Technology

Looking for an affordable SUV that won’t drain your bank account with constant repairs? In 2025, several budget-friendly crossovers stand out for their proven reliability and low cost of ownership. These models are dependable enough to give you real peace of mind, whether you're commuting, road tripping, or just running errands.

Slimbook is one of several companies selling PCs with desktop Linux. The KDE Slimbook is one of its most popular laptops, and now a seventh-generation model has arrived with impressive hardware and pre-installed KDE Plasma.

Alongside his novels, Joe Hill is paid to write a screenplay each year. But he doesn't do it for the money.

Hill, whose new novel King Sorrow published in October, has also found success in the world of film and TV through adaptations of his work. For example, The Black Phone franchise is based on his 2004 short story, and King Sorrow is currently being developed for TV. While news of adaptations of Hill’s work is frequently reported in the trades, his screenwriting hasn't been widely publicized. Sitting down with Mashable recently to speak about everything from Stephen King references in his new novel to AI, though, he confirmed that it's a big part of his professional life.

"I write a screenplay every single year," Hill told Mashable. "And I do it for the healthcare."

SEE ALSO: Joe Hill breaks down the Stephen King references in his new novel

Hill explained that he gets healthcare for his family through the Writers Guild of America (WGA), which is the union that represents screenwriters. In order to be eligible to receive this, you have to meet annual minimum earning requirements. In 2024, Hill's wife Gillian received a cancer diagnosis that required surgery. Having insurance through the WGA saved the family tens of thousands of dollars.

"There were a whole bunch of tests, you know, and consultations in the lead-up to the operation, but the operation alone was $60,000," Hill said. "Because I have Hollywood healthcare that I get for writing screenplays, I only had to pay 700 bucks. So in a very practical way, it's impossible to put a value, to me personally, on the work I do as a screenwriter, because it's so important to have access to that healthcare insurance."

Hill explained that the screenplay he's working on at the moment is a an adaptation of his own work.

"Right now I'm revising a screenplay that I was paid for for 2025," he said. "The script I'm working on now is an adaptation of an unpublished novella that I'd written that will be published eventually."

Featured Video For You Cooper Hoffman and 'The Long Walk' cast compete for ultimate Stephen King film knowledge

Hill said there was a lapse in his healthcare coverage a while back that led to him going round Hollywood to try and drum up some work — and writer/director Scott Derrickson, who directed The Black Phone, wanted to help out.

"He treated it like we were talking about his family healthcare," said Hill. "He's like, 'We're booking you a gig.' And, you know, we talked about possibilities, and then I sent him this novella I had written that hadn't been published, and a pitch for how I'd adapt it, and he got psyched. And he's like, 'We gotta do this.' And so he got me the gig to write the script. Now I'm revising it for Sony Screen Gems."

"it's so important to have access to that healthcare insurance"

Hill's wife has now made a full recovery, but Hill still thinks of screenplay writing as "the best thing I can do for my family." He's going to keep working on one every year, alongside his plans to write a novel each year in his fifties.

"The next two things I've got lined up are adaptations of other people's words," Hill said, "which I'm really excited about."

Smart home technology is constantly evolving, but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible to plan for the future. A bit of foresight can help you make better choices that pay off in the long run.

The Steam Machine is, for many, their dream PC/console hybrid, bringing a similar formula to the Steam Deck but for desktops. And it's pretty customizable. When you do get yours, you'll now have the ability to customize it to your liking, screens and all.

T-Mobile is officially dropping its popular Apple TV "On Us" perk. This means customers on premium plans will soon have to pay a monthly fee for the streaming service. However, it all depends on your plan.

As Congress looks to maybe, potentially, finally release the Epstein files, an email document dump from Jeffrey Epstein's estate released last week by the House Oversight Committee has already delivered some shocking revelations.

And those emails have already led to at least one high-profile resignation at one of the biggest tech companies in the world. 

Economist Larry Summers, a former Treasury secretary under the Clinton administration and a former president of Harvard, has resigned from OpenAI's board, according to statements provided by Summers and the company to Axios. Summers had previously acknowledged he'd be stepping away from all public commitments in light of the Epstein document release.

"In line with my announcement to step away from my public commitments, I have also decided to resign from the board of OpenAI," Summers said in a statement provided to Axios. "I am grateful for the opportunity to have served, excited about the potential of the company and look forward to following their progress."

Despite Summers' statements, he plans to continue teaching at Harvard, where he currently works as a Professor of Economics, Axios also reported.

"Larry has decided to resign from the OpenAI Board of Directors, and we respect his decision," OpenAI's board said in its own statement. "We appreciate his many contributions and the perspective he brought to the Board."

Summers' ties to Epstein have long been known. During Summers' tenure as President of Harvard, Epstein donated tens of millions of dollars to the university. Epstein was even given his own personal office at the school during this time. Flight records released during the 2021 trial of Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell showed that Summers had previously flown on Epstein's private plane, according to the Harvard Crimson.

However, the newly released email documents revealed that Summers' association with Epstein continued well after Epstein's 2008 conviction for soliciting prostitution from a minor. In emails from 2018 and 2019, Summers reached out to Epstein seeking advice on pursuing a relationship outside of his marriage with a woman he described as a "mentee." In the emails, Epstein referred to himself as Summers' "wing man." In addition to the conversations on romantic relationships, Summers also made numerous sexist comments.

Summers' final correspondence with Epstein in the email documents occurred on July 5, 2019 — just one day before Epstein was arrested and federally charged for the sex trafficking of minors.

Disclosure: Ziff Davis, Mashable’s parent company, in April filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.

A select few performance cars have reached true icon status, but none have done it with the purity and power of the fastest naturally aspirated V-12 ever built. In a world dominated by turbochargers and hybrid assistance, this machine still holds a record no modern supercar has been able to touch. Its achievement isn’t just about an extreme top speed, it represents the pinnacle of what a high-revving engine can deliver when a manufacturer pushes traditional engineering to its absolute limit.

Most of your PC components come out of the factory set to use a certain amount of electricity. In some cases, lowering this amount, or "undervolting" the components, can improve their performance or increase efficiency. But if you want to dabble in undervolting, leave these parts alone.

In the process of sideloading an app on your Android phone, you may run across multiple APK variants to choose from. Certain apps are designed for specific specs—such as display and processor—so how do you know which one to download?

Google has officially launched Gemini 3, its newest and most advanced AI model — and the company is calling it its "most intelligent" system yet. The model rolled out across Google products on day one, marking the first time a new Gemini release has gone live in Search at launch.

Gemini 3 represents what Google execs describe as the next major step in their push toward more capable, more context-aware AI. In a note sharing the launch, the company stated that the model incorporates deeper reasoning, stronger multimodal understanding, and enhanced awareness of user intent compared to earlier versions.

What’s new in Gemini 3?

The headline upgrade is reasoning. Google says Gemini 3 is built to understand nuance, break down complex problems, and "grasp depth and context" in ways its predecessors couldn’t. In benchmarking tests, Gemini 3 Pro took the top spot on the LMArena leaderboard with a 1501 Elo score, outperforming both Grok and Gemini 2.5 Pro.

SEE ALSO: Google's Gemini 3 is smarter, better at figuring out what you need

The model also demonstrates significant improvements in academic-style reasoning. On Humanity’s Last Exam, Gemini 3 Pro hit 37.5 percent without any external tools, and on GPQA Diamond, it reached 91.9 percent. It also posted state-of-the-art scores across math and multimodal tasks, including video understanding and factual accuracy.

A new enhanced mode called Gemini 3 Deep Think pushes those capabilities even further. Deep Think improves scores on nearly every benchmark, including a jump to 41 percent on Humanity’s Last Exam and 45.1 percent on the ARC-AGI-2 challenge. It’s designed for the most challenging, long-horizon reasoning tasks.

Where can you use Gemini 3?

Gemini 3 is already live across the Google ecosystem. That includes:

• AI Mode in Search, with more dynamic, generative interfaces and complex reasoning support. (Currently available for Google AI Pro and Ultra subscribers.)

• The Gemini app is getting a redesign, including the My Stuff folder and improved shopping experiences.

• Gemini for developers, available now in AI Studio, Vertex AI, Gemini CLI, and Google’s new agentic development platform Antigravity.

• Gemini Agent, an upgraded system that can complete multi-step tasks like inbox organization, appointment management, and more.

How to try Gemini 3 right now

If you want hands-on time with Gemini 3 immediately, there are a few pathways:

• Use AI Mode in Search (Google AI Pro or Ultra subscription required).

• Open the Gemini app, where Gemini 3 is the default model starting today for most users globally.

• Developers can experiment with AI Studio or Vertex AI, gaining full access to Gemini 3 Pro.

• Enterprise customers can deploy it through Vertex AI and Gemini Enterprise.

Deep Think, the highest-end version, will be rolled out in the coming weeks following additional safety evaluations.

Microsoft keeps injecting AI into Windows, and now even the company itself is admitting that there are safety risks in doing so.

This week, Microsoft added some new agentic AI features to Windows 11 Insider users, which give AI permission to automate things like sending emails and sorting files. These are turned off by default and need to be opted into, but for those who choose to enable them, Microsoft published a security note on its website warning that there are security risks to giving AI access to all of your files:

SEE ALSO: The 8 best tablets of 2025: I compared iPads, the Microsoft Surface Pro, and Amazon Fire

"As these capabilities are introduced, AI models still face functional limitations in terms of how they behave and occasionally may hallucinate and produce unexpected outputs," Microsoft said. "Additionally, agentic AI applications introduce novel security risks, such as cross-prompt injection (XPIA), where malicious content embedded in UI elements or documents can override agent instructions, leading to unintended actions like data exfiltration or malware installation."

In other words, it's technically possible for something that's meant to help users to harm them instead. This may very well be a super unlikely hypothetical edge case, but the fact that Microsoft felt compelled to say anything about it at all is a bit alarming. As a possible solution, Microsoft is rolling out an experimental feature called "agent workspace," which limits what the AI agent has access to on the PC. In basic terms, it means the agent can only access things that are available to any user of the machine, while files locked behind specific user profiles are off-limits.

We're still in the relatively early stages of all of this, so it will take some time to see how it shakes out. But just be careful before turning on these features.

PowerToys utility suite just dropped version 0.96 and it's coming with plenty of quality-of-life improvements across the board. This is a substantial update if you’ve been relying on the Advanced Paste feature for text manipulation.

Smart home sensors show useful information and provide triggers around which you can build automations. But not all sensors are “useful,” and not all automations are obvious.

OpenAI is making another major investment in AI-powered education, announcing a new teachers-only ChatGPT workspace designed specifically to help educators with their classroom workload.

With the new ChatGPT for Teachers, users get full access to ChatGPT 5.1 Auto with unlimited messages, search, file uploads, connectors, and image generation, as well as educator-specific onboarding, admin controls, and personalized prompts. The features have already rolled out to 150,000 teachers and staff across U.S. school districts, says OpenAI.

SEE ALSO: Want to chat on Roblox? You'll need to verify your age.

Rather than the standard security framework built into ChatGPT, ChatGPT for Teachers is designed with "education-grade privacy, security, and compliance programs," says OpenAI, intended to bring the tech in line with requirements under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). Under these guidelines, ChatGPT for Teachers can't retain any student data to be used for model training.

Educators and administrators can also collaborate on projects and custom GPTs within the shared workspace, the company explains, and upload existing files from Google Drive or Microsoft 365 accounts to provide ChatGPT with context for lesson plans, grades, and data analysis.

OpenAI is offering it for free to verified educators and school leaders until June 2027.

According to the AI giant, K-12 teachers are "leading education's AI transformation" and OpenAI has increasingly pushed for its AI tools to enter the early childhood education space as its refashioned EdTech for higher education. "Universities are starting to treat AI as core infrastructure for education, and we also know that students use ChatGPT as a 24/7 learning companion," says Leah Belsky, vice president of education for OpenAI. "In our view, every student today is going to grow up in a world that is shaped by powerful AI and teachers will play a key role and helping both students and parents navigate that change."

OpenAI has placed a huge bet on AI's educational potential, launching a nationwide AI training program with the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), signing deals with college systems that give ChatGPT to students for free, and even consulting with the Ministries of Education of foreign governments.

Elon Musk's Tesla Diner — the billionaire's shiny, UFO-shaped restaurant in Los Angeles — may be in the market for a new chef.

The Los Angeles Times reported this week that chef and co-operator Eric Greenspan is leaving the project. The chef said that he was leaving to focus on opening his new spot, a Jewish deli, but the paper also noted he faced stark pushback for joining forces with Musk.

"I am leaving the Tesla Diner project to focus on the opening of Mish, my long-desired Jewish deli," Greenspan told the LA Times in a text message. "Projects like Mish and the Tesla Diner require a sharpness of focus and attention, and my focus and attention is now squarely on Mish."

Mashable visited the Tesla Diner back in August, which serves the classics — burgers, fries, shakes, etc. — but with Muskified names. So you get items like "electric sauce," "autopilot avocado toast," a "giga burger," and now-defunct "epic bacon." The food did earn decent reviews from Mashable editor Neal Broverman, even if it felt overpriced for the portion size.

This isn't the first big change at the Tesla Diner. Shortly after the diner's opening, patrons noticed that the menu had been scaled back — thus the goodbye to "epic bacon." The LA Times also reported that the diner was looking to move to a full-service model — for the time being, you order at a tablet and get counter service. And, of course, now the chef has left.

In short: It seems quite unclear what the future holds for Musk's futuristic restaurant.

A Bluetooth speaker is one of those devices that, once you find one you like, you won't be able to imagine how you lived without it. And since both Bluetooth and speakers aren't exactly new technology, you'll find that this is one of the more expansive product categories in the tech world (admittedly, this feels like the case for almost anything you buy these days). Enter: the Mashable tech and shopping teams. We stay on top of the latest Bluetooth speaker releases from brands like Sony, JBL, Bose, and Marshall, while also applying our audio and product testing expertise to determine when old favorites are the better choice. We spend time testing the speakers in our own homes, evaluating the balance in their sound, portability, and of course, their prices.

As of November 2025, our top picks include the near-indestructible JBL Charge 6, the smart home-integrated Sonos Move 2, and the charmingly retro Marshall Emberton III. You'll also find the best small Bluetooth speakers, the most portable speakers, and bass-thumping party speakers.

Recent additions to this guide:

• November 2025: We've selected the Bose SoundLink Micro (2nd Generation) as our best travel speaker, replacing the IKEA Vappeby (our new honorable mention pick).

• November 2025: We've added the JBL PartyBox Stage 320 as the best party speaker, replacing the older Ultimate Ears Hyperboom.

• November 2025: We've added the Sony ULT Field 7 as the best boombox-style speaker.

Netflix is wrapping up 2025 with a nice bow on top. The streaming service has saved its best for the last month of the year, giving us movies and shows that we've long anticipated. So, get ready to fill your watchlist with exciting new titles and a scoop of holiday cheer.

Not to state the obvious here, but Netflix has a lot of stuff to watch. So much, in fact, that sites like How-To Geek employ experts like me to help readers sift through it all to help you find something good.

Black Friday is always a great time to score deals on tech, but this year, pCloud is offering one of the most valuable digital upgrades you can make. From November 17th through November 29, 2025, the popular cloud storage service is discounting all of its lifetime plans along with a new Limited Edition 3in1 Bundle that combines secure storage, private encryption, and a password manager.