Technology

Routers, while important, are not the most interesting bit of tech, and most people aren't interested in learning what all those toggles in the settings actually do.

When it comes to long-term value, few cars hold their resale power like this popular hatchback. Even after five years, it retains a surprising percentage of its original price, making it a standout in a market where depreciation often hits new vehicles hard.

Do you remember your younger years, talking to your friends over AOL Instant Messenger? Wouldn't you like to try it out again? Well, you can, and I did. I fired up this blast from the past to see if it's as fun as it once was.

In the age of streaming, it is not uncommon to have a television in nearly every room. If there is a wall or space on the dresser, it is a perfect spot to put one.

DeWALT is one of the most popular power tool brands on the market, frequently found on job sites, in specific trades, and loved by DIYers everywhere. The company makes hundreds of powerful and capable tools you'll love, but they're often more expensive than competitors like Ryobi. With that in mind, here are a few expensive but great DeWALT tools worth saving up for.

Going away to college is one of the most exciting times in anyone's life. You're not quite an independent adult yet, but you're almost off the leash, and about to learn a lot of new things both inside and outside the classroom.

Samsung phones are among the most ubiquitous cameras in the world, and most of them also happen to be good ones—but don't expect to capture a good shot just by shooting from the hip. I've taken many of the photos I've published for How-To Geek directly on Galaxy phones, and here's how I pull it off.

Car seats slide forward and back, and on most modern vehicles they remember where the driver programmed them. Those who own a swanky luxury SUV may even have a massage function they can enjoy. Acura's newest concept throws the traditional seating setup out the window.

I've been paying for a Google Drive (or, more accurately, "Google One") subscription for a long time, before Gemini even came into play. At some point, I stopped questioning whether I actually needed it. I paid the sub and used it without thinking twice.

My daughter has incredible handwriting. It genuinely amazes me how beautiful it is when my own scrawl is often barely legible. I'm sure her flowery style will become simpler as she gets older, so I wanted to try to preserve her current handwriting, and a free Claude Code skill was all it took.

Pretty much every home has a junk drawer or two, where things are thrown until they’re needed, and nothing can be found without a good rummage. Thankfully, you don’t need to go “full Gridfinity” to 3D print your way out of this mess.

Windows 11 is bloated, there are no two ways about it. The operating system eats up too much memory, Windows Search is slow and infested with Bing online results, and the amount of background tasks and services makes it feel sluggish on many PCs.

You wouldn’t know it from the headlines, but Samsung launched two (2) new Galaxy Z Fold phones last month. The wide Fold 8 stole the show, turning the Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra into an unusual underdog. Regardless, this is the model that Samsung adorned with the “Ultra” tag, and it did so for good reason.

Marvel surprised the crowd at its D23 panel Friday night with new footage from Avengers: Doomsday, offering fans an exclusive look at the upcoming film.

In the clip, Sue Storm of the Fantastic Four tells the assembled Avengers that Victor Von Doom (Robert Downey Jr.) wasn't always the villain they're facing now, hinting that the character's turn followed the loss of everything he held dear, presumably including his wife and child. The footage cuts between close-ups of the ensemble cast as the moment lands.

The footage arrived just as Marvel unveiled the cast of its X-Men reboot, and the ensemble glimpsed in the Doomsday clip includes several of the franchise's Fox-era mutants, including Cyclops, Professor X, and Magneto.

The footage also delivers a jolt of action, showing RDJ's Doom shrug off a direct hit from Thor before summoning what appears to be a full army of Sentinels — the towering, mutant-hunting robots known for their flight capabilities and energy-blast attacks. Bad news for the good guys.

Avengers: Doomsday is set to hit theaters Dec. 18, 2026.

SPOILER WARNING: This piece references plot details from Spider-Man: Brand New Day, including Sadie Sink's role in the film.

Marvel unveiled the cast of its long-awaited X-Men reboot at D23 on Friday night, assembling a notably younger ensemble than the mutant team audiences have known from two decades of Fox films.

Disney and Marvel revealed that the new lineup includes Sadie Sink (Stranger Things, The Whale) as Jean Grey, Kit Connor (Heart Stopper Forever, Elden Ring, Warfare) as Cyclops, Christopher Abbott (Wolfman, Girls, Sanctuary) as Professor Charles Xavier, Samara Weaving (Ready or Not, Over Your Dead Body) as Emma Frost, Inde Navarrette (Obsession) as Rogue, and Broadway performer Maya Boyd as Storm, with Adam Driver (Marriage Story, Girls, House of Gucci) joining as the villain Mr. Sinister.

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The cast appeared onstage alongside Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige, with Driver joining via video. Feige said the actors had only just met backstage for the first time, and cautioned that the roster revealed Friday isn't the complete lineup. Driver, for his part, said he and Feige had discussed him joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe for years before they "found something perfect with characters I feel very deeply about."

SEE ALSO: Ryan Gosling to star in MCU's 'Ghost Rider' film

The younger cast marks a deliberate departure from the X-Men most audiences already know. A number of actors from the 2000s Fox films — including Patrick Stewart as Professor X, Ian McKellen as Magneto, James Marsden as Cyclops, Rebecca Romijn as Mystique, and Alan Cumming as Nightcrawler — are set to return this December in Avengers: Doomsday. Channing Tatum's variant of Gambit is also set to appear, with the character formally appearing in Deadpool & Wolverine after a decade of the purported film being stuck in developmental hell. A version of Gambit played by Taylor Sheridan appears in X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

Notably absent from Friday's announcement was any casting for Wolverine, but Hugh Jackman did tease that he and Ryan Reynolds' Deadpool could appear in Avengers: Doomsday.

Some of the case announcements have been known for a few weeks. Connor's role as Cyclops and Weaving's as Emma Frost had previously been reported, and the Hollywood Reporter had exclusively reported the prior week that Abbott was a strong contender for Professor X. Navarrette recently broke out in the summer hit Obsession, while Boyd is best known for leading the Broadway production of & Juliet.

The film is set for release on May 5, 2028.

SAVE $549: As of Aug. 15, the Anker Solix S2000 portable power station is down to $649.99 from $1,199 at Amazon — a 46% discount and one of its best prices yet.

Opens in a new window Credit: Anker Solix Anker Solix S2000 $649.99 at Amazon
$1,199 Save $549.01   Get Deal

Anker's Solix S2000 portable power station just dropped to one of its best prices yet.

It's on sale for $649.99 at Amazon — down from $1,199. A big selling point here is fridge backup — Anker says it'll keep your fridge running for 35 hours on a full charge. That's because the unit barely draws power while idle, so more of the battery goes toward keeping your food cold rather than being wasted.

The battery itself is an LFP (lithium iron phosphate) battery, which means it's built to last longer than a typical lithium-ion battery. Anker rates it for 10,000 charge cycles, which works out to about 15 years of regular use before you'd need to think about replacing it.

SEE ALSO: I tried the Jackery FridgeGuard portable power station: It's both functional and pretty

Despite holding almost 2,000Wh of power, it's smaller and lighter than most power stations in this category, weighing under 36 pounds. It puts out 1,500W continuously (3,000W at peak), enough to run about 99% of typical home appliances, though that'll depend on exactly what you're plugging in.

You've got six ways to recharge it, including solar, a wall outlet, your car, or a generator, so you're not locked into one option. It's got eight outlets split between the front and back, keeping things easy to reach instead of crammed together, and if the power cuts out while you're working, it switches over in under 10 milliseconds, fast enough that you probably won't even notice.

Blackout-proof your kitchen while it's actually affordable. Grab the Anker Solix S2000 portable power station on Amazon before it returns to full price.

The best Disney+ deals and bundles in August 2026: Best Hulu Bundle Deal Disney+ and Hulu Bundle Get 6 months for $11.99/month Get Deal Best HBO Max Bundle Deal Disney+, Hulu, and HBO Max Bundle $19.99/month with ads, $32.99/month ad-free Get Deal Best ESPN Bundle Deal Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN Unlimited Bundle $35.99/month Get Deal

Whether you're looking to jump into the latest superhero saga or journey to a galaxy far, far away, Disney+ is the streaming service for you.

Home to Marvel, Star Wars, Pixar, and more, Disney+ offers a library stuffed with shows and films to keep both adults and kids entertained. With Disney+, you can watch Pixar's latest movie Hoppers, season two of X-Men '97, the upcoming third season of Percy Jackson and the Olympians, and much more.

If you've had this streaming service on your radar but you're unsure which plan is the best fit for you, we've got you covered with a selection of Disney+ streaming deals. Right now, the streamer is offering six months of its ad-supported Disney+ and Hulu bundle for only $11.99 per month (which renews at $12.99 per month after six months), or six months of its ad-free plan at $17.99 per month (which will return to $19.99 per month after the six-month promotional period).

SEE ALSO: Tom Holland and the 'Spider-Man: Brand New Day' cast reveal what they'd forget with Doctor Strange's memory spell

There's also the Disney+, Hulu, and HBO Max package, which is a great investment for those who already use the other two streaming services but want to cut costs. We've detailed all available bundle deals below, along with basic information on Disney+ plans if you just want the House of Mouse's service on its own.

Best Hulu bundle deal Opens in a new window Credit: Disney Disney+ and Hulu Bundle Get 6 months of Disney+ and Hulu (With Ads) for $11.99/month, then $12.99/month Get Deal Why we like it

For those interested in the Disney+ and Hulu bundle, the streamer is offering deals on both its ad-supported and ad-free plans. For the plan with ads, new and eligible returning subscribers can lock in for six months at $11.99 per month before it returns to $12.99 per month. And if you're interested in going ad-free, the Premium plan is down to $17.99 per month for six months, then returns to $19.99 per month.

• Disney+ and Hulu Bundle — $11.99 per month for six months, then $12.99 per month

• Disney+ and Hulu Bundle Premium — $17.99 per month for six months, then $19.99 per month

Best HBO Max bundle deal Opens in a new window Credit: Disney Disney+, Hulu, and HBO Max Bundle $19.99/month with ads, $32.99/month ad-free Get Deal Why we like it

The Disney+, Hulu, and HBO Max bundle is one of the best available at the moment. Starting at $19.99 per month, you can have three excellent streaming services right in the palm of your hand. The $19.99 per month option is for the With Ads plan, but if you'd prefer to watch your favorite content without ads, the No Ads plan costs $32.99 per month. Compared to what you'd pay for each of these on their own, you're saving 42% with the ad-supported plan and 41% with the ad-free plan.

• Disney+, Hulu, HBO Max Bundle (with ads) — $19.99 per month (save 42%)

• Disney+, Hulu, HBO Max Bundle (no ads) — $32.99 per month (save 41%)

Best ESPN bundle Opens in a new window Credit: Disney Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN Unlimited Bundle $35.99/month Get Deal

If you're a sports fan looking to add ESPN to your bundles, you're in luck: Disney offers bundles with both ESPN Select and ESPN Unlimited. According to ESPN, "ESPN Select includes ESPN+ content only. Fans who want ESPN+ exclusively may subscribe to the ESPN Select plan. ESPN Unlimited includes all of the ESPN networks and services, including ESPN+."

The Disney+, Hulu, ESPN Unlimited Bundle, which has ads, is available for $35.99 per month. The Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN Unlimited premium bundle without ads is available for $44.99 per month.

• Disney+, Hulu, ESPN Select Bundle — $19.99 per month

• Disney+, Hulu, ESPN Select Bundle Premium — $29.99 per month

• Disney+, Hulu, ESPN Unlimited Bundle — $35.99 per month

• Disney+, Hulu, ESPN Unlimited Bundle Premium — $44.99 per month

Best Disney+ monthly plans

Disney+ offers two standard plans if you just want the service on its own. The Disney+ ad-supported plan comes to $11.99 per month, while the ad-free Disney+ Premium plan will set you back $18.99 per month or $189.99 per year if you'd rather pay annually.

• Disney+ (With Ads) — $11.99 per month

• Disney+ Premium (No Ads) — $18.99 per month, $189.99 per year

Disney+ has also created an "extra member" plan for people using your account who live outside of your household, as they crack down on password sharing. If you're looking to add another person to your account, you're only allowed one extra profile and can choose from the following add-on plans:

• Disney+ (With Ads) — $6.99 per month

• Disney+ Premium — $9.99 per month

• Disney+, Hulu Bundle — $7.99 per month

• Disney+, Hulu Bundle Premium — $10.99 per month

• Disney+, Hulu, ESPN Select Bundle — $11.99 per month

• Disney+, Hulu, ESPN Select Bundle Premium — $14.99 per month

There's a wealth of shows and films to check out on Disney+ after you sign up. If you want some help finding something to watch, check out our roundups of the 12 best TV shows for adults on Disney+ and the 20 best movies on Disney+ to start building out your watchlist.

If you like playing daily word games like Wordle, then Hurdle is a great game to add to your routine.

There are five rounds to the game. The first round sees you trying to guess the word, with correct, misplaced, and incorrect letters shown in each guess. If you guess the correct answer, it'll take you to the next hurdle, providing the answer to the last hurdle as your first guess. This can give you several clues or none, depending on the words. For the final hurdle, every correct answer from previous hurdles is shown, with correct and misplaced letters clearly shown.

An important note is that the number of times a letter is highlighted from previous guesses does necessarily indicate the number of times that letter appears in the final hurdle.

Want more tech and digital culture news delivered to your inbox daily or sent straight to your device? Sign up for Mashable's Top Stories newsletter or get Mashable push alerts today.

If you find yourself stuck at any step of today's Hurdle, don't worry! We have you covered.

SEE ALSO: Hurdle: Everything you need to know to find the answers Hurdle Word 1 hint

A mistake.

Hurdle Word 1 answer

SNAFU

Hurdle Word 2 hint

Ways information is relayed.

SEE ALSO: Wordle today: Answer, hints for August 15, 2026 Hurdle Word 2 Answer

MEDIA

Hurdle Word 3 hint

To destroy.

SEE ALSO: NYT Connections hints today: Clues, answers for August 15, 2026 SEE ALSO: NYT Connections Sports Edition today: Hints and answers for August 15, 2026 Hurdle Word 3 answer

BREAK

Hurdle Word 4 hint

Like an apartment.

Hurdle Word 4 answer

CONDO

Final Hurdle hint

An area without light

SEE ALSO: Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more: Games available on Mashable Hurdle Word 5 answer

UNLIT

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

When Nobel Laureate John C. Mather used to give talks about the James Webb Space Telescope, he would often use an impressive analogy — that the observatory was so sensitive, it could detect the heat of a bumblebee as far away as the moon.

That's because Webb, a collaboration of NASA and the European and Canadian space agencies, was built to detect the faintest, most ancient light in the universe — galaxies and stars that formed just a few hundred million years after the Big Bang.

But there's an irony to having the world's most powerful infrared telescope in space: While Webb is exceptional at seeing unfathomably distant things, it struggles to take pictures of objects in our own cosmic backyard, like Mars and Saturn.

Because the planets in our solar system are so bright, they flood the telescope's sensors with more light than they can handle. To get these shots, astronomers have had to use dark filters — akin to wearing solar eclipse glasses — to avoid blinding the camera.

Now, telescope operators have a workaround, and it doesn't require astronauts visiting the spacecraft a million miles away for maintenance. Instead, engineers are sending a software update from the ground that will let Webb photograph bright planets without throwing away useful data.

SEE ALSO: New space object masquerades as a star the size of our solar system

The new readout method, called "superstripe," should allow Webb to safely photograph targets that are 100 or more times brighter than it could handle before, said Bryan Holler, a scientist at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore.

Even Holler, who took Jupiter photos with Webb in 2022, admits those first images were a blurry mess. That's because the camera took several seconds to read the whole image while the planet's fast‑moving clouds shifted. Those test images were intended to assess how much unwanted stray light Webb would see as Jupiter moved onto the camera detector.

Left: Early images of Jupiter and its moon Europa were blurry and overexposed, highlighting the James Webb Space Telescope's challenges taking images of bright solar system objects. Credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / B. Holler / J. Stansberry Right: Credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / B. Holler / J. Stansberry

Webb later produced more photogenic Jupiter images by using shorter exposures and more selective settings. 

"The nicer Jupiter images that are out there from people who really know how to do image processing, they were able to actually deblur some of those images using the data," Holler told Mashable.

But sharpening software can't rescue light that was never recorded in the first place. Until now, scientists have tried to solve the problem by cropping the camera's view down to a tiny box to limit the incoming light. The new superstripe technique is an upgrade: Instead of taking one picture, the camera scans the planet in thin slices, stealing many rapid glances.

Because the camera captures each individual slice in a fraction of a second, it doesn't get dazzled by the glare. Plus, the quick snaps mean there's little time for changes in extraterrestrial storms or auroras to blur the shot. Afterward, the software stitches the slices together into a single crisp picture.

Although Webb wasn't built to look at our solar system, many astronomers are eager to use it to study nearby worlds anyway. Webb's biggest advantage is its location: It can look out into the cosmos without Earth's air getting in the way.

Advanced sharpening software can vastly improve Webb's bright and blurry solar-system pictures, but image processing can't recuperate light that was never recorded. Credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / Ricardo Hueso / Imke de Pater / Thierry Fouchet / Leigh Fletcher / Michael Wong / Joseph DePasquale

"A lot of that tends to come back to this pesky atmosphere," Holler said. "It's fine for breathing and everything, but when you really want to study surfaces or atmospheres, you have to leave [our] atmosphere."

Even giant telescopes on the ground have trouble seeing through Earth’s blanket of air, which absorbs certain types of light before they can reach the telescopes’ lenses.

Researchers say this new software could open the door to new discoveries. The stripe-style camera trick could catch rare moments, like when a giant planet, one of its moons, or even its rings briefly block a background star, giving scientists cleaner measurements of their sizes and atmospheres.

It will also allow astronomers to observe exoplanets orbiting ultra-bright stars outside our solar system, such as 55 Cancri e, a scorching-hot lava world 41 light-years away.

The superstripe readout capability is scheduled to roll out with Webb's next observing cycle, which begins next July. For the rest of us, just sit back and relax: Sharper views of our own cosmic neighbors are on the way.

Over the past few years, Prime Video has become the ultimate destination for young adult and new adult shows.

The Summer I Turned Pretty whipped the world into a frenzy over the Team Conrad versus Team Jeremiah debate. Maxton Hall served up swoon-worthy enemies-to-lovers angst. Off Campus proved an irresistible addition to TV's hottest new subgenre: hockey romance.

SEE ALSO: What's new to streaming this week? (Aug. 14, 2026)

These shows and more — We Were Liars, Elle, Every Year After — are all part of Prime's push to court Gen Z. Its latest hit, Sterling Point, is no exception. Created by Megan Park, the director of exceptional coming-of-age films The Fallout and My Old Ass, the series is another entry in Prime's robust YA library. It's also its most refreshing standout.

Sterling Point follows New York teen Annie (Ella Rubin) as she visits the Canadian island she and her twin brother Connor (Keen Ruffalo) inherited from the grandfather they never knew. Plot-wise, the show doesn't reinvent the wheel. In fact, it has quite a few elements in common with several other Prime YA hits. The Canadian lake setting of Every Year After. The family secrets of We Were Liars. The love triangle of The Summer I Turned Pretty. The class divide of Maxton Hall. Many of these are standard teen drama tropes, and Sterling Point isn't afraid to dig into others: magical summers, messy birthdays, grief over losing loved ones. Yet despite this familiarity, Sterling Point manages to set itself apart, and in doing so becomes Prime's most exceptional teen drama.

For starters, Sterling Point is a completely original entry in Prime's adaptation-heavy slate. Unlike The Summer I Turned Pretty, Maxton Hall, Off Campus, Every Year After, and We Were Liars, it's not based on a book series. And unlike Legally Blonde prequel Elle, or the cancelled Cruel Intentions, it has no ties to prior films.

SEE ALSO: I would like 'Elle' better if it wasn't a 'Legally Blonde' prequel

This is not a knock against adaptations. YA novels, especially YA romances, have huge audiences who deserve to see their beloved stories leap off the page. That kind of built-in fandom is also a TV network's dream, so no wonder Prime is pursuing adaptations in such intense fashion. (Other streamers have pulled similar moves: Netflix with My Life with the Walter Boys, Forever, and the now-concluded Heartstopper, and Hulu with the now-concluded Tell Me Lies.)

However, like any good TV lineup, Prime's younger-skewing collection needs variety. That means original shows to balance out its host of adaptations. Benito Skinner's college-set Overcompensating fills this niche on the comedy front, but on the teen drama front, Prime has yet to find that kind of success with an original. (It canceled 2025 teen drama original Motorheads after just one season.) Sterling Point, which took the number one spot on Prime Video's chart and which has generated huge buzz across social media, may very well be the Prime YA original with staying power.

Sterling Point's status as an original already makes it a major outlier in Prime's teen drama catalog. But what truly sets it apart is its tone, which remains grounded and naturalistic even as its story takes its fair share of soapy turns.

Of Prime's teen dramas, Sterling Point is the first one I watched that genuinely captures how young people talk. Other offerings like The Summer I Turned Pretty or We Were Liars have more affected dialogue, with voiceovers often narrating directly from the book. The effect is one of glossy drama, but Sterling Point strips the gloss away in favor of natural pauses and overlapping dialogue. Characters ramble and apologize for rambling. They interrupt one another and apologize for that, too. Nothing feels like a mimicry of conversation: It just is conversation. That even extends to Sterling Point's occasional use of slang, which avoids the trap of feeling forced. At one point, Connor calls a plate of spaghetti "gas," and the moment is as lived-in as it is silly.

That same natural feeling is present across Park's prior projects. The former star of a teen drama herself, having appeared in The Secret Life of the American Teenager, Park has emphasized the importance of writing dialogue that sounds like a teen would actually say it. She also encouraged the actors to improvise, creating a sense of messy realness that highlights the strengths of her young cast. Several exchanges feel drawn from a mumblecore movie, which only feels fitting given that Jay Duplass — a key figure of the mumblecore genre, along with his brother Mark — stars as Annie and Connor's father.

The majority of Prime's YA series offer up lovely fantasies of romance and self-discovery, and Sterling Point certainly indulges in these fantasies as well. But its dialogue makes them feel more down-to-earth, all without ever diminishing the big life changes its characters are experiencing. It's a show that manages to have that timeless teen drama quality, earning comparisons to classics like Dawson's Creek and The O.C. in a way that Prime's flashier YA shows haven't. Yet even though it boasts a throwback quality (the lack of phone service around Sterling Point helps), it remains rooted in the now. Thanks to that, out of all Prime's moves to woo Gen Z, Sterling Point is the series that's closest to actually getting them right.

Sterling Point is now streaming on Prime Video.