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Today's NYT Strands hints are easy if you love dresses.

Strands, the New York Times' elevated word-search game, requires the player to perform a twist on the classic word search. Words can be made from linked letters — up, down, left, right, or diagonal, but words can also change direction, resulting in quirky shapes and patterns. Every single letter in the grid will be part of an answer. There's always a theme linking every solution, along with the "spangram," a special, word or phrase that sums up that day's theme, and spans the entire grid horizontally or vertically.

SEE ALSO: Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more: Play games on Mashable

By providing an opaque hint and not providing the word list, Strands creates a brain-teasing game that takes a little longer to play than its other games, like Wordle and Connections.

If you're feeling stuck or just don't have 10 or more minutes to figure out today's puzzle, we've got all the NYT Strands hints for today's puzzle you need to progress at your preferred pace.

SEE ALSO: Wordle today: Answer, hints for July 25, 2026 NYT Strands hint for today’s theme: Frocks and smocks

The words are related to clothing.

Today’s NYT Strands theme plainly explained

These words describe long clothing.

NYT Strands spangram hint: Is it vertical or horizontal?

Today's NYT Strands spangram is diagonal.

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NYT Strands spangram answer today

Today's spangram is You Wear it Well.

NYT Strands word list for July 25

• Dirndl

• Pinafore

• Muumuu

• You Wear it Well

• Tunic

• Gown

• Kimono

Looking for other daily online games? Mashable's Games page has more hints, and if you're looking for more puzzles, Mashable's got games now!

Check out our games hub for Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more.

Not the day you're after? Here's the solution to today's Strands.

Today's Wordle answer should be easy to solve if you're Hawaiian.

If you just want to be told today's word, you can jump to the bottom of this article for today's Wordle solution revealed. But if you'd rather solve it yourself, keep reading for some clues, tips, and strategies to assist you.

SEE ALSO: Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more: Play games on Mashable SEE ALSO: NYT Connections hints today: Clues, answers for July 25, 2026 Where did Wordle come from?

Originally created by engineer Josh Wardle as a gift for his partner, Wordle rapidly spread to become an international phenomenon, with thousands of people around the globe playing every day. Alternate Wordle versions created by fans also sprang up, including battle royale Squabble, music identification game Heardle, and variations like Dordle and Quordle that make you guess multiple words at once. 

Wordle eventually became so popular that it was purchased by the New York Times, and TikTok creators even livestream themselves playing.

What's the best Wordle starting word?

The best Wordle starting word is the one that speaks to you. But if you prefer to be strategic in your approach, we have a few ideas to help you pick a word that might help you find the solution faster. One tip is to select a word that includes at least two different vowels, plus some common consonants like S, T, R, or N.

What happened to the Wordle archive?

The entire archive of past Wordle puzzles was originally available for anyone to enjoy whenever they felt like it, but it was later taken down, with the website's creator stating it was done at the request of the New York Times. However, the New York Times then rolled out its own Wordle Archive, available only to NYT Games subscribers.

Is Wordle getting harder?

It might feel like Wordle is getting harder, but it actually isn't any more difficult than when it first began. You can turn on Wordle's Hard Mode if you're after more of a challenge, though.

SEE ALSO: NYT Pips hints, answers for July 25, 2026 Here's a subtle hint for today's Wordle answer:

Hawaiian hello.

Does today's Wordle answer have a double letter?

The letter A appears twice.

Meet The Mashable 101: Our list of the content creators shaping the internet today

Today's Wordle is a 5-letter word that starts with...

Today's Wordle starts with the letter A.

SEE ALSO: Wordle-obsessed? These are the best word games to play IRL. The Wordle answer today is...

Get your last guesses in now, because it's your final chance to solve today's Wordle before we reveal the solution.

Drumroll please!

The solution to today's Wordle is...

ALOHA

Don't feel down if you didn't manage to guess it this time. There will be a new Wordle for you to stretch your brain with tomorrow, and we'll be back again to guide you with more helpful hints. Are you also playing NYT Strands? See hints and answers for today's Strands.

Reporting by Chance Townsend, Caitlin Welsh, Sam Haysom, Amanda Yeo, Shannon Connellan, Cecily Mauran, Mike Pearl, and Adam Rosenberg contributed to this article.

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

Not the day you're after? Here's the solution to today's Wordle.

Elon Musk's Boring Company has been hard at work on its Vegas Loop transportation system for years, and it's now in operation in 10 stations — including two at the city’s Harry Reid International Airport.

Well, kind of in operation. While the Loop operates a system of tunnels connecting the Las Vegas Convention Center to multiple hotels, its tunnel to the airport is not yet open. So the Loop’s service to Harry Reid is ... a human-driven Tesla, driving on surface streets rather than tunnels.

YouTuber Ray Delahanty, who goes by the moniker CityNerd, recently visited the Loop — and the resulting video highlighted what he called the "farce" of its airport stations, as well as a lack of signage directing riders. 

What is the Loop?

The Loop opened five years ago, whisking people around the convention center in human-driven Teslas traveling in single-lane tunnels dug by the Boring Company (which, like Tesla, is owned by Elon Musk). The initial three-station, $47 million Loop (that's the cost quoted by the Boring Co.; other reports indicate it was closer to $52 million) was paid for by the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, which is funded by hotel bed taxes; the LVCVA also covers $5 million in annual maintenance.

The stations are paid for by the casinos (and airport), with future tunnels paid for by the Boring Company. Currently, the system operates five stations at the convention center, two at the airport, and stops at Encore, Westgate, and Fontainebleau resorts, with tickets costing between $6 and $12.

When the Loop is finally complete, the Boring Company envisions 155 mph travel through 68 miles of tunnels and 104 stations — with riders driven by autonomous vehicles carrying 90,000 passengers an hour — a dubious number that would require every Vegas resident and visitor to use it multiple times a day. Currently the system carries around 1 million riders annually, or little more than 114 people an hour.

What’s the issue with the Loop?

At stations like the one at the Fontainebleau resort, Teslas exit Boring tunnels and then enter the Fontainebleau parking garage, just like any other car. The airport stations, which opened in December 2025, travel on surface streets for the entire five-mile route to the convention center.

The Boring Company is currently digging the underground tunnel to the airport and plans to open it before the year is out, according to Delahanty’s Loop driver.

The biggest problem with the stations? Not the inconsistency of the underground routes or the fact that the narrow tunnels only allow travel in one direction. It's how difficult it is for passengers to even find the stations (a problem that has bedeviled the Las Vegas Monorail).

Neither the casinos nor the airport offer signage to the stations. The stations themselves often lack amenities like seating or, as Delahanty discovered, working escalators.

To make matters worse, some of the few riders using the Loop were confused about how to access the vehicles (cars are requested via an app, like Uber or Lyft), leading to awkward encounters.

SEE ALSO: When the urge to gamble strikes, try mindfulness

After some trial and error, Delahanty summoned a car at the airport and got a ride to the convention center for an unbeatable $12 — a fraction of the price of an Uber, Lyft, or taxi. The drivers also seemed friendly and willing to help customers, at least in Delahanty’s video.

While the Boring Company didn’t respond to our questions about Delahanty’s gripes, we did follow-up with the urbanist YouTuber on his Loop experience. Here's our conversation, edited for clarity and brevity.

It seemed like one of the biggest problems with the Loop is the shortage of information on how to ride and locate stations. Did riders appear confused or familiar with the Loop’s protocols?

My experience was that a few of the riders appeared familiar with how the system works — as if they'd used it before — but most seemed confused about how to know when and which arriving vehicle was supposed to pick them up. Some of the riders seemed confused about how to buy a ticket and order a ride, although this seems pretty clear to me once you manage to find the station.

There is no Boring tunnel connecting to the airport yet, so why is the company offering a $12 airport service?

I really don't know why they've elected to start providing this service before the connecting tunnel, which is supposed to be complete by the end of 2026. It really functions like a typical Uber/Lyft ride, just one you have to go to an unmarked location on an airport concourse sublevel to use.

The LVCVA is subsidizing the tunnels and maintenance. What do you think it should have used that money for?

When they initially did a call for proposals, it was for a people mover of some sort to connect the far-flung halls on the Las Vegas Convention Center campus. Think an internal airport tram at a major airport hub like Atlanta, Dallas, or Denver, or even Las Vegas! — that is probably what they should've been building.

Instead, the Boring Company came in with the low bid. I'm not privy to how the project pencils out for the Boring Company. My guess is, on a project level they are way, way, way in the red, but they saw the Vegas Loop project as research and development, so they were willing to take a loss.

You mentioned that no one seems to be loudly criticizing the Loop’s shortcomings. Do you expect its expansion to continue without resistance from officials?

So far, all the funding is coming out of hotel room taxes and private contributions from resorts. If there comes a point where the City or County are spending public funds that could've been spent on public transit or any number of other public goods, then the political calculus changes. [Boring has made a deal with the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, for a station on campus, with costs covered by the company.]

What is it like to actually ride in the Loop?

It's like riding an Uber or a Lyft that occasionally uses a narrow, brightly colored tunnel. I'm not a claustrophobic person, but I wouldn't wish the experience on someone who was.

Today is not only the San Diego Comic-Con panel for Spaceballs: The New One, but also the Apple TV premiere of The Dink. Both are helmed by Josh Greenbaum, who spoke with Mashable about the pickleball comedy and the long-awaited sequel to Mel Brooks' Star Wars spoof.

In an interview with Mashable Entertainment Editor Kristy Puchko, Greenbaum dug into the themes of friendship and identity in The Dink, as well as what it meant to have comedy icon Lynne Marie Stewart join the cast, in what would become her final film role. They also got into Spaceballs: The New One.

Specifically, Puchko asked the question fans of the 1987 comedy had about the title. See, in Spaceballs, the wise Yogurt (played by Brooks) says the star-flung heroes might meet again "in Spaceballs 2: The Search for More Money." So, why is this sequel called Spaceballs: The New One?

Greenbaum said, "If you didn't see our announcement video, Mel Brooks himself found the money. It was in his basement, and so he doesn't need any more money at this point."

Greenbaum continued, "We really love the idea of obviously there's the old one, and now this is the new one. We like the joke that this is, you know, 'It's just like the old one, but newer.' So, this is the new one.

"We obviously discussed it with Mel," he added, "but we all felt like, as great as that joke [from the first movie] was, paying that joke off? You'll see when you see the new one why it makes sense for this one to be called that."

Spaceballs: The New One will see Brooks, Bill Pullman, Rick Moranis, Daphne Zuniga, and Michael Winslow reprising their roles from the first film. Joining the cast are Lewis Pullman, Keke Palmer, Anthony Carrigan, and Josh Gad.

Spaceballs: The New One is slated to open in the U.S. on April 23, 2027.

I've never heard a movie be described as both "grotesque" and "gorgeous," but that's what Mashable Entertainment Editor Kristy Puchko called Mother Mary. And naturally, that made it a must-watch for me. It stars Anne Hathaway as pop icon Mother Mary and features songs by Jack Antonoff, Charli XCX, and FKA Twigs. We named it one of our favorite movies of the year, and now it's officially heading to streaming.

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In addition to Hathaway, Mother Mary stars Michaela Coel, Hunter Schafer, Atheena Frizzell, Kaia Gerber, Jessica Brown Findlay, Alba Baptista, Isaura Barbé-Brown, and Sian Clifford. It defies genre, as the trailer even highlights that it's neither a love story nor a ghost story. Though, as Puchko points out, it's kind of both. She dubs it a "gothic horror story," while the official synopsis refers to it as a "psychosexual pop thriller." Whatever you deem it, it's quite the journey.

If you have yet to watch Mother Mary, or if you can't wait to see it again, you can stream it at home this summer. Here's a breakdown of everything you need to know to watch.

What is Mother Mary about?

Directed by David Lowery (The Green Knight), Mother Mary follows the eponymous pop star (Hathaway) as she's readying for a comeback. She reaches out to her former friend/costume designer, Sam Anselm (Coel), for help crafting the perfect dress. The reunion dredges up old wounds the women can't escape and spirals into a supernatural reckoning. Things get pretty tense, to say the least.

Check out the official trailer for Mother Mary below.

How to watch Mother Mary at home Credit: A24

Mother Mary launched in theaters in limited release on April 17th and hit digital on-demand retailers on May 19th. Now it's officially headed to streaming, giving you three different options for watching at home. We've broken down the details below.

Buy or rent on digital

Mother Mary made its at-home debut via digital-on-demand retailers on May 19, 2026. You can either buy the film for your digital library for $9.99 or rent it for $5.99. Note: If you choose the rental option, you'll get access for 30 days, but only 48 hours once you start watching.

Quick links to buy/rent Mother Mary on digital:

• Apple TV —  buy for $9.99, rent for $5.99

• Fandango — buy for $9.99, rent for $5.99

• Google Play — buy for $9.99, rent starting at $4.99

• Prime Video —  buy for $9.99, rent for $5.99

• YouTube — buy for $9.99, rent starting at $4.99

Stream it on HBO Max

Since A24 renewed its output deal with Warner Bros. Discovery, new A24 theatrical releases exclusively stream on HBO Max before anywhere else. Mother Mary is set to make its HBO Max streaming debut on Aug. 21, 2026, which follows the same theater-to-streaming schedule as other recently released A24 films (Marty Supreme, The Drama, and Bring Her Back).

HBO Max subscriptions start at $10.99 per month. However, there are some ways you can save money on your plan. Check out the best HBO Max streaming deals below.

SEE ALSO: HBO Max and Paramount+ are combining into one streaming service The best HBO Max streaming dealsBest for most people: Save 16% on HBO Max annual subscriptions Opens in a new window Credit: HBO Max HBO Max Basic with ads annual subscription $109.99 per year (save $21.89) Get Deal Opens in a new window Credit: HBO Max HBO Max Standard annual subscription $184.99 per year (save $36.89) Get Deal

The best way to save money on HBO Max (or most streaming services, for that matter) on any given day is by opting for the annual plan. Yes, it costs more up front, but you'll save about 16% over the course of a year — up to $45.89 in savings.

A monthly plan with ads typically costs $10.99 per month, but a full year costs $109.99, which breaks down the monthly cost to only $9.17. If you want to go ad-free, the annual HBO Max Standard or Premium plans will also save you about 16% over their monthly equivalents.

Standard subscriptions cost either $18.49 per month or $184.99 per year (which breaks down to $15.42 per month). Premium subscriptions cost $22.99 per month or $229.99 per year (about $19.17 per month). Both plans are ad-free, but only the Premium option will unlock 4K Ultra HD video quality, Dolby Atmos, and the ability to download more offline content.

Get HBO Max for free: Switch to Cricket's Supreme Unlimited plan Opens in a new window Credit: HBO Max / Cricket HBO Max (with ads) Free for Cricket customers on the Supreme Unlimited plan Get Deal

While it's definitely not the most convenient option, switching your phone plan to Cricket's Supreme Unlimited plan for $60 per month is the only way to get HBO Max with ads for free. Once you're a Cricket customer, you can use your provider credentials to log in via the HBO Max app or website.

Best HBO Max deal for students: Save 50% on HBO Max Basic with ads Opens in a new window Credit: HBO Max HBO Max Student $5.49 per month for 12 months Get Deal

College students get an entire year of HBO Max Basic with ads for 50% off. Use UNiDAYS to prove your student status, then you'll receive a unique discount code that'll drop the cost per month down from $10.99 to $5.49. Once the initial 12-month promotional period is up, the price will jump back to the full cost unless you cancel.

Best bundle deal: Get HBO Max, Disney+, and Hulu for up to 42% off Opens in a new window Credit: Disney / Hulu / HBO Max Disney+, Hulu, and HBO Max $19.99 per month (with ads), $32.99 per month (no ads) Get Deal

The Disney+ bundle deal, which includes HBO Max and Hulu, is one of the best deals in streaming. For just $19.99 per month, you'll get all three streaming libraries with ads, which is about $15 cheaper than paying for each one separately. If you want to go ad-free, it'll run you $32.99 per month as opposed to $56.47 for all three. That's up to 42% in savings.

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If you're a Verizon customer on the Unlimited Welcome, Unlimited Plus, or Unlimited Ultimate plan, you can add the Netflix and HBO Max bundle (with ads) to your plan for only $13 per month. A $19.98 per month value, that's about $7 in savings each month. Once you enroll in the promo, you'll have to complete the account setup separately for each service. Check out Verizon's support page for all the eligibility details, terms, and FAQs.

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Xfinity Internet and TV customers can also get in on the bundle action with Xfinity StreamSaver packages. The package that includes Netflix Standard with ads ($8.99 per month), Peacock Premium ($10.99 per month), and HBO Max Basic with Ads ($10.99 per month) can be added to your existing Xfinity service for only $22 per month. It typically costs $30.97 for all three, so that's about $9 in savings monthly.

TL;DR: Get Microsoft Visual Studio Professional 2026 for $29.97 through July 26 and build faster with AI-powered coding tools, Live Share collaboration, and cross-platform development support.

Opens in a new window Credit: Microsoft Microsoft Visual Studio Professional 2026 $29.97
$499.99 Save $470.02   Get Deal

Modern software development isn’t getting any simpler, but the tools behind it keep getting better, too. That’s exactly what Microsoft Visual Studio Professional 2026 aims to deliver: a faster, more capable development environment that helps you spend less time managing code and more time building great software.

For just two more days, you can get a lifetime license to Microsoft Visual Studio Professional 2026 for $29.97 (reg. $499.99). Whether you’re building desktop applications, web apps, cloud services, or mobile experiences, it’s a practical upgrade for developers who want the latest tools without paying ongoing subscription costs.

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The newest version introduces deeper AI integration throughout the IDE. Intellicode provides context-aware code suggestions, predicts your next edits, and helps reduce repetitive coding, while built-in AI-assisted refactoring can streamline common development tasks and help catch issues earlier.

Visual Studio Professional 2026 also supports modern, cross-platform workflows. Build applications with .NET MAUI, create web interfaces with Blazor, develop and debug .NET and C++ applications for Windows, Linux, and containers, and integrate directly with Azure and GitHub.

For team projects, Live Share makes collaboration easier by allowing developers to work together in real time without cloning repositories or recreating identical development environments. CodeLens adds another productivity boost by surfacing commit history, test status, references, and code authors directly inside the editor.

If you’re already working in the Microsoft development ecosystem — or planning to — this is an easy way to upgrade your toolkit with the latest version of one of the industry’s most widely used IDEs.

Get Microsoft Visual Studio Professional 2026 for $29.97 through July 26 (reg. $499.99) while supplies last.

StackSocial prices subject to change.

TV is about to get a whole lot greener, thanks to Lanterns.

HBO released the official trailer for the Green Lantern-focused series at San Diego Comic-Con, giving viewers a deep dive into the dynamic between Green Lanterns Hal Jordan (Kyle Chandler) and John Stewart (Aaron Pierre). They're intergalactic cops tasked with protecting Earth. Hal is a Lantern legend, while John is a new recruit who's still learning the ropes of how to use his magical ring.

SEE ALSO: 'The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power' teaser shows Sauron in full control of Middle-earth

Based on the trailer, Hal and John's mentor-mentee relationship is pretty strained. No wonder, given that Hal dumps water on a sleeping John, or that everyone refers to John as Hal's backup.

However, the two will have to learn to work together as they try to solve a new mystery right in America's heartland, one that has ties to the fearsome shape-shifting Manhunters.

Co-created by Chris Mundy, Damon Lindelof, and Tom King, Lanterns has a neo-Western flair. But that doesn't mean it's without Green Lantern magic. The trailer sees Hal using his ring to fly, and John... Well, John can create a very cute hummingbird with his ring, but it seems he still has a lot to learn.

The trailer also features appearances from Superman's Guy Gardner (Nathan Fillion), as well as classic Green Lantern villain Sinestro (Ulrich Thomsen). Check out the full video above to see them, Hal, and John in action.

Lanterns also stars Kelly Macdonald, Garret Dillahunt, Poorna Jagannathan, Laura Linney, Jason Ritter, J. Alphonse Nicholson, and Jasmine Cephas Jones.

Lanterns premieres Aug. 16 at 9 p.m. ET on HBO and HBO Max.

It's official. Out of San Diego Comic-Con, AMC Global Media has announced that Interview with the Vampire will return for Season 4. And as fans have predicted, showrunner Rolin Jones will change the title from The Vampire Lestat to Queen of the Damned, reflecting the shift from the second book in Anne Rice's beloved Vampire Chronicles to the third.

The teaser above focuses on Sheila Atim, who played Queen of the Damned Akasha in The Vampire Lestat. There, we saw her awake in flashbacks, as she suspended the Brat Prince in midair for three days as she ranted and declared herself "the answer."

If that's how she responded to Sam Reid saying "spoon," how might she respond to him performing a concert, by vampires for vampires? Well, there's been hints of that since the auction at the start of The Vampire Lestat. But in the teaser, she offers a pretty direct call to action:

You have called to me, not knowing my name.

You, with your dresses stained, your faces down in the mud.

I have heard you.

And I say this to you now: Do not let them shape you into the size of their cage.

Women, get up out of the ditches where they have thrown you, and come with me now to where the men are gathered, and do what you have long longed to do.

Kill them all.

We predict Gabriella (Jennifer Ehle) will like her.

What do we know about Queen of the Damned?

Atim will be back for Season 4, as — we expect — will Sam Reid, Jacob Anderson, Assad Zaman, and Eric Bogosian, who all joined her at the Comic-Con panel.

AMC's press release included assurance that executive producer/writer Hannah Moscovitch will have an important role in Queen of the Damn, specifically writing for Akasha and Gabriella as she did in The Vampire Lestat.

In a press release, AMC shared this statement from Dan McDermott, Chief Content Officer of AMC Global Media and President of AMC Studios about the new season, "In The Vampire Lestat, Mark, Rolin, Hannah and this extraordinary cast delivered an unforgettable season filled with propulsive storytelling that captivated the passionate and engaged fans of this franchise. We can't wait to continue the journey with Queen of the Damned, one of the most iconic stories in Anne Rice's mythology, and watch our established and beloved characters confront Akasha with their world, and ours, very much hanging in the balance."

When will Queen of the Damned be released?

AMC has not yet revealed when Queen of the Damned will come to TV and streaming.

Mashable will update as news develops.

Korean electronics giant LG is taking heat over intrusive settings on its TVs and computer monitors — and the backlash may just be getting started.

It all began on July 17, when an LG gaming monitor customer noticed a pop-up ad for McAfee antivirus software on their screen. The user took to X to vent their frustration.

"PSA: Do NOT buy an LG monitor, it automatically downloaded an app that gives me pop ups for their own apps and McAfee," wrote the customer identified as wexos.

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

The YouTube channel Gamers Nexus looked into the report, finding that LG UltraGear monitors were installing a program called LG Monitor App Install after users connected them to Windows PCs.

As our colleagues at PCMag reported, "The program advises customers to install other apps, and shows a pop-up ad for McAfee’s Scam Detector software." (Disclosure: PCMag and Mashable are owned by the same parent company, Ziff Davis.)

The situation escalated quickly from there. Microsoft EVP for Windows and Devices, Pavan Davuluri, replied to wexos' complaint directly. Later he announced Microsoft had intervened, and that LG had agreed to disable the pop-up ads.

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

LG offered this statement to Windows Latest: "LG Electronics reiterates that McAfee is not installed automatically and is never installed without the user’s explicit consent."

But that was not, as it turned out, the only case of intrusive ads on LG screens. Tom Warren at The Verge also took to X to criticize LG for serving ads on his TV homescreen. He didn't mince words.

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

There may be many such complaints to come. In March at the advertiser event IAB NewFronts, LG's Ad Solutions division boasted that its home screen was the ideal place to serve video ads from the moment users turn on their TVs.

As Adweek reported at the time, "LG revealed a new, seamless home screen experience, which integrates immersive, full-frame video directly into the LG TV interface, putting brands at the first moment of viewer interaction."

SEE ALSO: What to look for when buying a TV

LG is hardly the only brand to serve ads in internet-connected products. Amazon Echo Show devices are notorious for showing ads that can't be deactivated, and Samsung faced backlash recently for serving ads for the Apple TV Show Pluribus on the doors of smart refrigerators, of all places.

But pop-up ads, universally loathed on the internet, seem to stir a special kind of outrage. The speed of the LG backlash and response is notable. Whether it's enough to stop brands like LG from serving intrusive ads "at the first moment of viewer interaction" remains to be seen.

Mashable contacted LG with questions about its advertising strategy, and we'll update this story if we receive more information.

Anthropic has unveiled a new AI model it says comes close to Claude Fable 5 in its levels of intelligence — at half the price.

Claude Opus 5 was just released by Anthropic on Friday. The AI company is already pushing the model out as the default model on Claude Max, Anthropic's highest subscription plan which starts at $100 a month. It's also the strongest available model on Claude Pro, the company's $20-per-month subscription tier.

Claude Opus 5 tops Anthropic's other models in key areas

Opus 5 is "designed to be used every day," Anthropic says, adding that it's more efficient than the company's previous models.

Most notably, the company calls Opus 5 its "most aligned model to date." This means Opus 5 abides by "human values" and safety guidelines.

When compared to prior models like Opus 4.8, Sonnet 5, or Fable 5, Opus 5 has the lowest rates of deceptiveness and is the least likely to be tricked into misuse, Anthropic says of its "safest model yet."

One intriguing test highlighted by Anthropic: how fast Opus 5 solves a problem that the model has never seen before. The company says it's three times as fast as the next-best model, and scored nearly four times higher than OpenAI's GPT-5.6 Sol.

Claude Opus 5 benchmarks Credit: Anthropic

Compared to Fable 5, Opus 5 performs better or the same in the vast majority of Anthropic benchmark tests. (Notable exceptions: health and legal benchmarks). It beats OpenAI's GPT 5.6 Sol in every benchmark except for Agentic coding.

Anthropic is especially proud of Opus 5's science benchmarks, calling the model the "most capable generally available model for scientific research." Still, Mythos 5 beats Opus 5 in areas such as biology research.

Cybersecurity is another area where Opus 5 falls behind, and that's by design. Anthropic says it purposefully left such tasks out of Opus 5's training. The model can still find vulnerabilities as it expands its dataset, but is much worse at exploiting them than Mythos and previous models.

The choice is a notable one in the wake of an OpenAI agent recently going rogue and hacking a client's server. Opus 5 was clearly trained by Anthropic with safeguards in mind.

How to try Claude Opus 5

Claude Opus 5 is available as of Friday July 24, across Anthropic's platforms.

Opus 5 is now the default AI model on Claude Max and the strongest available model on Claude Pro. The model costs $5 per million input tokens and $25 per million output tokens, which is equivalent to Opus 4.8's pricing.

The general perception of RAMageddon has been, for a while now, that it will get worse before it gets better. Qualcomm is seemingly confirming that.

Bloomberg reported on Friday that the chip maker, whose chips can be found in all of Samsung's new foldables, Windows laptops, and smartwatches, has reportedly told clients to expect a price increase on its products for anything shipped after Sept. 1. The specific size of the price increase is not known at this time, but Bloomberg said it will be a percentage in the double digits, so it's not a small one.

SEE ALSO: The 4 best laptops of 2026 (so far) offer exceptional value despite RAMageddon

All of this, of course, was attributed to rising memory component costs due to the AI spending spree. AI companies are in the midst of a huge data center construction boom, and the industry requires massive amounts of memory. This phenomenon, commonly called RAMageddon, has contributed to a wave of price increases across the tech industry, and it doesn't show any signs of slowing down.

In our previous reporting on the global memory crisis, experts have told Mashable the situation will likely get worse before it gets better. International Data Corporation research manager Jitesh Ubrani told Mashable earlier this year that relief will likely not happen until at least 2028, and even then, don't expect much.

"The memory supply will remain tight from a device's perspective for the remainder of 2026 and well into 2027," Ubrani told Mashable in May. "We will see some alleviation in 2028, but keep in mind that prices will continue to rise throughout. And even in 2028, assuming this new [memory] capacity comes online and is able to provide some alleviation, we don't see device prices dropping significantly."

In other words: Ouch. Not good.

Mini, pocket-sized e-readers are having a moment. The Xteink e-readers are catching eyes for their truly pocket-sized build that can even attach to the back of your iPhone. Well, they're not the only ones embracing the mini e-reader: Boox just revealed its Picco.

The Boox Picco (cutest name ever?) comes with a 3.97-inch monochrome ePaper display. It's even smaller than Boox's current smallest tablet, the Palma Pro. It will have a front light and TF card support, too. And well, that's about all we know about the mini e-reader at the moment.

While no exact price was provided, in a press release, Boox says the Picco has an "accessible price point." There's no release date available for the Picco at this time, either.

The Boox Picco is a phenomenal development for readers looking to get a mini e-reader. While I do love the concept and size of the Xteink e-reader, the issue is that those e-readers only support DRM-free files. This means if you use Libby or have a bountiful Kindle library, you can't access any of those books on an Xteink e-reader.

However, the Boox ecosystem is far more expansive. As long as the Picco has access to the Google Play store, users will be able to download the Kindle, Kobo, and Libby apps. That means any of the books you read on your Kindle can be accessed and synced on the Picco.

Boox has yet to confirm that the Picco has the same ecosystem as the rest of its e-readers, but if it does, that's massive potential for such a small e-reader.

Prime Video released the teaser for The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power at San Diego Comic-Con, and things are looking bad for Middle-earth.

SEE ALSO: 'Blade Runner 2099' teaser: Michelle Yeoh and Hunter Schafer team up and hunt rogue replicants

Season 3 picks up five years after the fall of Eregion, with Sauron (Charlie Vickers) now comfortably in control of Middle-earth. His armies have swept across the world, and only a few places remain free from his dark grasp. The dwarves have shut themselves away in Khazad-dûm, while the elves remain ensconced in the realms of Lindon and Rivendell, protected by their three rings of power. Their time of relative safety may be coming to a close, though, because Sauron is hard at work on his greatest piece of statement jewelry yet: a little bauble called the One Ring. Surely that won't cause any problems, right?

The teaser isn't all doom and gloom, though. It offers up our first glimpse of the reunion between Galadriel (Morfydd Clark) and her long-lost husband, Celeborn (Jamie Campbell Bower), who share some passionate moments even as the world crumbles around them.

Celeborn isn't the only new character joining this season. The Rings of Power Comic-Con panel also saw the announcement of three major players this season: Thrain (Eddie Marsan), older brother of King Durin IV (Owain Arthur); Anarion (Andrew Richardson), the younger son of Elendil (Lloyd Owen); and Marnûkh (Adam Young), a mysterious Orc. Oh, and for the first time ever, the ferocious Balrog will be speaking, and will be voiced by Simon Pegg. More Balrog can only mean one thing: Khazad-dûm isn't long for this world.

To watch all these characters and more — including the Nazgnagôl, early incarnations of the Nazgûl — in action, check out the full teaser above.

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power Season 3 premieres Nov. 11 on Prime Video.

In a sea of bad headlines for PlayStation, a big network outage probably isn't going to help.

PS5 owners logged into their consoles on Friday to find that PlayStation Network, the online infrastructure that makes everything from game purchases to online matches work, was experiencing an outage. Multiple sources, both primary and secondary, confirm this, as DownDetector shows a steady stream of complaints starting on Friday morning and continuing into the afternoon. On top of that, PlayStation's own server status page showed that all services were experiencing issues at the time of publication.

Credit: Screenshot courtesy of PlayStation SEE ALSO: 'Splatoon Raiders' is a spiffy single-player makeover for Nintendo's coolest series

Mashable has reached out to Sony for comment and will update this article if we receive a response. As of early Friday afternoon, the PlayStation support account on X had not acknowledged the outage at all.

All of this comes amidst a very, very rough time for PlayStation's public relations.

PS5 consoles recently saw price increases nearly six years after the initial launch, and word is that the next PlayStation console might cost north of $1,000 whenever it launches. If that wasn't bad enough, every single PlayStation social media account has been hounded by angry comments from players who are aghast at Sony's recent decision to stop manufacturing games on physical discs in 2028.

Needless to say, this is not the best time for a major, unexplained network outage.

This is a developing story...

Google made nearly $120 billion in earnings last quarter. Somehow, that still was not enough to cover what the company is pouring into AI.

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Alphabet, Google’s parent company, announced Wednesday, July 22, that it recorded negative free cash flow of $5.9 billion for the second quarter of 2026, marking the first time that figure has fallen below zero since the company went public. Google generated $39.1 billion in operating cash flow, but spent $44.9 billion on capital projects, with most of the money going toward the servers, data centers, and networking equipment needed to support its AI products.

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To be clear, Google is still making plenty of money. In the Q2 2026 earnings report, the company disclosed $119.8 billion in quarterly revenue, a 24 percent increase from the same period last year. Its operating income reached $40.8 billion, while its net income climbed to a record $112.1 billion.

There is an important catch to that record profit, however. Much of it came from Alphabet’s investments rather than its main businesses. The company reported approximately $98 billion in other, primarily from unrealized gains in its portfolio of equity investments. Those gains reflect assets that increased in value but were not necessarily sold for cash.

Free cash flow offers a look at the money Google actually had left after covering its operating expenses and investments in assets such as equipment and facilities. The company typically produces billions of dollars in free cash flow each quarter. This time, though, its rapidly growing infrastructure costs consumed more cash than its businesses generated.

And Google does not plan to slow down.

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Also on July 22, the company raised its expected capital spending for 2026 to between $195 billion and $205 billion. Google had previously told investors during its first-quarter earnings report on April 29 that it expected to spend between $180 billion and $190 billion this year. The updated forecast would be more than twice the approximately $91 billion it spent in 2025.

The bill is expected to keep growing next year. During Alphabet’s call on Wednesday, Chief Financial Officer Anat Ashkenazi told investors that capital expenditures would increase "significantly" again in 2027.

"We expect that free cash flow will remain under pressure driven by our investments in technical infrastructure, which enable us to capitalize on the AI opportunity and continue to drive attractive returns," Ashkenazi said.

So, where is all that money going?

According to Ashkenazi, approximately 60 percent of Google’s technical infrastructure spending during the quarter went toward servers. The remaining 40 percent went toward data centers and networking equipment.

Google also said it needs that additional capacity to meet demand from outside cloud customers and support its own products, including Search, Gemini, and Google Workspace. There are already signs that some of the spending is paying off: Google reported that Cloud revenue reached $24.8 billion during the quarter, an 82 percent increase from the previous year, while its operating income more than tripled to $8.8 billion.

Google’s other major businesses continued to grow, too. The company also reported that Search advertising generated $63.3 billion, YouTube advertising brought in $11.1 billion, and revenue from subscriptions, platforms, and devices reached $12.9 billion. Google said demand for AI subscriptions helped boost its Google One business.

They are hardly the only company writing enormous checks for AI. Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Meta are collectively expected to invest more than $700 billion this year, largely in data centers, chips, and electricity required to build and run their AI systems.

Investors, however, did not appear reassured by Google’s growth. Alphabet shares fell nearly 7 percent on Thursday, July 23, the day after the company raised its spending forecast and warned that free cash flow would remain under pressure.

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Google still has a substantial financial cushion, but with the company already warning that infrastructure spending will climb significantly again in 2027, this may not be the last quarter in which Google’s enormous AI bill outpaces the cash coming in.

Prime Video revealed the first teaser for Blade Runner 2099 at San Diego Comic-Con, and the sneak peek is as rainy and neon-lit as you'd expect.

SEE ALSO: 'Percy Jackson and the Olympians' Season 3 teaser gives us our first look at the Titan's Curse

The sequel series, executive produced by Blade Runner director Ridley Scott, takes place 50 years after the events of Denis Villeneuve's Blade Runner 2049. In those 50 years, Los Angeles has been transformed by a replicant uprising. Now, these synthetic humans are running the show, but that doesn't mean blade runners aren't still around to hunt down any replicants who step out of line.

One of those blade runners is Olwen (Michelle Yeoh), a replicant who's tracking down a group of missing replicants who have gone rogue. With only days left to live, she'll stop at nothing to complete her mission.

She'll team up with Cora (Hunter Schafer), a human fugitive who becomes a blade runner in an attempt to finally stop running. The teaser shows her fleeing through Los Angeles and getting captured by Olwen, so it looks like their partnership will get off to a contentious start. Can this unlikely duo find the runaways and save their fragile city from total collapse?

Watch the full teaser above to see Olwen and Cora in action, plus the return of the iconic Voight-Kampff test.

Blade Runner 2049 also stars Dimitri Abold, Lewis Gribben, Katelyn Rose Downey, Daniel Rigby, Johnny Harris, Amy Lennox, Sheila Atim, Matthew Needham, Tom Burke, and Maurizio Lombardi.

Blade Runner 2049 premieres Nov. 20 on Prime Video.

Jimothy has crossed Seattle streets and climbed neighborhood staircases, and now he's wandered into the gaming world.

The unusually shaped raccoon became an internet celebrity after Seattle resident Kiana Hall spotted him in the city’s Ballard neighborhood on July 13, 2026. Since then, his compact torso, rounded back, and long legs have inspired memes, murals, tattoos, merchandise, and an expanding collection of digital recreations.

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Players and developers have already begun recreating Jimothy across video games and tabletop worlds. And now, one of gaming’s biggest studios is preparing to make room for him.

“You asked, Jimothy answered,” the official World of Warcraft X account wrote on July 24. “Coming soon to Azeroth.”

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It is the latest step in Jimothy’s rapid transformation from neighborhood raccoon to cross-platform gaming character.

How Jimothy scurried his way into gaming

Before Jimothy became a prospective Azeroth resident, he was simply an unusual-looking raccoon walking beneath a parked car in Seattle.

Hall initially mistook the animal for a cat, then began recording when he emerged with the masked face of a raccoon and a noticeably shortened torso and neck. She named him Jimothy because, as she later explained to Today.com, he simply looked like one.

The brief video accumulated millions of views. Experts believe Jimothy’s appearance may be caused by a congenital spinal deformity resembling short spine syndrome. Despite his compressed build, videos show him walking, climbing, finding food, and independently navigating the neighborhood.

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Those same physical features also made him immediately recognizable when artists began translating him into different virtual worlds. Some redrew Jimothy in their games’ established art styles, while others creatively repurposed existing character models to reproduce his distinctive silhouette.

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In an Old School RuneScape tribute, Jimothy becomes a low-poly raccoon who looks as though he has always been wandering through Gielinor. Mouse: P.I. For Hire transported him to Mouseburg, redrawing him in the black-and-white rubber-hose animation style of its 1930s-inspired world.

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Dead by Daylight gave him a horror makeover complete with glowing features and bloody tentacles. The official Sims account attempted to build him using a human Sim, producing a character who resembled someone wearing a slightly unsettling raccoon costume.

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Halo’s interpretation required another inventive workaround. Rather than creating a new animal model, senior community manager John Junyszek bent a Spartan onto all fours and extended its neck and feet to imitate Jimothy’s proportions.

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Other images placed the resulting raccoon-like soldier near Master Chief’s crashed escape pod in scenes based on Halo: Combat Evolved and its Campaign Evolved remake.

Jimothy also reached several other established gaming worlds. Warner Bros. Games imagined that he had arrived in Gotham City, while the teams behind Among Us and Cult of the Lamb redesigned him to fit their respective visual styles.

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Most of these official tributes exist only as images. Fans and modders, however, have gone further by turning Jimothy into a character people can actually play with.

Fans make Jimothy playable

Artist and entrepreneur Chris Pirillo built an entire browser game around Jimothy. The four-level, NES-style game borrows elements from classic arcade titles including Frogger and the original Donkey Kong, transforming parts of the raccoon’s real and imagined adventures into short challenges.

One level asks players to help Jimothy cross traffic, while others involve raiding garbage cans, escaping paparazzi, and climbing ladders.

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Fans have also inserted Jimothy into several popular games through mods. In Skyrim, one fan-made addition turns him into a character players can approach and speak with. Stardew Valley modders have created multiple versions, including options that let players keep Jimothy as livestock or purchase him from Marnie as a companion.

In Minecraft, a creator modified the raccoon from the Naturalist add-on to match Jimothy’s proportions, translating his shortened body and long legs into the game’s blocky visual style.

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Dungeons & Dragons has produced one of the most elaborate interpretations so far. Its official Jimothy stat block identifies him as a "Beloved Cryptid" and gives him abilities based on both his physical appearance and the increasingly elaborate stories surrounding him.

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"Compact Frame" allows Jimothy to squeeze through gaps measuring less than four inches wide. "Hurl Garbage" lets him attack enemies with trash, dealing both bludgeoning and poison damage. The stat block contains everything players need to add him to a tabletop campaign, where he can search for food, befriend adventurers, or become an unexpectedly dangerous opponent.

Together, these official tributes and fan-made creations have allowed Jimothy to enter gaming in nearly every possible form: artwork, character models, mods, browser games, and tabletop campaigns.

The real Jimothy remains a wild animal roaming Seattle, where wildlife officials have advised people to observe him from a distance. His digital counterparts, however, are proving much easier to approach — and collect.

For some social media users, Facebook may feel like an app left behind in an online era of the past. However, for others, Facebook has reinvented itself as the modern-day Craigslist with Facebook Marketplace.

Meta seems to have taken notice and is now releasing a standalone app for the Facebook Marketplace power users who keep the platform going: It's sellers.

The new app, aptly named Seller, launched on Friday and provides Facebook Marketplace sellers with tools to list their wares and manage their current listings. 

Like Facebook Marketplace itself, the Seller app is free for users. Meta monetizes Facebook Marketplace with ads and does not take any percentage of its users' sales. Users will be able to download the app and login with their Facebook account starting today.

Credit: Facebook

Seller provides a tool to post new listings, a dashboard to manage their existing ones, an in-app inbox to reply to prospective buyers, and analytics for all of their old listings. 

Seller also introduces a few new tools for sellers as well. According to Facebook, Seller users will be able to scan their products with their smartphone, and AI will fill-out the listing details automatically.

In an interview with the New York Times, Facebook head Tom Allison said that the app would be the Marketplace seller equivalent of a video editing tool for content creators. Allison also explained how Meta is experimenting with more standalone products for Facebook's power users, which include Marketplace Sellers and Facebook Groups administrators.

As social media users move to competing platforms like TikTok and Meta's own Instagram, Facebook has found new life within specific, once-niche features on the platform. In May, Facebook launched a standalone app called Forum for its Facebook Groups power users. Now, the company is doing the same for Facebook Marketplace sellers.

Meta says that one-third of young adults who use Facebook also use Marketplace. And, every month, more than 420 million items are listed on the Marketplace platform. 

A member of the Ferrell family is going viral, although this time, comedy has very little to do with it.

Magnus Ferrell, the 22-year-old musician and oldest son of Will Ferrell, is reaching a wave of new listeners (and arguably becoming social media's summer boyfriend) through "Asleep Talking," his bedroom-pop single about being unable to stop thinking about someone, even while asleep.

"I AM SO HAPPY!" he captioned a July 3, 2026 TikTok, calling the number of new people showing love to the song "absolutely mind boggling."

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Released April 24 (but gaining fresh momentum this summer), "Asleep Talking" features understated piano and guitar production as Magnus returns to the song’s central idea: someone has occupied so much of his mind that he talks about them in his sleep. Its official video has received more than 400,000 views on YouTube and has over 600,000 streams on Spotify.

The track is also reaching some of the internet’s largest music-reaction creators. The Morning Shift Show, which has more than 1 million followers on the platform, listened and reacted to "Asleep Talking" July 23, introducing the song to its own audience — one commenter arrived on Magnus’ page writing "sent here by ma boys The Morning Shift," adding that the track was already "on repeat."

The song received another endorsement on July 1, when Ferrell appeared on Michelle Obama and Craig Robinson’s IMO podcast. Will played "Asleep Talking" for the hosts, and Obama gave the song a round of applause.

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For those unfamiliar with the Ferrell family tree beyond Will, Magnus is the oldest of the actor’s three sons with his wife, Swedish auctioneer Viveca Paulin. The couple, who married in 2000, also shares sons Mattias and Axel.

Magnus began playing piano as a child and later became interested in jazz, which gave him more freedom to improvise and develop his own approach to music. He has frequently collaborated with his longtime friend Gabe Yaron, who co-wrote the viral song.

By the time Magnus enrolled at the University of Southern California (USC), his father’s alma mater, he and Yaron were roommates, posting covers and original songs online. Magnus later took a leave of absence from USC to focus on music full-time and signed with Republic Records.

In a 2025 interview with Atwood Magazine, he described his approach as "groove therapy," or a way to share his love of music while allowing listeners to take their own feelings from it.

On TikTok and X, listeners have been finding their own ways to describe its dreamy, nostalgic sound. One called it "dancing in the kitchen making dinner sipping wine music," while another heard "Super 8 rom com vibes."

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Like many celebrity children (or "nepo-babies") pursuing careers of their own, Magnus has acknowledged that his father’s fame inevitably affects how audiences first encounter his work.

"I’m not someone who’s going to pretend it’s not a thing," Magnus also told the publication. "Most definitely, it is. I’m not going to hide it."

"Asleep Talking" may be introducing Magnus to a much larger audience, but it’s far from his first release. His earlier catalog includes tracks like "Drinks on Me," "Life or Death," and "Miss Me Vendetta," along with the EP Hasn’t Even Started. He’s also no stranger to the stage, having performed at the 2025 Summer Bash in New York and the MTV Video Music Awards that September as a solo artist.

One of Magnus’s earlier tracks made its way into a project starring his father. He and Yaron wrote "Slow Down" while trying to break out of a creative rut, then sent it to Will during production of the 2025 Prime Video comedy You’re Cordially Invited. The song eventually landed in one of the movie’s party scenes. Later, at his band’s first live performance—a 2022 Cancer for College benefit—his father joined him onstage with a cowbell, recreating the instrument at the center of his famous Saturday Night Live sketch.

The father and son generated another viral moment the following year when Will DJed a USC fraternity tailgate at Magnus’ invitation. With Magnus beside him, the actor played tracks including Survivor’s "Eye of the Tiger" for the crowd.

Magnus later explained that he simply asked his dad whether he wanted to take over the music for a few minutes. Will agreed, and another Ferrell family video began making its way across social media. When asked where he learned to DJ, Magnus joked, "I got my chops from my pops."

"Asleep Talking" is producing a different introduction. This time, Will Ferrell may provide a familiar name, but Magnus has given TikTok a song it cannot get out of its head.

San Diego Comic-Con, the annual gathering for all things comic books and nerd culture, is here. This year's event kicked off on July 23 and runs through July 26, so you'd best prepare for a weekend of big reveals and new movie trailers.

This year's edition of the long-running pop culture showcase features panels from all over the world of movies, TV, video games, and maybe even a comic book or two, here and there. Our friends at IGN created an excellent rundown of the weekend's schedule of events, but there are a few announcements in particular we're looking forward to. (Mashable and IGN are both owned by the same parent company, Ziff Davis.)

So, here are some of the biggest panels and announcements we expect this weekend at SDCC 2026.

SEE ALSO: 'Supergirl' review: Better than the comic, but not DC's best Somehow, Spaceballs returns

Comedy legend Mel Brooks just celebrated his 100th birthday, and he still has jokes to tell, as a long-awaited sequel to his old Star Wars parody, Spaceballs, is in the works. Spaceballs: The New One comes out next April. There's a panel at SDCC on Friday featuring the cast and crew of the new movie, where they will discuss the project in detail, and maybe even give us a real look at it, since it's only been shown in brief teaser form thus far.

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Earlier on Friday, you can expect some new info from Amazon about two of its higher-profile streaming TV projects.

First, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is set to return for its third season, after season two took the series to new heights all the way back in 2024. Amazon's panel will feature a look at season three of the expensively produced and divisive fantasy epic.

Beyond that, Blade Runner 2099 will make its debut at this panel. The new Prime Video series stars Michelle Yeoh and Hunter Schafer and returns viewers to the bleak techno-dystopia that somehow became a nearly 50-year-long media franchise.

A look at the future of Apple TV

Apple is holding a panel focused on original Apple TV programming, which has really hit its stride recently with shows like Silo and Widow's Bay. Apple's official description for this panel is very vague, but hopefully, we'll get updates on the streaming app's best new shows. Check in on Saturday if you want to hear more about the next moves for Apple TV.

Some fresh God of War: Laufey insight

SDCC is not generally a big gaming show, especially with Gamescom coming up in August. But PlayStation will have a presence at the show, and that includes a God of War: Laufey panel on Friday night.

And finally, the MCU returns with Doomsday

You may have heard that there's a new Avengers movie coming out. I mean, there usually is, but this one seemingly has way more guys in it than usual. It also features the MCU debut of fan-favorite villain Dr. Doom, played by returning star Robert Downey Jr.

Saturday night will see a Comic-Con panel featuring Kevin Feige and other "special guests," and they should give us an idea of what to expect not just from Doomsday, but from the next year or two of the MCU.