Technology

External HDDs have their merits. Slower than SSDs, they make great backup targets (especially if you don't leave them on 24/7). They also feel a lot sturdier than an SSD, what with their massive size, at least by comparison. And in many ways, they are pretty durable, but no piece of electronics is immortal.

Google Photos is the default way to back up photos for more than a billion people around the world, and the service works so well that many of us never even think about switching to something else. But if you care about your privacy and would like to share as little of your personal data with Google as possible, backing up your photos to Google Photos becomes a liability.

Spam calls are one of those annoyances that can quickly turn from a minor inconvenience into a daily problem. A single unwanted call is easy enough to ignore, but when robocalls, sales pitches, and potential scams start interrupting you throughout the day, constantly checking your phone becomes exhausting. Installing a third-party app might seem like the obvious solution, but you may not need one at all.

Not to be outdone by Anthropic, OpenAI is launching a couple of new ChatGPT models on Tuesday.

Mere hours after the launch of Claude Opus 5.5, GPT-6 Sol and Luna became available to users, per an OpenAI blog post. These new models are said to provide better accuracy at a more cost-efficient value than prior models. They can also be thought of as less-intensive versions of GPT-6 Astra, which launched earlier in September. OpenAI says Sol and Luna are better for work at different scales than what you might use Astra for.

"We trained GPT‑6 Sol and Luna with similar methods as GPT‑6 Astra, bringing the advances behind Astra’s state-of-the-art performance in professional work, factuality, coding, computer use, and alignment to faster, more affordable models," OpenAI's blog post said.

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If you want to try these new models right now, they're available in Work and Codex for Plus, Pro, Enterprise, Business, and Edu customers. Go and Free users can access Luna in the ChatGPT desktop app, but be warned: neither model is available in basic Chat just yet. Here are the prices for the new models, per 1 million tokens:

• GPT-6 Sol: $2 input, $10 output

• GPT-6 Luna: $0.10 input, $0.50 output

Those prices represent a 50 percent decrease in cost compared to GPT 5.6 Sol and Luna. Meanwhile, OpenAI says GPT-6 Sol and Luna outperform those older models to the tune of making half as many factual errors as before. It's worth noting that the 5.6 variants launched just a few months ago, so that means (if OpenAI is telling the truth) the company was able to cut down on errors by half in just one financial quarter.

If you want hard numbers to back that up, OpenAI says GPT-6 Luna beat the 5.6. release by 5.4 percent, using AutomationBench as a measuring stick, and it did so while costing 58 percent less per task. There are a handful of other benchmarks used in the blog post, and the new GPT-6 models come away looking better than their predecessors in all of them, naturally.

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.

Ubuntu got me through a decade of Linux use, but I've come to realize that there's a better way — not just for me, but for most non-hardcore Linux users. Immutable distros might just be your choice.

Waymo just announced a new transit rewards program that incentivizes pairing robotaxi rides with public transit.

The transit rewards program is now available to Waymo employees in the San Francisco Bay Area, but it will open to the Bay Area public in a few weeks, according to the Google-owned autonomous rideshare company.

The program requires a Visa credit or debit tap-to-pay card (rival credit card Mastercard already offers transit incentives on most major U.S. systems, many of which already offer tap-to-pay in lieu of transit cards or tokens).

"To participate, riders will link their Visa card in the Waymo app," according to a statement from Waymo. "When riders in the SF Bay Area use their Visa card to take a Waymo trip and public transit within 2 hours of each other, we will automatically issue $2.85 in Waymo Cash, which is the cost of a bus fare in San Francisco." The Waymo Cash is loaded into the app and can be used for future robotaxi rides.

Over two dozen San Francisco Bay Area transit agencies are participating in Waymo's rewards program, according to the company.

In announcing the rewards, Waymo also stated the company is leasing 40 parking spots at stations within the Caltrain commuter system, which covers a wide swath of the Bay Area. Waymo vehicles will occupy the parking spots and be available to take riders from train stations to their destinations.

SEE ALSO: How California's high-speed rail is already helping the planet

Waymo says that half of its riders in the Bay Area, Los Angeles, and Phoenix already use transit, and the program will encourage more ridership on buses and trains.

The new rewards program received the blessing of state transportation officials and San José Mayor Matt Mahan.

"San José has always believed innovation should make everyday life work better," Mahan said in a statement. "This partnership does exactly that by using new technology to strengthen public transit, not replace it, making regional travel more seamless and giving people more ways to get where they need to go."

Motorola is better known for its Razr foldables than its conventional flagship phones, particularly in the U.S. — it skipped the country entirely this year with the first-generation Signature. However, that's changing with the debut of its latest high-end Android phone, the Signature 27.

X has introduced a new way for users to be contacted on its messaging service without sharing a phone number or following each other. The company launched X Numbers on Tuesday, giving XChat users a private code they can share with people who need to message or call them without a mutual follow.

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According to X's Help Center, anyone who enters a user's enabled X Number can message them even if the user doesn't follow them or has a closed inbox. Those conversations go straight to the inbox instead of message requests, and the sender can also place calls, depending on the recipient's call settings.

Despite its name, X says an X Number isn't a phone number. It's also separate from the safety numbers Chat uses to verify identities in encrypted conversations.

SEE ALSO: Elon Musk's SpacexAI faces another lawsuit from child sexual abuse survivor

The feature is optional, and X says users can turn it off or refresh it at any time. Refreshing generates a new code, cutting off new contacts who only have the old one. X notes that people a user has already messaged can see their X Number and may share it with others, though a "Hide from others" setting can prevent that. The company also says users will be notified when someone contacts them through the code.

To set one up, X says users can open Chat, enter their Chat PIN if prompted, open the inbox dropdown menu, and tap "Number."

The launch is the latest step in Elon Musk's long-stated goal of turning X into an "everything app," a vision often compared to China's WeChat, which combines messaging, payments, and other services.

X launched its standalone XChat app on the App Store on April 24, positioning it as a WhatsApp competitor. The app has been pitched on the idea that users already have an X account and a network of contacts, so they don't need to exchange phone numbers. X Numbers extends that approach to people outside a user's existing network.

The company has also moved into payments. X Money went live on July 27, but only for premium subscribers. On Aug. 31, X announced that X Money was available to all Premium and Premium+ subscribers with U.S. accounts. The service isn't yet available to free users.

Want to learn more about getting the best out of your tech? Sign up for Mashable's Top Stories and Deals newsletters today.

I have the Samsung Galaxy A21s from 2020. Six years of use and many repairs later, it's still kicking. It's not in the best shape or has the best battery life, but with some management, it lasts more than a day, and even a few days on battery.

For better or worse, DNS failures feel like an internet problem. I mean, if the website fails to load, then it kind of is an issue with your internet—but not in the same way as it is when your ISP fails, for instance. With DNS failures, everything else might be peachy, but websites will struggle.

Move-in day is already a few hangovers behind you, the mini fridge is working overtime, and someone down the hall is already playing music too loud (or not loud enough). Whether you're the student or the parent who drove home with an empty back seat, the right movie (or series) can capture that freshman mix of first-time freedom, panic, and bad decisions.

If you are paying for Google News subscriptions to get your latest stories and events within various Google services, you can now curate your news for free by choosing news sources that don't require subscriptions. A new feature released by Google allows me to handpick sources and connect them to my Google account so they are accessible in various Google products — with no subscription required. So far, I like the functionality, especially how easy it is to add sources to my curated news and see them in the Top Stories section of my Google News feed, or customize topics for my daily audio news briefing.

It'd be presumptuous to say, but the Silent Hill franchise might be back.

That is to say, if you consider Silent Hill 2 Remake to be a fluke, and Silent Hill f's critical success to be an aberration, then you'd hate to hear that Silent Hill: Townfall — the newest game from Konami and developers Screen Burn Interactive — is also a very good game.

If you're a diehard about the canon of Silent Hill, you're not going to like this. Townfall is the latest installment in the psychological survival horror franchise, and it's the first full game to shift to first-person instead of over-the-shoulder. More importantly, it continues Konami's direction of turning Silent Hill, the franchise, into an anthology series, focused on the vibes of its predecessors rather than continuing to create stories set within the namesake town.

SEE ALSO: The 'Resident Evil: Code Veronica' remake is officially a go

The trend started with the short, not-that-good free-to-play game, The Short Message, which came out in 2024 and was set in a German apartment complex. With the success of Bloober Team's Silent Hill 2 remake, Konami went full gear, making Silent Hill a yearly release with Silent Hill f, which was set in 1960's rural Japan. That brings us to Townfall, set in 1990's Scotland and featuring, to date, Silent Hill's first Black protagonist.

Having played through the game fully twice on PlayStation 5, thanks to an early access code from Konami, I can safely say that Townfall is not only a beautiful game, but it's also in general a good game. Though it may be lacking in enemy variety and is also a victim of third-act padding, Townfall's foray into first-person horror was dreamy, tense, and at times, annoyingly predictable.

Welcome to St. Amelia Credit: Screen Burn Interactive / Konami

For starters, St. Amelia is no Silent Hill. Like f, the next stop in Silent Hill's international tour is the coast of Scotland, in the fictional town of St. Amelia. Set in 1996, you play as Simon Ordell, a Black American who's found himself washed up on the shore of this quaint fishing village, trapped in fog, despite having no connections to the town in the first place.

I'll try to remain as spoiler-free as possible, but Simon is not the only other playable character. For a couple of chapters, you'll also play as Zoe Ellis, a nurse from the local clinic who's harboring severe guilt over not being able to save lives after a mass casualty event rocked the town.

As far as the plot goes, the central mystery of the story, "what happened to the town," dangles enough carrots to keep me interested. Context clues and just using your brain will quickly piece together what did happen, as the game trusts the player to understand without being spoon-fed.

If anything, my biggest gripe is a lack of character development for our main protagonist. Simon's connection and importance to the town is an interesting thread to follow, but Simon himself is as charismatic as a block of wood. Most of Simon's dialogue is him trying to get someone, anyone, to tell him what's going on. His interactions with Zoe also offer nothing, as Zoe is a very muted and introverted person, so she's not much help in Simon's quest.

There's also Richard, a mysterious figure who reaches out to Simon, guiding him to where he needs to be.

Who dressed this man? Credit: Screen Burn Interactive / Konami

It, at times, feels so one-dimensional, and not to rant, I hate the way Simon is designed. For a game set in 1996, Simon is dressed like a 2010s-era hipster. The beanie, sleeveless puffer jacket, and flannel with rolled-up sleeves are the wardrobe of a Funko Pop-collecting IPA enthusiast. Even knowing why he's dressed like that, I hate that of the few Black protagonists in horror gaming, Simon has absolutely no drip.

SEE ALSO: 'Marathon' game hands-on: Bungie builds a rewarding slow burn

What does have drip (i.e., a better design), is St. Amelia itself. Based on the fishing villages along the coast of Fife in Scotland, the true terror of St. Amelia is not the monsters themselves but the existential crisis that befalls the community at the hands of oil barons. The empty brick-laid stores and abandoned townhouses and duplexes reveal a dying town, and at the center, a mural for those lost by disaster. Townfall is very much about the many, many, many consequences of Thatcherism.

It truly captures the spirit of Silent Hill, even though it's not set in the town or shares any canon with it whatsoever. While the literal "whys" of the Silent Hill franchise have never really made much sense, the "vibes" of Silent Hill are present. It's a daunting task for Screen Burn, but they did a wonderful job in my opinion.

Can Simon "set things right"?

Despite my complaints about the plot of Town Hall, the gameplay itself is pretty good. Smooth, performs well, and does a lot of things right in this modern era of Unreal Engine survival horror games.

It seems Screen Burn's first focus was cinematic immersion. Townfall strives to be as diegetic as possible while navigating St. Amelia. Like the Silent Hill 2 remake, opening the map doesn't pause the game, and exploration will translate on the map in terms of locked doors/gates and points of interest.

Credit: Screen Burn Interactive / Konami

In addition, saving your progress requires a visit to the phone, either in a booth or on a landline you find throughout the map. Unlike, say, Resident Evil's typewriter, you have to physically put in the 1-0-0 number on the phone to access the save menu. At first, I was worried this would be tedious, but I got used to it quickly and found it effective at aiding the immersion Screen Burn was looking to achieve.

The star of the show is Simon's CRT monitor. Like the radio, this is how the game alerts you to nearby enemies. The big gameplay change here is that the monitor enables you to see enemies through the screen. This allows you to see enemies through walls, which is helpful; it comes with several caveats. The first is that the screen itself, when locked onto enemies, is visually similar to a Nintendo Virtual Boy. So, while you can see enemies behind objects, as they appear as black figures contrasting against the red screen, it's not helpful in figuring out their actual, physical proximity to you. The second caveat is that you can only lock onto one enemy at a time. In practice, when new enemies appear on screen, you have to manually change the CRT's frequency to lock onto them. However, once you do, you can use L1/R1 buttons to quick switch between them.

It makes the gameplay loop all the more tense, since stealth is crucial. Entering new areas can quickly put you in a panic, as you have to stop to manually find each new enemy's signal while having to mentally keep track of who belongs to what signal, and where, as you explore. And sometimes, they're not that close to you, and other times, an enemy could be moving around, but it turns out they're stuck in a locked room.

Credit: Screen Burn Interactive / Konami

Zoe functions similarly to Simon, except instead of a portable CRT, she has her pager. It doesn't alert you the same way the monitor does with static clicks, and it can only show the general direction of an enemy, rather than fully see them. Honestly, I think the pager is one, make it fit with Zoe being a nurse, and two, randomly scare the player because the pager makes a loud buzzing sound when it receives a message.

The enemies themselves are fine. There are only two main enemy types, plus a stalker enemy that pursues Simon in certain Otherworld sections. They're well-designed — shambling corpses that seem to suffer from severe burn scarring all across their bodies. One variation has an axe protruding out of its face and runs really fast, and the other one shoots an IV needle at you from range if you try to run away. Engaging with enemies should be your last resort cause they hit hard, and melee combat just kind of sucks in general.

For melee, there's the classic 2x4 plank or the lead pipe, both of which break if used too much. While nothing new, I did appreciate that finding supplies is very location-dependent. When you're rummaging through apartments and homes, you'll generally find health supplies rather than ammo. Planks can be found in the gardens and backyards of said homes, while the lead pipe is generally found within the rusted, industrial iron hell of the Otherworld. It's rare to find ammo anywhere except in little wood boxes left by Richard that you can find through your journey. It's not a big thing, but I did appreciate how the level design was crafted to fit the artificial scarcity inherent to survival horror games.

Credit: Screen Burn Interactive / Konami

For most of the game, you'll only have the revolver, but near the latter parts, you can find the flare gun, which is one shot and highly inaccurate, and the double-barreled shotgun, which you don't get to use until really late in the game.

Shooting your weapon is a bad idea because it will attract every nearby enemy to your location. Plus, even though the creatures don't have eyes, they can still see you, on top of being able to hear you. At extreme difficulty, they'll aggro at the sight of your flashlight as well, which is annoying cause the game is dark as hell. It's a minor nitpick of mine, but having blind enemies being capable of seeing you is dumb.

All in all, the tools present in Townfall are great ideas that elevate what is, for the most part, a standard modern survival horror game.

And, like any survival horror game, it has puzzles. To be quite honest, I found them lacking. Zoe's big puzzle in the hospital was a lot of fun; Simon's puzzles are not. Like its contemporaries, Townfall also suffers from the illness of item-retrieval puzzles set in large areas split into two halves. The first third of the game with Simon and Zoe in the Shorefront of St. Amelia, I think, was the best part of the game, puzzle and exploration-wise. There's so much environmental storytelling in the town that I missed severely when I was stuck in the Otherworld.

Depending on your tolerance and patience towards stealth-focused survival horror, I'd say you're in for a good time. My first playthrough took about 15-16 hours, and that's cause some of the puzzles required some close reading that I am not capable of at times. My second playthrough took 6 hours. I imagine if I played it again, I could finish it in four. Annoyingly, like its predecessors, you're going to have to play the game a second or third time to unlock the "true" ending. It wasn't a feat I could achieve because the requirements are arcane and esoteric. (The behavioral factors needed for SH2's good ending make me want to go insane)

Performance/Presentation Credit: Screen Burn Interactive / Konami

In the 20+ hours I spent with Townfall, I was delighted with how well it performed on PlayStation 5. With games of this standard, I immediately switched to Performance Mode, and the graphical fidelity was still pretty good in my eyes. Townfall can be a pretty game at times, and I'd say the lighting is one of its greatest strengths in terms of presentation.

You should also turn off the black bars as well. Screen Burn really wants to make Townfall a cinematic experience, but it's just kind of jarring. Like, yeah, it makes certain scenes stand out, but I couldn't imagine playing this full 15-hour game in 4:3 aspect ratio.

Another plus is the sound. Produced by acclaimed musician Pilotpriest, the soundtrack is an amalgamation of atmospheric electronic synth that at times feels eerily similar to Stranger Things. It sets a moody, uneasy tone perfect for an environment that feels dreamy and out of time. It's unlike the series' usual industrial grind and heavy guitar tracks, and I imagine the aim is to highlight the contrast between the town's old-English architectural design and the creeping technology being introduced into it.

As stated earlier, almost everything you interact with is diegetic in some way. From entering numbers into the phone to using computers, printers, and even a tape recorder. It's purposeful but subtle in a way that doesn't remove the tension or immersion, and the ambient synth soundtrack brings it all together.

Should you buy Silent Hill: Townfall Credit: Screen Burn Interactive / Konami

If you're a fan of the current era of survival horror, yes. Townfall is smooth, tense, and pretty, and it performs great on PlayStation 5. St. Amelia is also a wonderful place to get lost in, especially during that first stretch of the game.

Just know what you're getting into. Townfall introduces some new elements, but beneath them lies the standard formula. Personally, that formula can wear on me fast, especially near the end, but that's very plot-dependent. The central mystery of Townfall is engaging and was a driver for me to finish the game (other than having to review it for work), but I found the characters flat and the dialogue to be annoyingly allusive.

Lore and canon truthers should also temper expectations. This is a separate spin-off with nothing to do with the town, the previous games, or their characters, and if that's a dealbreaker, you'll be disappointed. Fans can be tough on anything that strays from the source. Resident Evil diehards already don't like the new movie, even though it was a critical success.

Overall, in terms of good games in 2026, Townfall is one of them. It's not in my top 10 list, but for the genre and series it's a part of, Screen Burn did an excellent job. I expect it to fade from my memory sooner than most. But if someone brings it up in conversation, my first reaction will be "oh, I really liked that game."

Silent Hill: Townfall is available for pre-order now for PS5; it will be available starting Sept. 24.

Opens in a new window Credit: Screen Burn Interactive / Konami 'Silent Hill: Townfall' for PS5 $49.94 at Amazon
  Get Deal

Google is in the midst of transitioning Android to what it calls an “intelligence system.” It’s made a big deal about enabling phones to do more without your input. The idea is solid, but in real-world use, I’ve found that Samsung’s less flashy features are much smarter.

Taylor Swift has put a countdown on her website, and Swifties have been doing their homework. Set against red curtains, the glittery gold timer ends Sept. 22 at 2 p.m. ET. What happens when it hits zero? Swift hasn't said, but she's given fans plenty to theorize about.

The countdown follows a string of smaller changes online. On Sept. 22, fans noticed that Swift changed her Instagram bio to read "And baby, that's sh0w business f0r y0u," replacing the O's with zeroes, and expanded the letter on her website about reclaiming ownership of her music from two pages to three. Zeroes have similarly appeared in the title of The Life of a Showgirl on Apple Music, while the Taylor Swift logo on the streaming platform has changed from orange to silver.

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So, what is Taylor Swift teasing this time?

To understand the latest theories, we have to return to the original scene of the crime — which, conveniently, was staged like an actual crime scene. Last week, Swift appeared in a prerecorded Law & Order: SVU sketch during the Emmys. In the segment, Mariska Hargitay and members of the show’s cast attempted to solve a very important mystery: Would Taylor Swift attend the ceremony?

Their investigation included boards covered with friendship bracelets, the number 13, and references to Swift’s music. Swift then joined the investigation as a rookie detective and insisted that she did not believe "everything is a clue." Moments later, she said the answer might be "hiding in plain sight," looked directly into the camera, and delivered the four very strange phrases, "Saccharide. Aries. From the vineyard. North or south."

SEE ALSO: Taylor Swift crashes Mariska Hargitay's 'Law & Order SVU' sketch at the Emmys

Naturally, Swifties took that as an assignment.

At first, fans tried to interpret the phrases individually. "From the vineyard" sounded a lot like "From the Vault," the label Swift uses for previously unreleased songs included on her rerecorded albums. "Saccharide," another word for sugar, was connected to an unreleased Swift song reportedly titled "Sugar."

According to one fan's solution, "Saccharide, Aries, from the vineyard, north or south" can be unscrambled to read: "My first record’s re-record is out Nov. ten." The remaining letters spell "ha ha ha ha."

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Fans have also found another potential message within the phrase. By selectively pulling letters from the words and rearranging them, they can spell "ENCORE." If intentional, both solutions appear to point toward a re-release.

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Don't worry, there's more. The Emmys investigation board included what appeared to be a guitar with teardrops on it, likely a reference to "Teardrops on My Guitar" from Swift's 2006 debut album. Fans also spotted a note mentioning Tuesday at 8 a.m., Nov. 10, 2026, which falls on a Tuesday, and Swift’s original debut album was also released on a Tuesday in 2006.

Of course, the theory is not airtight. But the idea is not coming entirely out of nowhere. Swift has already confirmed that a rerecorded version of her debut exists. In the 2025 letter announcing that she had purchased the masters to her first six albums, Swift said she had "completely re-recorded" her self-titled debut and loved how it sounded. She added that both the album and Reputation (Taylor’s Version) could still "have their moments to re-emerge when the time is right."

More recently, Swift has been publicly reflecting on the country music roots of her career. During an August conversation with Recording Academy CEO Harvey Mason Jr., she looked back at writing her debut single, "Tim McGraw," and said she feels increasingly connected to the Nashville community that shaped her.

"I love my country roots more and more," Swift said. "The further along this path I get, I want to honor them more and more, and I feel more tied and more loyal to them." And what better way to honor those roots than by returning to the country album where they began?

There is also one particularly convenient announcement opportunity approaching. On Sunday, Sept. 27, Swift will receive the inaugural Artist Director Honors at the 2026 MTV Video Music Awards. She enters the ceremony with 11 nominations, including video of the year, artist of the year, and best album. That gives Swift a very good reason to be at the show, and a likely opportunity to end up onstage.

The VMAs would also be a familiar place for her to reveal new music — Swift announced Midnights while accepting video of the year at the 2022 ceremony.

Anthropic has released Claude Opus 5.5, a new AI model the company says performs at roughly the same level as its Claude Fable 5.1 model on most work, but at a significantly lower cost.

The model, announced on Tuesday, Sept. 22, is the first in Anthropic's new Claude 5.5 family. According to the company's announcement, Opus 5.5 costs about 40 percent less to run on typical workloads than Opus 5, which launched in July. Anthropic said Claude Sonnet 5.5 and Claude Haiku 5.5 will follow in the coming weeks.

Opus 5.5 is also the first new Anthropic model since CEO Dario Amodei called on AI companies to "pace the frontier" and put the brakes on AI development for safety reasons.

Claude Opus 5.5 leads in coding and knowledge work, Anthropic says

Anthropic said Opus 5.5 leads its benchmark suite in agentic coding, computer use, and knowledge work. On GDPval-AA v2.1, which tests real-world work across 44 occupations, the company reported that Opus 5.5 scored 1,846. Fable 5.1 scored 1,735 and Opus 5 scored 1,708.

Credit: Anthropic / Mashable screenshot

On Terminal-Bench 4.0, Anthropic reported Opus 5.5 at 66.4 percent, compared with 57.9 percent for OpenAI's GPT-6 Astra, which launched earlier this month. Astra still led on some tests. Those included Terminal-Bench-Science 0.1, on which it scored 64.6 percent, compared to Opus 5.5's 58.7 percent.

Anthropic also cautioned that benchmark margins have become a less reliable guide at this level of capability. The company said the real-world gap between Opus 5.5 and Fable 5.1 is narrower than the scores suggest.

The company also said the model writes more clearly than Opus 5, which it described as a common complaint about the earlier model.

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Claude Opus 5.5 safety and safeguards

As the company's first new model since Amodei's "pacing the frontier" essay, safeguards are a particular concern.

The company said outside evaluators, including METR and Frontier Design, tested the model before release. Anthropic also said Opus 5.5 posted the best scores of any model to date on its automated behavioral audit.

This approach differed from Opus 5's. Mashable reported in July that Anthropic had deliberately left cybersecurity tasks out of that model's training. Anthropic now says Opus 5.5 is comparable to Claude Mythos 5.1 in biology and cybersecurity. Because of that, it is shipping with safeguards similar to those in Fable 5.1. Most cybersecurity tasks will be rerouted to Opus 4.8, and vetted organizations can apply for broader access to biology through a new Life Sciences Verification Program.

Anthropic acknowledged limits to its testing. The company said it has seen signs that Opus 5.5 often suspects it is under evaluation, making its real-world behavior harder to assess. OpenAI has reported similar behavior with GPT-Astra.

SEE ALSO: Avian flu, drone swarms, and mass surveillance included in Anthropic's safety report How to try Claude Opus 5.5

Claude Opus 5.5 is available now across Anthropic's platforms, including Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure. Developers can access it through the API as claude-opus-5-5.

API pricing is:

• $4 per million input tokens

• $20 per million output tokens

• $0.20 per million tokens for cache reads

That's 20 percent less than Opus 5 for input and output tokens, and 60 percent less for cache reads, according to Anthropic. For comparison, GPT-6 Astra costs $10 per million input tokens and $50 per million output tokens.

Anthropic also says it's raising five-hour usage limits for Pro, Max, and Team subscribers.

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.

Almost everyone needs a screen capture tool at some point, from explanations and references to humorous shares and valuable project steps. Windows screenshot tools (Snip & Sketch, classic Snipping Tool, and the newer Snipping Tool) work great for quick, simple captures, but they have limits on editing, sharing, and resizing. I used to capture screen areas with the "classic" Snipping Tool and the new Windows 11 version, and I briefly tried Snip & Sketch before it was deprecated. None of them offered the options I needed to work more productively and efficiently, even for home use.

The best Prime Day robot vacuum deals at a glance: Best Robot Vacuum Deal Eufy E25 Robot Vacuum and Mop $599.98 (Save $400.01) Get Deal Best Premium Robot Vacuum Deal Roborock Qrevo CurvX Robot Vacuum and Mop $949 (Save $550.99) Get Deal Best Budget Robot Vacuum Deal Roborock Q10 S5+ Robot Vacuum $329.99 (Save $220) Get Deal

Prime Big Deal Days, Amazon's two-day sale for Prime members, kicks off on Oct. 6, but you don't have to wait until the calendar rolls over to shop some excellent deals. It's a great time to pick up a robot vacuum, and you can start shopping for one right now, in fact.

A robot that's on vacuum or even mop duty can be a massive help when hosting a full house over the holidays, or it can keep your home tidy year-round with regularly scheduled cleaning. It can keep up with crumbs and tracked-in dirt between visits while you deal with the cooking and decorating, or while you're just living your best life.

Robot vacuums come in a pretty wide range. Some models can basically just vacuum on a schedule you set in an app, while others also mop, map each room of your house, and empty themselves into a base that holds weeks of debris. It really just depends on what you're looking for. And right now, robot vacuums of all stripes are discounted.

Amazon adds new deals several times a day, and the best ones can sell out fast, so we'll keep checking prices and updating this list until the sale ends. For now, these are the best robot vacuum deals you can get right now ahead of the sale. Be sure to check back for new deals before and during the big days.

Best robot vacuum deal Opens in a new window Credit: Amazon Eufy E25 Robot Vacuum and Mop $599.98 at Amazon
$999.99 Save $400.01   Get Deal Why we like it

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This heavy-duty unit can slip under couches and low cabinets, with a laser sensor on top that lowers itself when needed. Plus, its chassis automatically lifts up so it can climb over thresholds between rooms. It also has 22,000 Pa of suction and brushes that resist hair tangles, which helps when it's pulling pet fur out of carpet. It can sanitize on its own, as well as wash its mops in 176 degree Fahrenheit water and dry them with hot air. That means you can stay hands-off while it handles all the cleaning and refilling.

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This affordable robot vacuum can handle cleanup all on its own at a great price. It can empty itself into its dock after each cleaning, and the bag holds up to 70 days of dust and hair. Both of its brushes are designed to keep long hair from wrapping around them, and a LiDAR sensor maps your home so it can plan an efficient route through each room.

More early Prime Big Deal Days robot vacuum deals

• Lefant M210 — $89.99 $199.99 (save $110)

• Dreame D20 — $227.99 $349.99 (save $122)

• Shark AI Ultra — $449.99 $599 (save $149.01)

• Dreame D30 Ultra CE — $459.98 $499.99 (save $40.01)

Acer CEO Jason Chen is offering a notably rosier timeline than the rest of the memory industry, predicting that price hikes tied to the ongoing RAM shortage could begin to reverse by late 2027.

Chen made the comments in an interview with DigiTimes, as reported by TechSpot, putting him at odds with executives at several major memory manufacturers who've painted a much bleaker picture.

The shortage has already had widespread effects. Since last year, surging demand from AI data center buildouts has consumed available memory supply and pushed DRAM prices up roughly fivefold, a squeeze that's rippled out to PCs, smartphones, graphics cards, and game consoles, along with the CPUs and motherboards built around them. As TechSpot notes, a recent industry study found the memory market now resembles, on a per-unit basis, conditions from nearly two decades ago.

SEE ALSO: FTC and 22 states sue Amazon for allegedly inflating ad prices for 1.2 million advertisers

Per TechSpot's reporting, Micron CEO Sanjay Mehrotra said earlier this year that tight supply would persist beyond 2027, while SK Hynix CEO Kwak Noh-Jung projected shortages peaking in 2027 and supply remaining tight through 2030. Adata chairman Chen Li-bai went further still, forecasting elevated prices for another full decade despite expansion plans across the industry.

Chen sees those forecasts differently, arguing they reflect an incentive to protect margins rather than a genuine supply problem. He contends that the supply of most RAM and SSD types has already caught up with demand, and that real shortages are now confined mostly to high-end components like the fastest DDR5 modules and chips such as Nvidia's N1X, according to TechSpot.

Even so, Chen still expects PC prices to climb another 5 percent to 20 percent before the year is out, with a peak in the first half of 2027 ahead of any relief. Part of his optimism hinges on cheaper supply coming from Chinese manufacturers like CXMT. Apple has reportedly been considering CXMT as a supplier despite the company’s inclusion on the Pentagon's blacklist, TechSpot noted.

Chen's prediction runs counter to what analysts told Mashable in our previous reporting, which suggested prices would likely rise before they fall, with elevated pricing persisting through 2027 and potentially into 2028.

Jitesh Ubrani, an analyst director with the International Data Corporation, told Mashable at the time:

"The memory supply will remain tight from a device's perspective for the remainder of 2026 and well into 2027," he said. "We will see some alleviation in 2028, but keep in mind that prices will continue to rise throughout. And even in 2028, assuming this new [memory] capacity comes online and is able to provide some alleviation, we don't see device prices dropping significantly."

That leaves consumers with a wide range of outlooks to sort through — from Acer's best-case scenario of falling prices by late 2027 to warnings that meaningful relief may not arrive until 2028, or could take considerably longer. For now, anyone shopping for a new PC should probably expect prices to keep climbing before they have any real chance of coming back down.

3D modeling is a great skill for getting the most out of your 3D printer, but there’s no denying that there’s a learning curve. Thankfully, there are easier ways to solve a problem, and it all comes down to making clever use of work that’s already been done for you.