking and improve privacy.

Google is warning that advances in quantum computing could make it easier to break the encryption that protects cryptocurrencies. The concern is that quantum hackers may be able to crack current security systems much sooner than expected. This could put crypto assets and blockchain-based systems at risk.

PCMag's camera expert Jim Fisher tests the budget Apple MacBook Neo with 8K video, RAW photos, and exports. The goal is to see how it handles real creative workloads and whether it’s a viable option for creative work.

SAVE $100: As of April 16, shop the DJI Flip 4K drone for just $539 at Amazon. That saves you $100 off its $639 list price.

Opens in a new window Credit: DJI DJI Flip $539
$639 Save $100   Get Deal

Getting outside this spring and summer? If you're looking to capture your adventures from above and in 4K then you'll need the right equipment, and you don't need to be a professional either. DJI makes it easy to get started with a drone, and since 4K drones may be an investment, it's worth it to shop the deals.

Right now, you can grab the DJI Flip drone for just $539. That saves you $100 off its list price of $639. According to camelcamelcamel, the DJI Flip's record low is $509, meaning it's just $30 from its lowest price ever.

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The DJI Flip is a lightweight drone, weighing just 249 grams. You won't have to worry about regulations either as it doesn't require FAA or Remote ID registration. It comes with a two-screen remote controller so you can see your footage as you capture it. The Flip films in 4K at 60fps, plus it features subject tracking so you'll always stay in frame.

Shop the DJI Flip for just $539 at Amazon now.

Taylor Sheridan is hanging up his cowboy hat and entering the video game world for a new project at Paramount. Sheridan is best known for creating the Yellowstone empire and all of its spin-offs. However, Sheridan's new movie will be an adaptation of Call of Duty.

The Android 17 beta releases are really heating up now. After a month between Beta 2 and Beta 3, Android 17 Beta 4 is now available just three weeks later. This is the last “scheduled” beta release, meaning the stable update is only a few months away.

Astronauts from NASA's first crewed Artemis flight largely sidestepped a question about the diversity of the future astronauts assigned to the upcoming moon-landing mission. 

Speaking at a news conference days after their return to Earth, the Artemis II astronauts —  Commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, mission specialist Christina Koch, and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen — were asked whether the U.S. space agency should uphold its pledge to land the first woman and first person of color on the moon, a goal NASA has recently deemphasized. 

The moment highlighted an issue NASA has avoided publicly clarifying. The Artemis program's first landing mission is expected as early as 2028.

"That's a great question," Koch told Mashable. "Our understanding of that statement was basically that the Artemis campaign as a whole will usher in an era where that is true, and that it will happen naturally because of our astronaut corps."

Though Mashable sought each astronaut's opinion, only Koch answered before the moderator moved on to another reporter's question.

SEE ALSO: A girl asks for Pluto to regain its planet status. NASA chief: We're looking into it.

Before 2025, NASA had consistently described the first Artemis lunar landing as putting the first woman and first person of color on the moon. But over the past year, that language has largely disappeared from agency materials, following a White House executive order that curtailed diversity, equity, and inclusion programs across federal agencies. The directive labeled such programs "illegal and immoral."

The Artemis II crew itself marked a milestone. The mission was the first deep-space flight not composed entirely of white men. Koch became the first woman and Glover the first Black person to travel beyond low-Earth orbit. Their assignment to the lunar flyby crew occurred in 2023, during President Joe Biden's administration. 

The Artemis II crew, clockwise: Christina Koch, Victor Glover, Jeremy Hansen, and Reid Wiseman. Credit: Josh Valcarcel

Both have downplayed the historical significance of their distinctions in past interviews, focusing instead on the technical goals of the mission. Leading up to the launch, they often wouldn't elaborate on what those "firsts" meant specifically for women and people of color.

On Thursday, however, Koch seemed confident the milestone will happen, regardless of intention.

"The fact is we don't have to try too hard to make that come true, to make that be the reality of this mission. We actually have to try harder to not make that true in the astronaut corps that we have."

"The fact is we don't have to try too hard to make that come true, to make that be the reality of this mission," she said. "We actually have to try harder to not make that true in the astronaut corps that we have."

Floating in the Orion spacecraft, the four Artemis II astronauts embrace in weightlessness. Credit: NASA

Artemis II, a roughly 10-day mission around the moon and back, was NASA's first crewed journey beyond low-Earth orbit in more than a half-century. The $4.1 billion test flight vetted the Orion spacecraft's life‑support, power, navigation, and steering systems. The mission took the capsule past Apollo‑era distances, reaching a farthest point of about 252,756 miles. 

NASA has not yet announced crews beyond Artemis II. The next mission, Artemis III, will serve as a 2027 flight demonstration for docking Orion with commercially built lunar landers while in low-Earth orbit. Artemis IV is expected to attempt the program's first lunar landing the following year. 

Agency officials have said assignments will be based on mission needs but have not addressed whether earlier commitments about representation remain in place.

The current-generation Jeep Grand Cherokee has been on the market for a few years now, and the 2026 update brings a mild refresh with sharper styling and updated tech. It still sits in that sweet spot as an American midsize SUV trying to punch into the premium space.

The first few weeks of April have kicked off the final seasons for several marquee shows. The Boys is now three episodes into its fifth and final season on Prime Video, while Hacks recently kicked off its last run on HBO Max. Elsewhere, Euphoria ended its four-year hiatus with an explosive season 3 premiere. What's great about television is that we can do it all again this weekend with a new crop of shows.

Intel has delivered what could be an antidote to surging PC prices, however unintentionally. The chip giant has launched Core Series 3 mobile processors (codenamed Wildcat Lake) that share the same architectural roots and 18A manufacturing process as Core Ultra Series 3 (aka Panther Lake), but are aimed at "value buyers" watching every cent.

It’s April, which means two things are likely true: spring is finally here, and you’ve either just received or are anxiously awaiting your tax refund. According to the latest IRS data, the average refund for the 2026 filing season will be around $3,521.

It’s no secret that Android and iPhone regularly borrow from each other. Usually, the features on one side are useful to the other side, too. However, Google is currently in the process of adopting a classic iPhone feature, and I have my doubts that Android users will care.

If you've already fallen under the spell of Witch Hat Atelier, Crunchyroll has a new way to stay immersed in the series between episodes.

The anime streamer has launched Witch Chat: The Witch Hat Atelier Companion Podcast, a new watchalong-style series under its Anime Effect podcast slate. The show is designed to guide viewers through the anime adaptation of Kamome Shirahama's beloved manga, and the first three episodes are available now on Spotify and YouTube.

SEE ALSO: 'Witch Hat Atelier' is anime's next truly magical hit

Hosted by anime cosplayer and content creator Lena Lemon and Crunchyroll personality Tim Lyu, fans can expect episodic recaps and an even deeper dive into the magical world of Coco, Qifrey, Agott, Tetia, and Richeh. Or maybe you really want to make sure you're pronouncing words like Atelier, Qifrey, and Richeh correctly (because...same).

Credit: Courtesy of Crunchyroll

For a show like Witch Hat Atelier, which is already full of intricate lore, mysterious Brimmed Caps, and enough storybook beauty to inspire endless TikTok edits, a companion podcast feels like a natural fit. The first episode of the anime premiered on April 6, and the podcast gives fans another place to theorize about Coco's future, Qifrey's secrets, and whatever unsettling thing the Brimmed Caps are planning next.

It is also a reminder of how much anime fandom now lives online. According to Crunchyroll, 82 percent of anime fans discuss anime on social media, with TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube serving as major discovery tools for viewers. After all, it only takes one devastating edit to change the course of someone's life, or dictate what they watch next.

And if any new show feels built for that kind of fandom ecosystem — the cosplay, the fan art, the ship discourse, the aesthetic moodboards, the painstaking manga-to-anime comparisons — it's definitely Witch Hat Atelier. Judging by the online discourse so far, the Qifrey obsession has already begun.

Believe it or not, there are people who actually miss the Windows 8 interface. One enthusiast liked it so much that they decided to recreate the Windows 8 Metro user interface for Linux systems. I tried it, and it's easily the most janky-but-lovable graphical interface I've ever seen.

Cars have gotten a lot more tech-heavy over the past decade, and that hasn’t always made them simpler or easier to live with. A big reason is the push to electrify internal combustion engines to meet stricter emissions rules, which forces modern cars to balance regulations with what drivers actually want.

Anthropic has been shipping products and making news at a blistering pace in 2026, and on Thursday, the AI company announced the launch of Claude Opus 4.7.

Claude Opus 4.7 is Anthropic's most intelligent model available to the general public. Notably, Anthropic said in a press release that Opus 4.7 is not as powerful as Claude Mythos, which Anthropic deemed too dangerous for public release.

Claude Opus is a family of hybrid reasoning models capable of multi-step reasoning and advanced coding. Until the announcement of Claude Mythos on April 7, Claude Opus was considered Anthropic's most advanced series of AI models.

Don’t miss out on our latest stories: Add Mashable as a trusted news source in Google.

How to try Claude Opus 4.7

Claude Opus 4.7 is available now via Claude AI, the Claude API, and Anthropic partners such as Microsoft Foundry. The new model is priced the same as Claude Opus 4.6.

SEE ALSO: Anthropic makes the case for anthropomorphizing AI in ‘unsettling’ research paper

However, Anthropic noted that because "Opus 4.7 thinks more at higher effort levels," it uses more ouput tokens than its predecessor. Users can read more about how to optimize token usage in the Opus 4.7 migration guide.

How Claude Opus 4.7 improves over 4.6

As expected, Claude Opus 4.7 offers improved capabilities across the board.

In particular, Anthropic says Claude Opus 4.7 is better at advanced coding tasks, visual intelligence, and document analysis. Anthropic also says Opus 4.7 is "more tasteful and creative when completing professional tasks, producing higher-quality interfaces, slides, and docs."

"Users report being able to hand off their hardest coding work — the kind that previously needed close supervision — to Opus 4.7 with confidence. Opus 4.7 handles complex, long-running tasks with rigor and consistency, pays precise attention to instructions, and devises ways to verify its own outputs before reporting back," reads an Anthropic blog post.

Claude Opus 4.7: Benchmark performance

Anthropic released a detailed model card outlining how Claude Opus 4.7 compares to other Anthropic models and frontier models from OpenAI, Google, and xAI.

Opus 4.7 lags behind the unreleased Claude Mythos, which Anthropic reports scores significantly higher on common benchmarks such as Humanity's Last Exam. "Claude Opus 4.7 is less capable than Claude Mythos Preview on every relevant axis we measured and does not advance our capability frontier," the model card states." That means Claude Opus 4.7 is not evidence that AI development has accelerated beyond existing trend lines.

SEE ALSO: The AI industry has a big Chicken Little problem

On Humanity's Last Exam (without tools), Anthropic reports that Claude Opus 4.7 outperforms all other frontier models except Claude Mythos.

• Claude Mythos scored 56.8 percent on HLE

• Claude Opus 4.7 scored 46.9 percent

• Gemini 3.1 Pro scored 44.4 percent

• GPT-5-4 Pro scored 42.7 percent

• Claude Opus 4.6 scored 40.0 percent

With tools, GPT-5-4-Pro scored 58.7 percent compared to Opus 4.7’s 54.7 percent. Mythos beat them both with 64.7 percent.

Mashable has not independently verified these benchmark results. Full results are available in the Opus 4.7 model card.

Credit: Anthropic

Overall, Anthropic scored Opus 4.7 above other leading models in some benchmarks, though Gemini 3.1 Pro and GPT-5-4 score higher in some areas.

Claude Opus 4.7: Safety and hallucinations

Anthropic also reports that Opus 4.7 shows a low risk of misaligned behaviors, with a similar risk profile as Opus 4.6.

For example, Anthropic says Opus 4.7 is less likely to hallucinate and shows lower rates of reward hacking.

"Claude Opus 4.7 is more reliably honest than Opus 4.6 or Sonnet 4.6, with large reductions in the rate of important omissions, and moderate improvements in factuality and rates of hallucinated input," the model card states.

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