Technology

The programming world isn't just about Rust or TypeScript, and huge swaths of the economy rely on systems and technologies we rarely think about. These represent an opportunity, and dying languages that carry a lot of weight may offer the best of them. If niche technologies spark your interest, then this one's for you.

Have you ever noticed that the factory reset on any phone does only half the job? Yes, it’s true. So, I never immediately start downloading my apps or restoring everything from my backup once it boots up. Instead, I take a few minutes to go through the settings and make my phone feel like mine again. After all, a factory reset is supposed to give you a fresh phone; why bring back all the clutter and defaults you were trying to get rid of in the first place?

For many years, I built smart home automations that my family tolerated at best. It took a change of approach to finally create an automation that my family genuinely appreciated. That single automation ended up being a real turning point in how my family sees my smart home hobby.

Over four days, I walked the crowded Messe show floor to find the coolest innovations worth your attention.

Read more from Mashable’s tech coverage: The 5 best new tech products we've seen at IFA 2026
The FCC banned foreign routers, drones, robots: What it means for you

Timecode chapters
0:00 Introduction to IFA 2026 tech
0:27 iRobot Roomba 875
1:59 RGB-mini LED TV technology
2:49 Kodak Barbie camera
2:58 Primebot Q1 humanoid robot
4:10 Reolink OMVI 2I ultra security camera
5:10 DJI Osmo 360 II camera
6:03 Antigravity A1 drone
6:21 Dyson Camerajet toothbrush
7:13 Conclusion and wrap-up

Video credits
Host: Angela Moscaritolo
Scripted by: Angela Moscaritolo
Producer: Dillon Lopez
Camera: Dillon Lopez
Video editor: Dillon Lopez
Thumbnail designer: Dillon Payne

Home From robot arms to bumper cars, I found the best home tech I'd put inside my smart home of the future

Read more about the latest tech from IFA 2026: The 5 best new tech products we've seen at IFA 2026
First look: Hypershell is launching the world's first full-leg exoskeleton at IFA 2026

Timecode chapters
0:00 Introduction: IFA smart home overview
0:30 Home theater
1:00 Smart lights
1:15 Home brewing machine
1:40 Xiaomi smart home
3:40 Pool cleaner & lawn mower
4:35 Bumper cars
4:45 Robotic arm
5:20 Smart litter box
5:45 Smart bird feeder
5:56 Power Solutions
6:17 Final thoughts

Video credits
Host: Andrew Lanxon
Scripted by: Andrew Lanxon
Producer: Dillon Lopez
Camera: Dillon Lopez
Video editor: Dillon Lopez
Thumbnail designer: Cole Kan

The most-watched movie on Paramount+ right now is the new Scary Movie, which critics have taken a baseball bat to. It may have a 24% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, but folks keep pressing play on the Scream spoof, and honestly, I'm here for it because movie lovers can't go by critics alone.

The world's largest gun belongs to Longshot Space, which plans to go even bigger in the hopes of harnessing its technology to shoot satellites into space instead of using rockets.

Explore more space and science coverage: Roman telescope's data deluge will change who gets to do big astronomy
The Milky Way's center holds the ruins of another ancient galaxy

Timecode chapters
0:00 The problem with rocket launches
0:38 Longshot Space’s kinetic launch concept
1:30 How the giant space gun works
1:59 Testing the 6-inch prototype gun
3:14 Scaling up to the full-diameter version
3:42 The physics behind horizontal launches
4:33 Can satellites survive the high G-forces?
5:07 Future testing and next steps

Video credits
Host: Andy Altman
Scripted by: Andy Altman
Producer: Andy Altman
Camera: Celso Bulgatti
Video editor: Jon Gomez
Thumbnail designer: Cole Kan

If you want to stream every NFL game this regular season, this is all you need to know. From cable options to streamers, Wes Ott covers everything that will have you watching every NFL game. He's even got a few tips that might help you save. Are you ready for some football?

Read more about watching and streaming the NFL: How to watch out-of-market NFL games: Is NFL Sunday Ticket worth it?
How to watch every NFL game this season (and the cheapest ways to do so)
Fox finally launches its own streaming service just in time for football season

Timecode chapters
0:00 Intro
0:17 NFL streaming services
1:13 NFL streaming costs

Video credits
Host: Wes Ott
Producer: JD Christison & Jon Gomez
Camera: Owen Poole
Thumbnail designer: Cole Cook

AMD is shifting the paradigm from computers that just execute commands to Agentic AI that understands your goals. From the jaw-dropping Strix Halo and Gorgon Halo chips to running 125-billion parameter models locally on Windows, local compute is getting a massive upgrade. Plus, a special appearance from Microsoft's Pavan Davuluri to announce Project Zenith, and the ultimate reveal of the Threadripper Halo Station — a 96-core local supercomputer.

Read more about IFA 2026: The 5 best new tech products we've seen at IFA 2026
Lenovo takes the wraps off 2 new Nvidia RTX Spark laptops at IFA 2026

Timecode chapters
0:00 Introduction to IFA 2026 and the evolution of computing
0:25 The rise of personal AI and token processing growth
1:10 Shifting the architecture: local compute vs. cloud
1:51 Defining personal AI: local, private, and contextual
2:46 Strix Halo and Gorgon Halo: breaking the memory bottleneck
4:18 Lenovo ThinkCenter X powered by Gorgon Halo
4:45 A new class of laptops: code name “Sunday” (HP ZBook)
5:12 Real-time 3D world generation demo
6:11 Partnership with Microsoft: making AI more accessible
6:40 Windows as an open platform for secure agentic experiences
7:14 Introducing project zenith for developers
7:53 The Threadripper Halo station: a personal supercomputer
9:03 Closing remarks: The future of personal AI

Video credits
Producer and video editor: Vatsal Upadhyay
Thumbnail designer: Zain bin Awais

Most of you reading this probably use just one Google Chrome profile to do everything. So that means your banking, work, leisure, and all other activities happen using the same online identity.

Apple's rumored foldable iPhone could be here very soon, and there's a playbook already written for it. I've used a Samsung Galaxy Z Fold as my daily phone for three years, so I know exactly what makes a foldable worth it. Here's what Apple needs to nail: multitasking, screen software, desktop mode, durability, cameras and the price.

Read more about Apple's upcoming iPhones: What would really 'surprise' at Apple’s iPhone event
3 last-minute Apple iPhone 18 event rumors

Timecode chapters
0:00 Intro
1:00 Apple busts
2:00 My foldable
3:00 Samsung DEX
4:00 Apple upgrade
5:00 Durability
6:00 The foldable phone crease

Video credits
Hosted and scripted by: Iyaz Akhtar
Producer and camera: Carly Marsh
Video editor: Wes Ott
Thumbnail designer: Zooey Liao

VS Code is a big deal. In Stack Overflow’s 2025 Developer Survey, a whopping 76% of respondents said they use it regularly. That towers over the 29% who report using its nearest competitor, Visual Studio.

Google Keep is convenient, but convenience came with a cost many people would want to stop paying: my notes living in Google's cloud, tied to my account, scanned by whatever systems Google runs behind the scenes. Switching to Obsidian changed how I think about my own notes entirely.

I like to test out different music/media players on Linux every so often. I don't know how I missed out on Clementine. I've been using the Spotify desktop app on one of my machines for a little while as a media player. So, just for fun, I decided to pit them against one another in a bit of a "friendly competition." I was surprised to see which one I ended up liking better.

NFC tags can be incredibly useful smart home tools. They're cheap to buy, and you can use them to trigger automations just by scanning them with a phone. Not all NFC tags are created equal, and it's all too easy to buy the wrong NFC tags for the job.

South Park celebrated its Emmy win with a public dig at Donald Trump.

Following the series' win for Outstanding Animated Program at the 2026 Creative Arts Emmy Awards on Sunday, the official South Park X account posted a jubilant message, congratulating creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone and their team.

However, the message was accompanied by an image, showing a photo of the president's face attached to a cartoon body with his pants down, holding an Emmy. He's surrounded by South Park characters including Cartman, Kyle, Stan, Kenny, Mr. Garrison, PC Principal, Jesus Christ, and Satan.

"You finally got your Emmy," the image proclaims.

This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.

South Park's dig at the president is a one-two punch. Trump has been nominated for two Emmys — in 2005 and 2004 as executive producer of Outstanding Reality-Competition Program nominee The Apprentice — but has not won an award. South Park has now won six Emmys, with 21 nominations and Stone and Parker inducted into the 28th Television Academy Hall of Fame earlier this year.

SEE ALSO: 'South Park' closes Season 28 with a horrifying Jeffrey Epstein twist

However, the bigger upset to the president could be that South Park won this year's Emmy after a particularly anti-Trump Season 27, the premiere of which was the show's biggest in years. And it was this controversial opening episode, "Sermon On The 'Mount," which won the show its 2026 Emmy.

The episode was slammed by the White House for its depiction of Trump, portrayed in bed with Satan and later stumbling through the desert naked and revealing a talking micropenis in a deepfake PSA sequence. The episode also makes references to the Trump's urging for people to move on from the so-called "Epstein list".

When Parker and Stone were asked about the episode at San Diego’s Comic-Con International in July, they responded, "We’re terribly sorry," staring out to the audience.

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And it wasn't the only anti-Trump moment of Season 27 (or 28 for that matter), with multiple episodes dedicated to lampooning the president and his administration.

Trump or the White House has not responded to South Park's Emmy win or the X post as of this publication.

South Park Season 29, meanwhile, is set to premiere Sept. 16 at 10 p.m. ET on Comedy Central, before streaming on Paramount+.

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I have a lot of family and friends, which means I’ve somehow ended up in hundreds of group chats. There’s one for discussing common life problems, another for vacation planning, one for the family, and a few that I’m honestly not even sure why they were created. After a while, all these conversations become my digital junk drawer.

Picture it: Prediction markets like Kalshi, platforms which allow users to make "predictions" on almost anything for financial gain, platforms which are plagued with accusations of insider trading, are actually regulated by U.S. state governments under gambling laws.

It could be a future possibility, if the Supreme Court could be convinced to make it happen.

As reported by The Hill, multiple states have filed petitions to enforce sports gambling laws on Kalshi and platforms like it, including New Jersey and Nevada, which are respectively home to gambling hubs Atlantic City and Las Vegas. And the outcomes of each case could potentially see the eventual involvement of the Supreme Court.

SEE ALSO: France orders Polymarket blocked over illegal gambling promotion

In the U.S., each state regulates its own gambling laws, including sports betting, which is legal in 39 states and Washington DC as of May 2026. However, Kalshi and "prediction market" platforms like it are federally regulated, sitting under the watch of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), which oversees America's financial derivatives markets. (Polymarket is actually not registered in the U.S. or regulated by the CFTC, though it has established a U.S. outpost which is.) This means these platforms can operate in all 50 states and currently do not answer to state gambling laws — Kalshi has argued it offers "legal sports event contracts," not bets.

However, a bipartisan coalition of 44 states signed a letter in July, declaring prediction market platforms "a new form of casino used primarily for a few to manipulate others — the type of harms squarely within States' historic police powers to regulate gambling."

Meanwhile, President Donald Trump has insisted "it is critically important that the CFTC's exclusive authority over Prediction Markets is maintained, and that they will thrive," even considering his own platform. The president's son, Donald Trump Jr., not only has a financial stake and an advisory role in Kalshi, but is also set to see his venture capital firm invest $300 million in Polymarket.

Featured Video For You How prediction markets got people betting on nuclear war

On Sept. 2, New Jersey officials petitioned the Supreme Court to enforce sports gambling laws on Kalshi. "Kalshi bills itself as 'the first app for legal sports betting in all 50 states' and believes it can offer that 'legal sports betting' without following the sports-gambling laws of any of those 50 States," the petition read.

The petitioners — New Jersey attorney general Jennifer Davenport and New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement interim director Mary Jo Flaherty — said that Kalshi and platforms like it had "discovered a major sports-gambling loophole in the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act" enacted after the 2007–2008 financial crisis. The Act, they said, allows Kalshi to define its offerings as financial "swaps" instead of "bets."

The important part here is that in April, the New Jersey case was actually ruled by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in favor of Kalshi, meaning the platform could keep on offering its "legal sports event contracts" on college sports within the state's jurisdiction. However, that decision clashes with another decision made in Aug. by the Ninth Circuit, which covers Nevada among other states. An appeal from the Nevada Gaming Control Board saw the Court of Appeals siding not with Kalshi but with the state gaming regulator, which "sent a cease-and-desist letter notifying Kalshi that it was running a sports betting platform in violation of Nevada statutes and gaming regulations." Essentially, the differing state results could get SCOTUS' attention on a federal level.

Similar cases have been filed in Connecticut, New York, Arizona, Minnesota, and more states.

Next stop? The Supreme Court appeal from the New Jersey regulators. However, actually getting SCOTUS to consider the request isn't guaranteed, with the court receiving thousands each year and granting very few for consideration.

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Most people shouldn't worry about the majority of BIOS settings, since leaving them at their default values makes the most sense. This applies to most SSD-related BIOS settings as well. That said, there's a chance the previous owner messed with them if you bought a used PC, or that one friend who likes to tinker with PCs tweaked your motherboard's BIOS settings without your knowledge.

Even though the weather's getting cooler, the movies on Netflix are starting to heat up for U.S. subscribers, with The Whisper Man still holding court at the top of the streamer's charts. If you're into documentaries, maybe you've already checked out the wild-ride story of Australian Olympic breakdancer Rachael Gunn in Untold Raygun: Breaking Badly.