Technology

Wi-Fi 7 is ridiculously fast. So much so that most households have no use for it, not to mention actually having the gear to support it. Just having a router with Wi-Fi 7 doesn't mean that your entire home and your ISP can support those wild speeds.

Once a manufacturer stops supporting a device, you might assume it's headed for the e-waste bin. When online services and updates disappear, many devices become effectively useless. But thanks to enthusiast communities, that isn't always the case; many products become even more useful after official support ends.

Last weekend marked the arrival of one of Netflix's newest movies, Animals, starring Ben Affleck and Kerry Washington. It's a political thriller about a mayoral candidate who fights to save his kidnapped son. With an enticing premise and an A-list cast, I'd expect Animals to become a popular movie with subscribers this week.

I've been a fan of Dygma's keyboards since their very first Raise keyboard. I have used a Dygma Raise or Raise 2 for the better part of five years now, so when the opportunity came about to try out the Sonsei, I jumped at it. This uniquely portable columnar keyboard surprised me in quite a few ways. But, at the end of the day, I really love this little keyboard, even though there's a big learning curve.

Once, it was relatively inexpensive to buy another hard drive and throw it in your server when you ran out of space. These days, "just add another drive" is an expensive proposition.

Waze gets me where I need to go, but that doesn’t always make the drive pleasant. Sometimes, it talks over my Spotify playlist, and other times, its suggested routes make me wonder what it’s thinking. I’ve used the app enough to know its basic features, but I rarely bother exploring beyond the usual directions and traffic alerts.

A polished Linux terminal rarely arrives preconfigured. TheLinux terminal fits most people, but the setups people admire are assembled piece by piece around stuff like Zsh and Oh My Zsh. Here is what those tools are, why they make a strong foundation, and whether the effort pays off.

For most of my life, owning a PC meant having a tower case so big it made more sense to keep it on the floor. But with all the hardware stuffed in that box, it actually needed to be that size.

I'd never imagined that I would be using a task manager from the Linux terminal. Using commands to create to-do lists instead of using a cool-looking GUI with color customization options. That's until I came across Taskwarrior. It's a free, open-source task manager that's also simple to use. But that's the point. It can replace other bloated desktop apps.

From the creator lounge at New York Comic Con, the view is hard to beat. Below, thousands of fans stream through the Javits Center's main entrance, a colorful procession of elaborate cosplays, oversized props, and familiar characters brought to life. Towering banners celebrating everything from Tamagotchi and The Apothecary Diaries to YAGA and NYCC's 20th anniversary hang overhead. It's a spectacle in its own right, and an even better backdrop for a TikTok.

That's intentional. For this year's convention, organizers designed the lower portions of the banners in the venue's Crystal Palace with photo and video opportunities in mind, anticipating how attendees might capture their experiences and share them online.

SEE ALSO: The Mashable 101: The creators defining the internet in 2026

The creator lounge offers a particularly good vantage point. The open space overlooks the crowds below, with dedicated Wi-Fi, room to film and edit, and a place to recharge throughout the day. It's one of the ways NYCC is accommodating a growing contingent of content creators who arrive at the convention with cameras, microphones, and their own audiences.

On the show floor, cosplayers pose for photos, fans capture moments for their feeds, and creators stop attendees for interviews. The convention is as much a place to make content as it is to experience the fandoms that brought everyone together. For some, that means sharing their excitement with an online audience. For others, it's work. Increasingly, it's both.

Conventions have always been places where fans gather to celebrate the things they love. As fandom continues to flourish on TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, and beyond, events like NYCC are evolving alongside it, becoming sprawling content studios where nearly every corner offers something worth capturing. Organizers are beginning to design their spaces accordingly.

From convention floor to content feed

For NYCC, that shift began in earnest in 2021, when live events returned after the pandemic and short-form video was transforming the way people discovered and engaged with pop culture. That year, NYCC hired two creators to take over its TikTok account during the convention. According to marketing director Fallon Prinzivalli, the experiment reached more than 8 million people in four days.

"We started engaging with them very intentionally following the pandemic when live events were coming back," Prinzivalli told Mashable.

What followed was a more formal approach to working with creators, including dedicated badges and, eventually, a lounge designed around their needs. Previously, influencers had been applying for press credentials despite not necessarily qualifying as editorial media. NYCC recognized that these creators offered something different, but no less valuable, to the convention and its exhibitors.

SEE ALSO: TikTok has more ways than ever for creators to make money

Today, NYCC offers a limited number of complimentary creator badges. Although its guidelines specify at least 200,000 followers across platforms, Prinzivalli said the convention also considers smaller creators based on their communities, originality, and impact. The demand is significant. NYCC received thousands of applications this year and closed submissions in August after reaching capacity. Prinzivalli declined to disclose how many badges were issued.

The lounge itself grew out of the practical realization that creators needed more than a table and an internet connection. "We wanted to give them dedicated Wi-Fi. We wanted it to be in the middle of the energy," Prinzivalli explained. "We wanted it to be a space where they can film videos, or they can connect with other creators."

And perhaps most importantly, somewhere to catch their breath before heading back into the chaos.

When fandom becomes a production schedule

For Kallen Zborovsky-Fenster, a New York City-based creator who posts as @king_kallen on TikTok, NYCC is one of the biggest events on his content calendar. He spends weeks preparing, developing interview topics, gathering equipment, and transforming his usual at-home recording setup into something portable. This year, he's interviewing fellow creators and attendees about everything from Avengers: Doomsday to the state of the DC Universe.

"This is one of my highest priority events," he told Mashable.

The creator lounge gives him a quieter place to conduct interviews, charge his equipment, and connect with others in the entertainment industry. Still, he doesn't want to spend the entire convention upstairs. "I want to go where the people are," he said.

For Caroline Martini, who shares cosplay and convention content as @newyorkcaroline, preparation looks a little different. Before arriving, she keeps a running list of TikToks and shots she wants to capture in her iPhone Notes app. She also makes some of her own costumes, including an Éowyn cosplay from The Lord of the Rings that she wore to NYCC.

Between cosplay videos and convention vlogs for TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts, there's plenty to keep her busy. Convention days can be so overwhelming that her daily vlogs sometimes don't make it online until the following day. When you're making content about something you love, it can be hard to separate the enjoyment of the moment from the urge to capture it.

Martini appreciates the creator lounge's lighting and photo opportunities, but she doesn't spend much time there. Not all her friends have creator badges, and she wants to experience Comic Con with them, too. Because even as conventions increasingly recognize creators as professionals, the people behind the cameras are often fans first.

A new kind of convention community

The benefits of creator access extend beyond having somewhere to film. Zborovsky-Fenster, a Columbia University student interested in entertainment production and law, sees NYCC as an opportunity to build professional relationships. This is his second year receiving a creator badge, and he was determined to return. He sent multiple emails during the application process, sharing examples of last year's videos and explaining what he hoped to create this time.

The complimentary badge makes attendance more affordable, but the connections are just as valuable. "When you meet new people, through them, you meet more people," he said, describing the growing network of creators who collaborate, attend industry events together, and support one another.

For Dominique Little, who shares vlogs and dance videos with her 1.8 million TikTok followers as @nojill, the lounge makes it a little easier to collaborate with other creators. Instead of trying to find each other on a sprawling convention floor, creators have a dedicated place to meet, film together, and make appearances in one another's videos. There are even tripods available for anyone who needs one.

And their needs aren't always glamorous. Between recording, editing, and uploading, reliable Wi-Fi, charging outlets, and somewhere to sit can make all the difference.

For Brandon Bullock, who covers anime news as Anime News Guy on social media, the lounge serves another purpose. His coverage is largely dictated by whatever news comes out of the convention, which means he has to be ready to film, edit, and publish as announcements happen. He shoots his videos on the show floor, then heads upstairs to the creator lounge to edit and get them online while the news is still fresh.

Bullock identifies himself as a reporter, even as he participates in NYCC's creator program. It's a distinction that, these days, feels difficult to draw. Creators are conducting interviews, covering entertainment news, hosting livestreams, and building their own media brands.

Prinzivalli has seen those boundaries blur firsthand. Some creators, she said, are treated like celebrities within the fandoms they cover, getting stopped on the convention floor by fans asking for photos.

At NYCC, someone can be a fan, a reporter, and the person everyone wants a selfie with, sometimes all at once.

Built to be shared

The growing influence of creators is evident in the way conventions are designed, down to the smallest details. "We're very conscious that everything we create now is a shareable moment," Prinzivalli said.

A picture-perfect entrance, by design. Credit: Bryan Bedder/Getty Images

That thinking extends from sponsor activations to signage and the layout of the show floor. For NYCC's 20th anniversary, organizers intentionally designed the lower portions of the entrance banners in the Crystal Palace to serve as photo and video backdrops. Even the convention's physical spaces are being imagined through the lens of a camera, with an eye toward how those moments will travel online.

A creator's-eye view of New York Comic Con. Credit: Photo by Joy Malone/Getty Images

NYCC has also expanded its livestream production, with broadcasts from major stages, roaming segments on the convention floor, and a studio in the River Pavilion interviewing casts and creatives between panels. This year's coverage featured a rotating lineup of hosts, including experienced journalists and personalities with established online followings, such as creator and podcast host Brandon Davis.

Together, these efforts are extending the convention's reach far beyond the Javits Center, giving fans who couldn't attend a way to experience the excitement as it unfolds.

Prinzivalli sees the relationship between online fandom and in-person events as something circular. Digital communities bring fans together at conventions, where their shared enthusiasm becomes the photos, videos, interviews, and conversations that find their way back onto those same feeds.

There's something fitting about that. So much of fandom exists online, in group chats, comment sections, and the endless scroll of a social feed. Conventions offer a rare opportunity to bring those connections into the physical world. The mutuals become friends. The usernames become faces. The characters and stories that brought everyone together become something tangible.

And as those experiences find their way back online, the people documenting them are gaining influence of their own. For Kallen, who's hoping to build a career in entertainment, the growing investment in creators reflects how much their role in shaping pop culture has evolved.

"I think the creator economy is becoming so much larger now, and big entities are really starting to take it seriously," he said. "Because a lot of people get that information from content creators."

A huge trove of behind-the-scenes animation material from Cartoon Network’s history appears to have leaked online, and it’s the kind of stuff animation nerds rarely, if ever, get to see.

The leak centers on a Google Drive folder containing production files from shows including The Amazing World of Gumball, Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends, The Powerpuff Girls, The Looney Tunes Show, Duck Dodgers, and Garfield. Mashable was able to access the Drive and independently confirm its contents.

SEE ALSO: The latest Samsung Galaxy S27 Ultra rumors and leaks: Everything we know so far

According to IndiaTimes, the leak totals more than 200GB of Cartoon Network material.

The leak appears to trace back to an anonymous X account called "totallynotaburner." According to its profile, the account is based in the U.S. and was created this month. Mashable reached out to the account but did not receive a response.

Beyond the Drive folder, the leaker shared a master Google Doc linking to material from even more of Cartoon Network’s back catalog, hosted on a separate file-sharing site. That includes Teen Titans, Dexter’s Laboratory, Robot Chicken, and The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy. Many of those links have already been taken down, and links to the Drive folder and other Google Docs are being struck for copyright violations as they spread.

Mashable reached out to Warner Bros. and Paramount to confirm the leak’s authenticity, but did not receive a response in time for publication.

What's inside

To the average viewer, a cartoon is just the finished episode. But each one is built from thousands of pieces most people never see, and this leak is full of them. Some of the material will be familiar to anyone who’s watched a DVD extra, like storyboards and pitch documents. Other parts are more inside baseball.

Model sheets are reference drawings that show a character from every angle, with notes on proportions and expressions, so dozens of animators can draw the Powerpuff Girls exactly the same way. Puppet rigs are digital versions of characters broken into movable parts, a bit like a paper doll, which animators can pose and move in software instead of redrawing every frame by hand. Many of the character files are EPS files, a vector graphics format that lets the art scale to any size without getting blurry.

For artists and the broader public, this material offers a rare look at how professional productions are made. Some of it usually only surfaces in official art books, studio exhibits, or artists’ portfolios, and much of it never surfaces at all. That’s especially true for older shows, whose production files can easily get lost as studios restructure. Cartoon Network itself has already shown how easily its history can vanish, as its website was shut down after 26 years.

That doesn’t make the leak harmless. These files represent years of unpaid-for access to other people’s work, and artists have pushed back on past leaks for exactly that reason.

The timing of the leaks should be noted. On Oct. 6, Skydance, led by David Ellison, completed its roughly $110 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery. The combined company, also called Skydance, now controls Warner Bros., HBO, DC Studios, CNN, and Paramount, along with CBS News and Cartoon Network.

That’s why plenty of people on social media were quick to pin the leak on Paramount’s security.

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The studio has had a rough year with leaks. In April, clips and eventually the full Avatar: Aang, The Last Airbender movie surfaced online about six months before its planned Paramount+ debut. The leaker claimed Nickelodeon had accidentally emailed them the movie. And back in 2023, Nickelodeon confirmed that leaked production files from its animation department were legitimate, though it said some of the material appeared to be decades old.

Still, there’s no evidence yet tying this leak to Paramount’s systems. In the Avatar case, Paramount’s initial investigation found the leak didn’t come from within the studio, according to Variety. How the Cartoon Network files got out and whether they predate the merger remain unclear.

What’s clear is that Ellison’s newly enlarged empire has another leak to deal with. And for animation fans, a rare and unauthorized look behind the curtain of some of their favorite shows.

Apple wanted its original iMac to look like the future, and even the mouse got the translucent-plastic treatment. The trouble was that the mouse was a circle, and hands aren't particularly circular. What followed was a small but fascinating collection of products designed to make Apple's distinctive little puck more comfortable, more familiar, or entirely unnecessary.

We're just two short days away from Apple's upcoming "Welcome Home" launch event in New York City, and the rumor mill is working overtime. 

The latest news about what to expect comes from Bloomberg's own Apple correspondent, Mark Gurman, whose recent newsletter anticipates some exciting new announcements in the smart home space, where Apple has been floundering for more than 10 years since the release of its HomeKit software in 2014.

SEE ALSO: The latest MacBook Pro and Ultra rumors: What we know about Apple's OLED touchscreen Macs

While major rivals like Google purchased Nest Labs, makers of the most popular smart thermostat, and Amazon purchased Ring, a popular smart home security company famous for its video doorbells, Apple struggled to find a grip on the market, and its rare attempts, like the short-lived HomePod smart speaker released in 2018, were rare financial failures for a company accustomed to always hitting home runs. 

That all changes this coming Tuesday, according to Gurman, who expects Apple to unveil "a ready-made ecosystem and a full lineup of devices designed to work together," anchored to the smart home hub called HomeView. Available in both free-standing and wall-mounted varieties, HomeView is alleged to boast a vibrant display and advanced voice control features powered by an A18 chip, but it's not meant to serve as a standalone device. Rather, Gurman expects Apple to use the HomeView as an anchor point for a vast array of third-party accessories, including doorbells and smart locks, made in partnership with LG.  

MacRumors also expects Apple to announce a partnership with the leading home security company ADT, though the specifics of what that would entail remain entirely speculative. 

As part of their more comprehensive approach to the smart home, Apple is also expected to unveil updates to Apple TV, which has been untouched for the last two years, with everything from built-in microphones for better Siri integration to a more advanced chip and greater color variety, according to Gurman. 

While official release dates are as yet unknown, Gurman has a great track record for predictions and expects both the updated Apple TV and the new HomePod to ship to customers and arrive in stores on Oct. 30, right before Halloween.

We're in the midst of the fall TV onslaught, when many big shows come firing back with hot new seasons. If you're a planner with severe FOMO like me, a good look ahead at what's coming is just the kind of obsessive thing you need to make sure you don't miss anything.

There's plenty of magic, mythology, and larger-than-life action in Children of Blood and Bone, but beneath all that fantasy is something a little more grounded: family drama.

The upcoming adaptation of Tomi Adeyemi's bestselling novel closed out Saturday night at New York Comic Con with a packed panel on the Empire Stage, where director Gina Prince-Bythewood and the star-studded cast debuted an extended trailer offering fans another look at the fantastical world of Orïsha. And while the footage delivered on the film's epic scale, some of its most compelling moments were decidedly more intimate.

SEE ALSO: How 'Children of Blood and Bone' is bringing one of BookTok's biggest fantasy worlds to the big screen

The trailer puts the royal family's fractured relationships into sharper focus. After witnessing a horrific act of violence at the hands of her father, King Saran (Chiwetel Ejiofor), Princess Amari (Amandla Stenberg) flees the palace, while her brother, Inan (Damson Idris), finds himself torn between loyalty to his father and his own conscience.

During a conversation moderated by Knives Out filmmaker Rian Johnson, the cast opened up about the emotional conflicts driving the film's two central families. Johnson described the relationship between Saran and his children as a "Shakespearean journey," one defined by love, betrayal, and the struggle to trust the people closest to you.

(L-R) Rian Johnson, Gina Prince-Bythewood, Thuso Mbedu, Damson Idris, Amandla Stenberg, Tosin Cole, Cynthia Erivo, Lashana Lynch, and Chiwetel Ejiofor attend New York Comic Con 2026. Credit: Slaven Vlasic/Getty Images for Paramount Pictures A royal family divided

Children of Blood and Bone follows Zélie Adebola (Thuso Mbedu), a young woman determined to restore magic to Orïsha after a brutal campaign against the maji, the people who once wielded it. Her quest puts her on a collision course with the ruling monarchy, where the king's cruelty has already begun to fracture his own family.

Ejiofor described King Saran as a man impelled by trauma and rage, whose convictions are challenged over the course of the story. "There's a sort of bottomless pit that he has," the actor said of his character's emotional intensity.

To explore the royal family's complicated history, Prince-Bythewood brought the three actors together to imagine the experiences that shaped their characters, including moments that might never appear onscreen. "Gina got us together and we kind of just talked about things that may have happened and may not have happened, and the dynamics of a family such as this," Idris said. "I think that all shows itself on screen."

For Idris, those conversations were essential to understanding Inan, a prince struggling to reconcile his father's expectations with his own beliefs. "Inan personally is such a complicated character who goes through so many different emotions," he said, adding that Prince-Bythewood gave him the patience and space to explore those contradictions.

The royal family on their thrones. Credit: Lephatse Motshana Courtesy of © 2026 Paramount Pictures

Stenberg, meanwhile, was drawn to the tension between love and mistrust within the family, particularly how difficult it can be to rebuild a relationship after someone has hurt you. "There's something so beautiful and painful about when people love each other, [as] family, and are also trying to find a window of trust with each other, even when they have been hurt badly," Stenberg said.

The actors began developing that dynamic through video calls while living in different countries, before continuing the character work together on set in South Africa. For Stenberg, exploring those relationships was both emotionally demanding and rewarding. "We had such a good time," she recalled. "It was so sad, and it was so awesome."

And despite the family's fractured relationships, Ejiofor emphasized that their connection isn't entirely defined by conflict. "It is a deeply dysfunctional family," he said. "But there is love at the root of it."

Two siblings, one shared loss

That tension between love and conflict isn't limited to the royal family. On the other side of Orïsha's political divide are Zélie and her older brother, Tzain (Tosin Cole), whose relationship is similarly shaped by loss.

The siblings have experienced the same family tragedy, but they don't necessarily agree on how to move forward. As Cole explained, grief can manifest differently even among people who have suffered the same loss.

"Some people become defensive, some people rebel," Cole said. "Everyone's going through the same thing, just navigating it in a different way."

Tosin Cole, Amandla Stenberg, Thuso Mbedu, and Damson Idris pose for photos at New York Comic Con. Credit: Slaven Vlasic/Getty Images for Paramount Pictures

But despite their differences, Zélie and Tzain are ultimately driven by the same motivation to protect what's left of their family. "That's the most important thing between the two," Cole added. "Trying to keep whatever they have in the sense of love, and not trying to lose another family member."

Offscreen, however, Mbedu and Cole's sibling dynamic appeared considerably less fraught. The two spent weeks training together for the film's demanding action sequences, developing a natural familiarity that occasionally made Mbedu forget they weren't actually related.

"Sometimes I would forget that this is not my actual sibling," Mbedu recalled, joking that she'd have to remind herself to be professional on set. Then, gesturing toward Cole, she called him a "clown."

"I won't apologize for who I am," Cole shot back.

It was a playful exchange that offered a glimpse of their easy chemistry, and a welcome contrast to the royal family's considerably more complicated relationships.

Finding the humanity in fantasy

For Prince-Bythewood, those complicated relationships are what give the film's enormous scale its emotional weight. During the panel, she described her vision for Children of Blood and Bone as an "intimately grounded fantasy," one where the gods, magic, and battles never overshadow the people at the center of the story.

The filmmaker, whose previous credits include Love & Basketball and The Woman King, recalled asking Johnson for advice about approaching a production of this size. His response was simple: No matter how much money or how many resources a filmmaker has, the responsibility is still to tell a good story.

That attention to character extends to the world of Orïsha itself. Prince-Bythewood wanted the fantasy kingdom to feel tangible, building elaborate sets and filming in remote locations across South Africa.

A scene screened exclusively at NYCC offered a glimpse of that vision in action. Zélie trains with a bo staff under Mama Agba's (Viola Davis) watchful eye before she and the others hurriedly hide their weapons and pretend to weave clothing when royal officials arrive to collect taxes. It's a sequence that showcases the film's intricate fight choreography while underscoring the constant threat of living under King Saran's rule.

That attention to worldbuilding extends to the music. Prince-Bythewood wanted Orïsha to sound rooted in the past while still feeling contemporary. While writing the screenplay, she listened almost exclusively to Afrobeats, particularly Tems and Burna Boy, who later joined the production as soundtrack curator and music consultant, respectively. Composer Terence Blanchard then incorporated traditional African instrumentation and Tems' vocals into his orchestral score, blending contemporary sounds with musical traditions that could make Orïsha feel both ancient and alive.

It's all part of Prince-Bythewood's approach to creating a fantasy world that feels lived-in, even when its characters are wielding magic and fighting gods. And as the cast made clear at NYCC, the film's most consequential battles aren't necessarily fought with weapons or magic. Sometimes they're fought within families, between people who love each other but can't agree on what that love demands.

Children of Blood and Bone hits theaters on Jan. 15, 2027.

Ditching Google on an Android phone isn't as hard as you might think — until you need directions. Gmail, Search, and even YouTube all have decent replacements, but Google Maps is harder to part ways with. Not many alternatives offer live traffic, accurate business info, and reliable navigation in one app. Vela Maps is trying to change that.

If you use either Plex or Jellyfin, you'll know that managing your library can take up more time than you originally expected. It's an important part of the process, though. Both apps pull in the standard metadata for your content, but it's mostly factual information and doesn't necessarily reflect how you're going to use your library.

Linux ships with hundreds of small utilities, and most people stick to a handful. Turns out, there are tons of forgotten commands that can be either slightly fun or extremely useful. Three of them, tac, shuf, and timeout, solve common problems in a single line and take seconds to learn. And they might just earn a spot in your repertoire of commands.

Last Thursday, Anthropic updated its usage policy, which has been evolving almost as quickly as artificial intelligence, but what stood out in this most recent revision was an emphasis on protecting the AI agent from humans. 

In a subsection titled "Addressing abusive behavior toward our models," Anthropic announced it would prohibit "sustained and needless abusive or cruel behavior toward our models." This will primarily be enforced by Claude preemptively ending the conversation.

SEE ALSO: Claude sent phony tip about an unsolved murder to Philadelphia police

Anthropic was quick to point out that these measures won't be triggered by "common versions of user frustration, pushback, dark creative themes, or model testing and research." However, it seems pretty clear that a new status quo now exists, and whether or not AI agents have feelings that can be hurt, their creators want us to treat them as if they do. 

Up until now, restrictions on Claude's use have revolved around either protecting the user or serving some version of the common good. Anthropic quickly imposed strict limits on the kind of sexual fantasies its agents could engage in, for example, or attempts to gather how-to information about perpetrating acts of violence, thereby (hopefully) preventing its complicity in a future terror attack or mass casualty event. But this recent revision marks a shift in protective emphasis, from users and a tangible, real-world community to the AI agents themselves.

All of this, of course, has only added fuel to the debate over whether or not AI is conscious, which is much more widespread than you might realize. Per the New York Times, Anthropic cofounder and AI consciousness truther Chris Olah recently made his case before the Vatican and a small army of religious scholars, who ultimately rejected his claims and declined to take his side.

Don't expect their disagreement to end the debate, though. The new usage policy takes effect on Nov. 12, 2026, at which point we'll all be treating AI as if it has the capacity to feel or take offense, regardless.