Technology

Want a little free money for Prime Big Deal Days, aka Amazon's upcoming "October Prime Day" sale? You can earn up to $25 in credits toward your purchases during the event by placing some Amazon Now orders this week.

Available in dozens of U.S. cities, Amazon Now is the retailer's on-demand delivery service. Eligible shoppers can have groceries and household essentials like cleaning products dropped on their doorsteps in 30 minutes or less. (Randomly, select Apple devices are also eligible for Amazon Now deliveries. That includes the latest AirPods 5 and MagSafe cases for the new iPhone 18 Pro.)

Opens in a new window Credit: Amazon Amazon Now Spend at least $25 to earn a free $5 credit for Prime Big Deal Days (up to $25 total). Shop Now

Through Saturday, Oct. 3, every Amazon Now order of $25 or more earns you $5 in Prime Big Deal Days promo credits and free shipping. You can earn a maximum of $25 in credits via five separate orders. In other words, you won't get $25 in credits for placing one giant Amazon Now order of at least $125. This isn't a very eco-friendly way to shop, but I digress.

Credit: Amazon

If you earn any credits from Amazon Now orders this week, you'll get a push notification from Amazon's mobile app when Prime Big Deal Days starts on Tuesday, Oct. 6, letting you know that you can start spending them. They'll expire when the sale ends at 11:59 p.m. PT on Wednesday, Oct. 7.

Crucially, this free credits offer is only available to members of Amazon's Prime program. If you haven't had an active Prime membership within the past 12 months, you can sign up for a free 30-day trial.

Power tools need to meet the highest standards and be tough enough for years of on-site work. You get what you pay for, and it's not worth cutting corners because cheap products will let you down when you need them the most.

I went into my TrueNAS Scale versus Unraid test with a pretty strong assumption about how it would end. TrueNAS Scale had almost everything I normally look for in a homelab server. Unraid looked more convenient, but I expected that convenience to come with compromises I would eventually find annoying.

Linux is an important part of modern development, and Windows users often rely on a separate app like Docker Desktop to get started. Now, Microsoft is making it easier to run Linux containers on its operating system through Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL). The feature was first showcased at Build 2026 and entered public preview in June. Now, it’s available for everyone with the latest WSL update.

Apple's new CEO John Ternus debuted a new generation of iPhones in September, and he's reportedly gearing up for the company's next big launch under his leadership.

Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, the source of virtually all news on unreleased Apple products, reported today that Apple is preparing a big entry into the smart home market, with a new smart display, HomePod, and Apple TV device on deck for October.

Gurman reported that the display will act as a smart home hub and, together with the HomePod and Apple TV, will "serve as a showcase for Apple's new Siri AI assistant." Gurman said the display will be able to recognize different members of a household, providing personalized answers and information. The Apple Post referred to the new smart display as the HomePad (Gurman used Apple's internal name, J490), but the official name is unknown at this time.

Apple's HomePod speaker line hasn't been refreshed since the launch of the HomePod (2nd Generation) device in January 2023. However, Gurman said Apple is preparing to release a new HomePod Mini, in particular.

The Apple TV lineup is likewise due for a refresh. The last Apple streaming device was released in 2022, even as the Apple TV streaming service has become an awards show darling. Apple TV broke records at this year's Emmy awards, bringing home 29 awards in total. On top of that, Apple TV broke viewership records in September, recording its highest-ever weekly viewership, according to Deadline.

So, when can you look for the new Apple smart home devices?

According to Gurman, Apple fans should circle Oct. 13 on their calendar.

There are a few things you should double-check before turning a laptop into a NAS. While you definitely can just do it, these three BIOS options are definitely worth double-checking before diving down the rabbit hole.

SAVE $50.99: As of Sep. 30, get the Shark CryoGlow LED Face Mask for $299 at Amazon. That's down from its usual price of $349.99.

Opens in a new window Credit: Amazon Shark CryoGlow LED Face Mask $299 at Amazon
$349.99 Save $50.99   Get Deal

When it comes to skincare, you can spend a small fortune trying to cover all of your concerns: premature aging, dryness, dullness, you name it. It makes total sense that you might seek out home treatments that can help target several of those things all at once for less. Enter the Shark CryoGlow LED Face Mask, an affordable way to target all of these issues at once, and it's on sale for an even better price right now ahead of Amazon's Prime Big Deal Days.

As of Sep. 30, get the Shark CryoGlow LED Face Mask for $299 at Amazon. That's down from its usual price of $349.99, saving you 15%.

SEE ALSO: Shark CryoGlow mask review after 10 months: The only way I'll ever stop using this is if Shark releases a new one

This face mask emits red, blue, and deep infrared light and offers under-eye cooling to help treat fine lines, acne, tired or slack skin, and a plethora of other issues. It's an anti-aging treatment meant to work in tandem with the rest of your beauty routine, and it can replace those expensive medspa visits, which can easily run into the hundreds of dollars per treatment.

Mashable Senior Shopping Reporter Leah Stodart took the CryoGlow mask for a spin and awarded it the Mashable Choice Award with a 4.5/5 score. Stodart said: "After three months of initial palpable improvement to my acne and six more months of a maintained glow, I can confirm that the Shark CryoGlow is a much-needed middle ground between OTC skincare and pricey procedures."

If you're looking for a good way to augment your current routine or want to try something new without having to splash out on multiple professional treatments, this is a great option with low risk and high reward. Just be sure to grab it while it's currently discounted.

On this, the final day of Bisexual Visibility Month, I must say my piece about a sexuality label controversy before I once again disappear into the ether until next September.

It centers around musician King Princess, who identifies as a lesbian. This week, a Nov. 2024 appearance on the podcast Celebrity Book Club with Steven & Lily resurfaced on social media, in which the singer-songwriter said, "I've taken a lot of dick."

SEE ALSO: TikTok's algorithms knew I was bi before I did. I'm not the only one.

"Sometimes you get bored, and you're just like, 'I'm just gonna ride a cock,'" she continued. "People get really shook when I say that… I'm not bi, but why would I exclude myself?"

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

"I would fuck a dude if I was bored enough," she said. 

If you know anything about the online sapphic community, you'd be able to guess this would start a firestorm. And it did. King Princess's name trended on Reddit, with threads in various subreddits like r/lesbiangang and r/lesbianactually expressing disappointment and confusion. The conversation bled into X, Instagram, and TikTok, with reactions ranging from commenters saying she's "yet another bisexual cosplaying as a lesbian" to "lesbian deserves better than this" to "hot takes" that it's OK for her to identify as a lesbian and express this. 

King Princess herself responded to the controversy in now-deleted TikToks, saying she's never dated or fallen in love with men, she's just slept with them because, "Why not?" She rejected the notion that she's less of a lesbian because she's not a "gold star," a term in the lesbian community to refer to a lesbian who has never slept with men.

In another deleted response, King Princess asserted that she's a lesbian and that it's unfair to bi people to equate her with that. 

"The amount that I actually care about men romantically or sexually is so small…it would be inappropriate to call myself bisexual," she said. "You can't tell me what my sexuality is."

As a bisexual person who has written about how bisexual people are plagued with the worry that they're not queer enough, and how bisexual women are routinely the Pride punching bag, here is my take.

Is King Princess bisexual?

Only King Princess can answer this question. I think she's right that strangers can't tell her what her sexuality is. But if she came up to me and begged, "Anna — whom I have previously never met and know nothing about except your exceptional coverage of LGBTQ issues on Mashable.com — please, please tell me what you think my sexuality is!" I would, honestly, say bisexual. 

Labels exist to fit the person, not the other way around. From my observations online, some people are changing what labels mean so that they can squeeze themselves into a certain identity, instead of reflecting on their actual desires and behaviors and choosing the label that coincides with it. "Lesbian" connotes not sleeping with men, ever. Right? So, how does what King Princess describes fit into lesbianism?

It's my bisexual opinion that if you're 99 percent attracted to one gender and one percent attracted to another, that still makes you bisexual. I get frustrated when "straight" women like to make out with other women but poo-poo the thought that they're bi. I don't see much of a difference between that and what King Princess said.

I hear the lesbian community's frustration about this, as well. This is far from the first time a celebrity who once identified as a lesbian has come out as bisexual (or pansexual) and dating a man. Jojo Siwa is a recent example. Reneé Rapp came out as a lesbian in 2024 after previously saying she was bi, but in a 2025 podcast appearance, she wondered out loud, "What if in 10 years I don't like that identity either? What if in 10 years I'm completely different?"

I can imagine this is vexing to lesbians who are certain their identities won't change. 

I do wonder if the reluctance to identify as bisexual is because of the public opinion about it. As I wrote earlier this year, bisexual people are a little annoying. We are a gray area of sexuality, and the human brain prefers things to be black-and-white. We don't fit into the monosexual box. We question societal and gender norms, and we often have to be loud about it.

Societal stigma against bi people still exists. This summer, discourse about how some straight women don't want to date bisexual men recycled around yet again. And as of this month, there's new data about it: Two-thirds of straight women are unwilling to date a bisexual man, according to YouGov. 

It's not just straight women, either. The same research found that a third of straight men are unwilling to date a bi woman, and one in five lesbians feel the same about bi women.

When asked why, straight people couldn't articulate why. One in six gave non-answers, like saying it's their preference or that they just don't want to. Others said they're afraid a bisexual person would cheat, a longtime stereotype against bisexual people. 

So, yeah, I understand why someone may not want to be a part of the bi community. We're not exactly universally beloved. We're called liars, cheaters, and sluts. We're told we don't exist. But given that most people in the LGBTQ community identify as bisexual (in the U.S., anyway), we're also not alone.

It also doesn't help that King Princess has thrown other sapphic pop stars under the bus with an (also now-deleted) comment that, "You guys also might wanna check on the pop divas who are actively lying about being gay…in fully committed relationships with men on the DL." This has since spun into a sort of witch hunt, with social media users speculating about who, exactly, she meant.

How King Princess identifies is her business. But the controversy around her comments suggests that, in 2026, people are more interested in deciding who fits within an identity than in understanding the people who use it.

If you're already thinking about holiday shopping and sorting out your budget for the season, Amazon's Prime Big Deal Days sale is for you. Back for its fifth year in a row in 2026, October Prime Day is another Prime-exclusive event that falls in the sweet spot between actual Prime Day in the summer and Amazon's Black Friday event (which will be here before you know it).

SEE ALSO: Try Amazon Prime for free for 30 days to get access to October Prime Day 2026

For those already antsy about their Black Friday haul this year, the October Prime Day event presents a perfect opportunity to snag a bunch of your Amazon stuff early — and at a discount. It's easy to get your wires crossed when it comes to the sale's actual kickoff, especially with so many deals already live, but we've got you covered with the full schedule, plus any other details you might need to know.

What time does Prime Big Deal Days 2026 start?

Considering the fall event is commonly referred to as "October Prime Day" (possibly more so than its legitimate name), you've probably gathered that it's in October. Amazon's Prime Big Deal Days 2026 will start on Tuesday, Oct. 6, at 3:01 a.m. ET (12:01 a.m. PT). Let the countdown begin.

The deals run for two full days, with new deals dropping as often as every five minutes throughout the event. While most deals that go live on the first day typically hang around through the second, some are time-sensitive, like lightning deals that have been fully claimed or a viral item that has sold out.

When does October Prime Day 2026 end?

The 48-hour Prime Big Deal Days shopping period officially closes at 3:01 a.m. ET on Oct. 8 (11:59 p.m. PT on Oct. 7), but some deals will likely linger for days (weeks, even) after. But again, if you're in the market for a very specific hot ticket item, we recommend grabbing it as soon as you see it on sale.

What are the best October Prime Day deals this year?

Like the flagship Prime Day sale in July, Prime Big Deal Days is a great time to buy things like Apple products, TVs, noise-cancelling headphones, and of course, Amazon's own devices like Echos and Fire tablets (fingers crossed for some Kindle deals as well). But just because something is on sale doesn't mean you have to buy it — it also doesn't mean every deal is a true steal. Don't be afraid to check price-tracker tools like camelcamelcamel to get some insight. Or, just let us do the work for you.

Follow along in Mashable's Prime Day hub, where we sort out all of the best deals in every category and highlight what's worth adding to your cart in real time. If you're ready to get your shopping started already, our team has gathered some impressive early discounts worth checking out.

Deals we've already seen ahead of Prime Big Deal Days: Best Prime-exclusive deal Audible Standard $0.99/month + free $20 credit with Prime (save $32) Get Deal Best free deal Kindle Unlimited free for 3 months (save $35.97) Get Deal Best Apple deal Apple iPad Pro, 13-inch (M4, WiFi, 512GB) $1,299 (save $200) Get Deal Best deal under $50 Amazon Echo Dot $39.99 (save $40) Get Deal Best headphones deal Bose QuietComfort Headphones (2nd Gen) $319 (save $40) Get Deal Best TV Deal Amazon Ember 55-inch Artline QLED 4K TV $499.99 (save $400) Get Deal Best SSD deal Samsung SSD 990 Pro (2TB) $389.99 (save $250) Get Deal

Milwaukee is one of the most popular tool brands, and many enthusiasts might even know that the company has been around for over 100 years. But what you might not know is that Milwaukee invented many power tools, like the Sawzall, and other new technologies during that century.

I made the switch to Mac as my daily driver two years ago after decades of being a Windows user. Still, I spend enough time between the two PC platforms — and both have their pull. I understand the appeal of having access to the same software everywhere. Windows has an enormous software library, but it’s not the same thing as what Mac’s best apps offer. The most celebrated macOS apps aren’t just functional—they’re known for their design, workflow, and tight integration with the operating system.

Amazon is overhauling its media streaming devices. The shopping giant has not only introduced a revamped Fire TV Stick 4K, but is slimming down its lineup and promising more software upgrades.

SAVE $1,000: As of Sept. 30, the Roborock Saros Z70 robot vacuum and mop is priced at $999.98 at Amazon. That's a 50% saving on the list price of $1,999.99.

Opens in a new window Credit: Roboroc Roborock Saros Z70 Robot Vacuum and Mop $999.98 at Amazon
$1,999.99 Save $1,000.01   Get Deal

It might seem like there's never a good time to splash out on a robot vacuum — the best models are just way too expensive. But actually, there is a good time: right now, in fact.

Thanks to the early October Prime Day deals already live at Amazon, you can score a premium robot vacuum for far less than list price. The sale event doesn't start until Oct. 6, but already there's a 50% price cut on a seriously high-spec robot vacuum and mop combo, the Roborock Saros Z70.

As of Sept. 30, the Roborock Saros Z70 robot vacuum and mop is available for $999.98. It's usually priced at $1,999.99, so that's a massive overall saving of $1,000.01. According to the price tracker camelcamelcamel, that's the lowest-ever price for this model.

The standout feature of this robot vacuum is its five-axis OmniGrip arm, which protrudes from the vac and moves obstacles out of the way and even organizes small household items such as socks and other light debris. The arm uses cameras and precision sensors for accurate handling.

As for general cleaning, it has AI-powered SmartPlan technology that maps and navigates your home, switching between vacuum and mop modes and between carpet and hard floors. It's built with obstacle avoidance and uses AI to learn new objects. It can clean deep into corners and edges and even climbs thresholds and barriers with AdaptLift technology.

Just to take even more of the hard work off your hands, it's self-emptying, self-cleaning, and self-charging.

Get the Roborock Saros Z70 robot vacuum and mop ahead of Prime Day and save 50%. Now just $999.98 for a total saving of $1,000.01.

The best deals this week, hand-picked by our shopping experts

• Apple iPhone 18 Pro — free at T-Mobile 

• Paramount+ — $0.99 for 2 months with code p2mcs26prem

• Pokémon 30th Celebration Elite Trainer Box — $89.99 (save vs. market price)

• Apple iPad Pro — $1,899 $2,099 (save $200)

• TCL 85-Inch Class QM8L Series TV — $2,497.99 $3,999.99 (save $1,502)

You had a friend over last night for movie night, and you've just discovered that they didn't log out of their Netflix account on your TV. What a shame. Now, the right move would be to log them out and get back to your own watch list. The more fun move is to tiptoe through their My List and Continue Watching rows because nothing says more about a person than the shows they're into, amirite?

Sometimes, being sedentary is just part of the job. Lengthy, highly focused desk sessions might be part of your daily work, but you don’t need to suffer through the discomfort of prolonged sitting in the right chair. The right ergonomic seating option is the office investment that goes far beyond aesthetics.

Linux has a somewhat contradictory reputation. On the one hand, it's known as a rock-solid operating system that never goes wrong and offers countless hours of uptime. On the other hand, it's also known for being easy to break in the wrong hands when you start digging around under the hood.

TL;DR: Launching on Oct. 29, the Pokémon Legends: Z-A Nintendo Switch 2 Edition and Mega Dimension bundle packs the base game, full expansion, and a 100 Ultra Ball bonus.

If you held off on picking up Pokémon Legends: Z-A or skipped its Mega Dimension expansion, Nintendo and Pokémon are bundling the entire Lumiose City saga into a single physical package. Now that's tempting.

Here is everything you need to know about what's included and where to score your copy online.

What is included in the Mega Dimension bundle?

The complete bundle delivers the full Pokémon Legends: Z-A storyline without requiring extra eShop downloads or voucher codes. Buyers will get the base game set in Lumiose City, the Mega Dimension DLC that expands the endgame story around the Mythical Pokémon Hoopa, and a serial code redeemable in-game for 100 Ultra Balls.

Where to buy and preorder online

Preorders are expected to open across major storefronts ahead of the Oct. 29 launch date.

The Pokémon Center is a direct source for physical preorders, frequently bundled with exclusive site-specific plush or pin bonuses. Amazon is another place to look, mainly because it offers a generous preorder price guarantee (so you pay the lowest price listed between the time you order and release day).

Target and Best Buy are probably your best options for day-one local store pickup or physical delivery.

Day in and day out, there's one thing keeping your Android phone ticking: the battery. You may already know that your charging habits determine the battery's long-term health, but this is not some mysterious metric. It's a thing you can actually find and track.

Anne Hathaway deserves more credit for her capabilities as a camp queen.

Yes, yes, she's popular and respected for her work in mainstream movies like The Devil Wears Prada 2 and masterful cinema like The Odyssey. But for my money, Hathaway's filmography is at its most exciting when she plunges into anti-heroine depths, playing women who aren't just messy, but menacing and even deadly.

For your consideration, remember Colossal, where she played a drunkard who manifests a kaiju over Seoul, or Serenity, an under-sung psycho-sexual thriller where she sunk her pearly white teeth into the role of femme fatale. Look to Eileen, where she played a psychologist on a twisted mission, or NEON's scuttled Mother's Instinct, where she snarled as a picture-perfect mother destroyed by the death of her child. 

Even earlier this year, Hathaway offered a diva-level performance as a haunted pop star in Mother Mary, which is not to be overlooked. But unexpectedly, it's in the very mainstream adaptation of Colleen Hoover's best-selling novel Verity that Hathaway gives her wildest performance of 2026. (Yes, even considering the dinos-on-the-loose The End of Oak Street.) 

In Verity, Hathaway plays the title character, massively popular novelist Verity Crawford, who is known for her Noble Virtues series, each told from the point of view of a bloodthirsty villain. Tailored dresses and cashmere cardigans the color of fresh blood make Hathaway's pale skin look luminescent and hard like marble. She's regal and ruthless as a villainess that is not just fun to watch, but scratching at the heights of iconic psycho-biddy stars like Shelley Winters, Bette Davis, and Joan Crawford. 

And let's consider this a good opportunity to remind you, dear reader, that Who Slew Auntie Roo? and Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? are sensational selects for spooky season. But should Verity join their ranks?

Sadly, no. But Hathaway is innocent on that charge. 

Verity is a psycho-sexual thriller for the faint-hearted.  Anne Hathaway stars as Verity Crawford in "Verity." Credit: Amazon MGM Studios

Screenwriter Nick Antosca (Brand New Cherry Flavor) adapts Hoover's Verity into a color-by-numbers psycho-sexual thriller. Dakota Johnson stars as Lowen Ashleigh, an impoverished writer whose books have been published but widely ignored. So, when she gets the chance to ghostwrite the final novels of Verity's best-selling book series, the steady work and fat paycheck might be tempting. However, more tempting is the potential to get closer to Verity's husband, the dashing Jeremy (Trap's Josh Hartnett). 

But there's an odd catch to this contract. Lowen must stay in Verity's remote cabin and work out of the author's personal office. Why? Well, Jeremy gently explains, Verity was in a horrid car crash that left her unable to walk or talk. A shadow of her former self, she is wheeled around her home, where her young son frolics and her husband looks forlorn. And soon, Lowen lurks about, stumbling onto a shocking memoir that says Verity has more in common with her fictional villains than anyone could imagine. 

Naturally, Lowen becomes obsessed, not only with Verity and her secrets but also with her life and family. The younger woman fantasizes not only about straddling Jeremy — while wearing a silk robe embroidered with the initials VC — but also making out with Verity herself. Between such torrid thoughts and flashbacks to the early days of the Crawfords' romance, Verity is studded with sex scenes. However, director Michael Showalter shows no passion for them.

Known for helming comedies like The Big Sick and the Hathaway-fronted The Idea of You, he seems out of his depth in creating titillating love scenes. There's a woeful lack of foreplay. Despite an R rating, Verity bears only bum and a bit of tit. And overall, these scenes are too short to satisfy, and awash with cliched close-ups of a woman's open, groaning mouth, to feel properly enthralling. Beyond the tawdry thrill of such scenes, the desire portrayed in Verity is supposed to be so intense that it drives Lowen off her professional ambitions, down a dark path of suspicion and temptation. Without properly sexy scenes, this character turn just doesn't work. But Johnson is part of the problem there. 

Dakota Johnson gives us nothing in Verity.  Dakota Johnson co-stars in "Verity." Credit: Amazon MGM Studios

Because Lowen meets Verity after the car crash, much of Hathaway's screentime is a performance of the author as Lowen imagines her. A heightened vision of femininity and ferocity, she is gorgeous, with a wicked wit, a terrifyingly mercurial nature, and a killer smile lined with a bold red lip.

Hathaway plays the role with clear relish, her brown eyes flashing from a hardened glare to a beguiling gaze in an instant. Her lips sliding from a smile to a snarl with an electric ferality. But best of all, she works in some quirks of speech that evoke the Transatlantic accent favored by Golden Age Hollywood stars and quirkily reimagined for comedy by Catherine O'Hara's Moira Rose on Schitt's Creek. Listen for the way Hathaway says "Boston," as if it's a four-letter word she's never deigned to say aloud before. In such moments, Hathaway is keenly hilarious, and she knows it. 

Johnson, on the other hand, comes off as bored. Yes, in the book (and the movie), Lowen describes herself as having "Resting Bored Face." But even in fantasy sequences of torrid sex, Lowen practically sleepwalks. This character is meant to be our bewildered guide into a world of mixed messages and manipulation. But in Johnson's hands, Lowen is low-key annoyed, whether her character is playing with Verity's young son, seducing her husband, or reading her scandalous writings. And Johnson has no chemistry with Hartnett or Hathaway, making the love triangle element fall flat.

There are points where I wondered if Johnson's flatness was intentional. Leaning into the trashy novel of it all, Showalter might have urged her toward stiffness to create a campy comedic disconnect which would then be bolstered by the comically bad dialogue. For instance, in an early scene where a meet-not-so-cute leaves Lowen covered in a stranger's blood, she flirts haphazardly with Jeremy, who says he's seen worse. While Lowen inexplicably fails to wash off a swath of blood from her neck, she asks if he's a doctor. And in response, Hartnett, with an outrageous deadpan, says, "I'm in real estate." It's funny! Is it supposed to be? I'm not sure. I'm even less sure that his follow-up comment ("I pulled my daughter's body out of a lake.") was meant to be funny, but it was so incredibly awkward that it got laughs!

Where Hathaway plunges deep into the sultry, salty waters of psycho-sexual thriller with her psycho-biddy eccentricity as a tool, Johnson seems rudderless. Or perhaps, 11 years after she broke through as the star of Fifty Shades of Grey, she resents being back in the place of sex-starved ingenue. Overall, her effect makes the movie feel like a chore instead of a cheap thrill.

Verity is trashy fun, but falls short of being good.  Dakota Johnson co-stars in "Verity." Credit: Amazon MGM Studios

Those who reveled over The Housemaid or A Simple Favor will likely enjoy Verity. Though Showalter's offering lacks the liveliness and transgressive edge of Paul Feig's thrillers, it's erratically entertaining. However, it's hard to ignore that Verity could have been more. We're still living in the seismic aftermath of Heated Rivalry, a Canadian mini-series that turned hockey smut into a critically heralded and fan-worshipped sensation. Show creator Jacob Tierney not only brought author Rachel Reid's characters to life with unapologetically explicit sex scenes, but also used the intimacy of these scenes to expose a hidden side to the characters, who wore masks for their public personas. 

Then, even this summer, movie audiences were gifted with Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma. Inspired by a slew of slasher movies, writer/director Jane Schoenbrun explored a story similar to Verity. A young writer on assignment to revive a popular franchise finds her life dramatically changed as she becomes obsessed with an older woman, central to that franchise. While both films are rated R, only Camp Miasma doesn't hold back when it comes to sex and violence. Schoenbrun went to unhinged extremes, including decapitations that create blood geysers out of human necks. And then, her vision of satisfying sex didn't glamorize it as the zipperless fuck of author Erica Jong, but embraced the mess of fluids and emotions (and gummy candies).

Verity is nowhere near as bold as any of the movies I've mentioned here. It's sort of weird, sort of sexy, and sort of funny. But ultimately, it feels criminally constrained by mainstream prudishness. Which means that as the credits roll on Verity, I was left teased but unsatisfied, wishing for the movie on the level of Hathaway's performance. 

Verity opens in theaters on Oct. 2. 

Today, dating app Tinder launches a group chat feature called Group Hangouts in the U.S. It builds on the app's Double Date Mode to help form connections through friends and groups. With Group Hangouts, three or more people can add an IRL activity, like karaoke, and find other groups with shared interests to start chatting and matching.

"Double Date proved something we suspected all along, young singles want their friends in the mix when they're meeting someone new," Tinder's chief product officer, Mark Kantor, stated in a press release shared with Mashable. "Group Hangouts takes that even further, and we think it's going to be one of the most fun things we've ever built on Tinder."

SEE ALSO: The best hookup apps for 2026: I swiped until my thumb hurt How Tinder's Group Hangouts work Total Time

• 5 minutes

What You Need

• Tinder app

Step 1: Start a group

One person creates a group, picks an activity, and invites at least two friends to join.

Step 2: Browse and match as a group

Once a group has at least three members, it appears in other users' main Tinder stack (how people discover each other on the app). Your group can discover other groups, Like them, and match if it's mutual.

Step 3: Take it offline

Once your group matches with another, you can chat together and make IRL plans.

Forty percent of Group Hangouts invitations were accepted in early tests in Australia. Once in a group, women were 2.2 times more likely to Like a group profile than a traditional profile. This is similar to the positive results Tinder saw when it first launched Double Date in June 2025, in which women were three times more likely to Like a pair than individual profiles.

Early tests of the Double Date feature also found that those matches exchanged 35 percent more messages than traditional one-on-one matches. And, given that 90 percent of Double Date users were under 30 during testing, it signals to Tinder that Gen Z daters are interested in dating with friends.

Groups can vary in size, but everyone must have their own Tinder account and profile. Individuals choose to join and can leave a conversation without leaving the Group. Users can also block and report other people.

Group Hangouts is the latest in a growing trend of dating apps involving other people in singles' orbits to help them find love. Hinge recently launched Friend's Take, a way for a user's loved ones to vouch for them on the app.

This goes hand in hand with an increasing desire to meet people in person rather than on one's phone. This summer, Eventbrite reported a spike in the use of the phrase "meet cute" in event listings, with hobby-based outings doubling as socializing opportunities.

Apps are trying to capitalize on that, as well. In July, Tinder expanded its Events feature to several major cities, so singles can find IRL events and match with other attendees. And former Tinder executive, Taru Kapoor, just launched a "social matching" app called Rivet.

Group Hangouts is now available in the U.S. and select markets, and will roll out to more areas soon.