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TL;DR: The Champions League is available to live stream for free on RTÉ Player, Virgin Media, tabii, and Prime Video. Access these free live streams from anywhere in the world with ExpressVPN.

The top club competition in the world of football has to be the Champions League. There is nothing else that brings the very best teams in the world together in a battle for footballing immortality. Winning your domestic league is great, but winning the Champions League is on another level.

PSG are looking to secure an incredible third consecutive title. That's going to be a mammoth task in the face of giants like Bayern Munich, Arsenal, Manchester City, Real Madrid, and Barcelona, all desperate to lift the iconic trophy.

If you want to watch the 2026-27 Champions League for free from anywhere in the world, we have all the information you need.

What is the Champions League?

The Champions League is an annual club football competition organized by UEFA and contested by top-division European clubs. This year's tournament begins with a 36-team round robin group stage to determine which sides qualify for the double-legged knockout rounds, followed by a single-leg final.

The defending champions are PSG.

When is the 2026-27 Champions League?

The 2026-27 Champions League is the 72nd edition of the competition (and the 35th since it was renamed the Champions League). This season's tournament starts on July 7 and runs until the final on June 5.

How to watch the 2026-27 Champions League for free

It is possible to live stream the 2026-27 Champions League for free on the following streaming platforms:

• Ireland — RTÉ Player and Virgin Media

• Turkey — tabii

• UK — Prime Video (free trial)

These free streaming platforms are geo-restricted, but anyone can bypass these restrictions with a VPN. These tools can hide your real IP address (digital location) and connect you to secure servers in other countries, meaning you can unblock free live streams of the Champions League from anywhere in the world.

Access free live streams of the 2026-27 Champions League by following these simple steps:

1. Subscribe to a streaming-friendly VPN (we recommend ExpressVPN)

2. Download the app to your device of choice (the best VPNs have apps for Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, Linux, and more)

3. Open up the app and connect to a server in a location with free coverage of the Champions League

4. Visit RTÉ Player, Virgin Media, tabii, or Prime Video (free trial)

5. Watch Champions League fixtures for free from anywhere in the world

Opens in a new window Credit: ExpressVPN ExpressVPN (1-Month Plan) $12.95 only at ExpressVPN (with money-back guarantee) Get Deal

The best VPNs for streaming are not free, but leading VPNs do tend to offer free-trial periods or money-back guarantees. By leveraging these offers, you can gain access to free live streams of the 2026-27 Champions League without committing with your cash. This is obviously not a long-term solution, but it does give you time to watch select fixtures before recovering your investment.

If you want to retain permanent access to free streaming services from around the world, the fact is you'll need a subscription. Fortunately, the best VPN for streaming live sport is on sale for a limited time.

What is the best VPN for the Champions League?

ExpressVPN is the best service for bypassing geo-restrictions to stream live sport, for a number of reasons:

• Servers in 105 countries

• Easy-to-use app available on all major devices, including iPhone, Android, Windows, Mac, and more

• Strict no-logging policy so your data is always secure

• Fast connection speeds

• Up to eight simultaneous connections

• 30-day money-back guarantee

A two-year subscription to ExpressVPN is on sale for $68.40 and includes an extra four months for free — 81% off for a limited time. This plan includes a year of free unlimited cloud backup and a generous 30-day money-back guarantee. Alternatively, you can get a one-month plan for just $12.99 (with money-back guarantee).

Live stream the Champions League for free from anywhere in the world with ExpressVPN.

TL;DR: Live stream Arsenal vs. Lille in the Champions League for free on Virgin Media Player. Access this free streaming platform from anywhere in the world with ExpressVPN.

The Champions League group stage is all about consistency. Arsenal secured an important three points in the opening round of games, but they'll be desperate to continue winning to secure a place in the top eight. Next they face Lille at the Emirates Stadium, a game that fans will expect to win.

If you want to watch Arsenal vs. Lille in the Champions League from anywhere in the world, we have all the information you need.

When is Arsenal vs. Lille?

Arsenal vs. Lille in the Champions League kicks off at 3 p.m. ET on Oct. 13. This fixture takes place at the Emirates Stadium.

How to watch Arsenal vs. Lille for free

Arsenal vs. Lille is available to live stream for free on Virgin Media Player.

Virgin Media Player is geo-restricted to Ireland, but anyone can access this free streaming platform with a VPN. These tools can hide your real IP address (digital location) and connect you to a secure server in Ireland, meaning you can unblock Virgin Media Player to stream the Champions League for free from anywhere in the world.

Live stream Arsenal vs. Lille for free by following these simple steps:

1. Subscribe to a streaming-friendly VPN (we recommend ExpressVPN)

2. Download the app to your device of choice (the best VPNs have apps for Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, Linux, and more)

3. Open up the app and connect to a server in Ireland

4. Visit Virgin Media Player

5. Watch Arsenal vs. Lille for free from anywhere in the world

Opens in a new window Credit: ExpressVPN ExpressVPN (1-Month Plan) $12.99 only at ExpressVPN (with money-back guarantee) Get Deal

The best VPNs for streaming are not free, but most do offer free trials or money-back guarantees. By leveraging these offers, you can access free live streams of the Champions League without actually spending anything. This obviously isn't a long-term solution, but it does give you enough time to stream Arsenal vs. Lille (plus more Champions League fixtures) before recovering your investment.

What is the best VPN for Virgin Media Player?

ExpressVPN is the best choice for bypassing geo-restrictions to stream live sport on Virgin Media Player, for a number of reasons:

• Servers in 105 countries, including Brazil

• Easy-to-use app available on all major devices, including iPhone, Android, Windows, Mac, and more

• Strict no-logging policy so your data is secure

• Fast connection speeds free from throttling

• Up to 10 simultaneous connections

• 30-day money-back guarantee

A two-year subscription to ExpressVPN is on sale for $68.40 and includes an extra four months for free — 81% off for a limited time. This plan includes a year of free unlimited cloud backup and usually offers a generous 30-day money-back guarantee. Alternatively, you can get a one-month plan for just $12.99.

Live stream Arsenal vs. Lille in the Champions League for free with ExpressVPN.

TL;DR: Live stream Atlético Madrid vs. Manchester United in the Champions League for free with a 30-day trial of Amazon Prime. Access this free livestream from anywhere in the world with ExpressVPN.

The Champions League returns with a string of high-profile fixtures this week, including Atlético Madrid vs. Manchester United at the Metropolitano Stadium. There isn't much room for error from Michael Carrick's team. They've made a sluggish start to the new season, and they won't relish a trip to face Diego Simeone's side.

If you want to watch Atlético Madrid vs. Manchester United in the Champions League for free from anywhere in the world, we have all the information you need.

When is Atlético Madrid vs. Manchester United?

Atlético Madrid vs. Manchester United in the Champions League kicks off at 3 p.m. ET on Oct. 13. This fixture takes place at the Metropolitano Stadium.

How to watch Atlético Madrid vs. Manchester United for free

Atlético Madrid vs. Manchester United in the Champions League is available to live stream on Prime Video in the UK.

You don't need to be subscribed to Amazon Prime to watch this fixture. Instead, you can watch Atlético Madrid vs. Manchester United for free with a 30-day trial of Amazon Prime.

If you're abroad for this fixture, you might need to use a VPN to watch the Champions League for free on Prime Video. This process is straightforward:

1. Sign up for a 30-day Amazon Prime trial (if you're not already a member)

2. Subscribe to a streaming-friendly VPN (we recommend ExpressVPN)

3. Download the app to your device of choice (the best VPNs have apps for Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, Linux, and more)

4. Open up the app and connect to a server in the UK

5. Live stream Atlético Madrid vs. Manchester United for free on Prime Video

Opens in a new window Credit: ExpressVPN ExpressVPN (1-Month Plan) $12.95 only at ExpressVPN (with money-back guarantee) Get Deal

The best VPNs for streaming are not free, but most do offer free trials or money-back guarantees. By leveraging these offers, you can watch Atlético Madrid vs. Manchester United on Prime Video without committing with your cash. This isn't a long-term solution, but it does give you enough time to stream select Champions League fixtures before recovering your investment.

What is the best VPN for Prime Video?

ExpressVPN is the best choice for bypassing geo-restrictions to stream live sport on Prime Video, for a number of reasons:

• Servers in 105 countries, including the UK

• Easy-to-use app available on all major devices, including iPhone, Android, Windows, Mac, and more

• Strict no-logging policy so your data is secure

• Fast connection speeds free from throttling

• Up to 10 simultaneous connections

• 30-day money-back guarantee

A two-year subscription to ExpressVPN is on sale for $68.40 and includes an extra four months for free — 81% off for a limited time. This plan includes a year of free unlimited cloud backup and usually offers a generous 30-day money-back guarantee. Alternatively, you can get a one-month plan for just $12.99.

Stream Atlético Madrid vs. Manchester United in the Champions League for free with ExpressVPN.

The NYT Connections puzzle today is not too difficult if you enjoy professional sports.

Connections is the one of the most popular New York Times word games that's captured the public's attention. The game is all about finding the "common threads between words." And just like Wordle, Connections resets after midnight and each new set of words gets trickier and trickier—so we've served up some hints and tips to get you over the hurdle.

If you just want to be told today's puzzle, you can jump to the end of this article for today's Connections solution. 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 What is Connections?

The NYT's latest daily word game has become a social media hit. The Times credits associate puzzle editor Wyna Liu with helping to create the new word game and bringing it to the publications' Games section. Connections can be played on both web browsers and mobile devices and require players to group four words that share something in common.

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Each puzzle features 16 words and each grouping of words is split into four categories. These sets could comprise of anything from book titles, software, country names, etc. Even though multiple words will seem like they fit together, there's only one correct answer.

If a player gets all four words in a set correct, those words are removed from the board. Guess wrong and it counts as a mistake—players get up to four mistakes until the game ends.

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Players can also rearrange and shuffle the board to make spotting connections easier. Additionally, each group is color-coded with yellow being the easiest, followed by green, blue, and purple. Like Wordle, you can share the results with your friends on social media.

SEE ALSO: NYT Pips hints, answers for October 12, 2026 Here's a hint for today's Connections categories

Want a hint about the categories without being told the categories? Then give these a try:

• Yellow: Style

• Green: Attach

• Blue: Winning

• Purple: Same first word

Want more tech and digital culture news delivered to your inbox daily or sent straight to your device? Sign up for Mashable's Top Stories newsletter or get Mashable push alerts today.

Here are today's Connections categories

Need a little extra help? Today's connections fall into the following categories:

• Yellow: Discernment

• Green: Fasten

• Blue: Sports championship prizes

• Purple: Loose ___

Ready for the answers? This is your last chance to turn back and solve today's puzzle before we reveal the solutions.

Drumroll, please!

The solution to today's Connections #1220 is...

What is the answer to Connections today

• Discernment: EYE, FLAIR, SENSE, TASTE

• Fasten: HITCH, LASH, TETHER, TIE

• Sports championship prizes: BELT, CUP, JACKET, RING

• Loose ___: CANNON, CHANGE, ENDS, LIPS

Looking for Wordle today? Here's the answer to today's Wordle.

Are you also playing NYT Strands? Get all the Strands hints you need for today's puzzle.

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

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 yesterday's Connections.

A fake cobweb and a few carved pumpkins won't do. Having the best Halloween display on the block means hunting down unconventional and highly interactive pieces that give your neighbors a good scare — or a good laugh. (Let's hope your HOA is a fan, too.)

After covering and monitoring all of the biggest launches of the year so far, we've put together a definitive list of the best Halloween decorations and animatronics of 2026. There's still time to put some up if you haven't already, and as a bonus, many are on sale at this point in the season.

An upgraded 12-foot skeleton Credit: The Home Depot

Skelly can talk now! The Home Depot went high-tech in updating its beloved 12-foot skeleton for 2026. Using a companion mobile app, you can now chat with trick-or-treaters though the animatronic in real time or record up to 30 custom voice lines for it to play. It also has a new moving head, a light-up ribcage, and 20 different eye effects. This marks Skelly's biggest upgrade since it launched with fanfare back in 2020.

This new app-controlled Skelly costs $80 more than the standard version, which continues to be a hit on social media. A video of two Skellies dressed up as characters from the Chicks' song "Goodbye Earl" amassed more than 12 million views on TikTok this fall. Another clip of a fully rhinestoned Skelly is at nearly 2 million views. No bones about it: He's still the reigning king of spooky season.

Opens in a new window Credit: The Home Depot 12-foot Giant-Sized Animated LED App-Controlled Skelly $379 at The Home Depot
  Shop Now An even taller headless skeleton Credit: Lowe's

Is there anything scarier than the surveillance state? Lowe's new talking, overall-clad Skeleton Watcher holds its glowing skull in the air for a better view of the neighborhood. (Note: It doesn't actually have cameras in its eyes, but they do light up.) It's the largest Halloween animatronic on the market this year, towering over Skelly at 15 feet tall. This one was on clearance, and on the verge of selling out, at the time of writing.

Opens in a new window Credit: Lowe's Haunted Living 15-foot Talking Lighted Skeleton Watcher Motion-Activated Animatronic $343.20 at Lowe's
$429 Save $85.80   Shop Now A talking zombie parrot Credit: The Home Depot

The Home Depot's new five-foot Rotwing Parrot is an oversized blue-and-gold macaw that fell off the perch. It can say 20 different phrases and answer yes or no questions, sort of like an undead avian Magic 8 Ball. It's one of the most popular items from the home improvement retailer's 2026 Halloween collection, selling out several times over the past few months. It was back in stock the last time I checked, but there weren't many left.

Opens in a new window Credit: The Home Depot 5-foot Dead Water Animated LED Rotwing Parrot $179 at The Home Depot
  Shop Now A head-banging skeleton DJ Credit: Lowe's Credit: Lowe's

I think I read somewhere that DJs transport their equipment in protective cases called coffins? Anyway, that's very apt for Lowe's new Bluetooth-enabled DJ skeleton animatronic, which can sync its head-banging to any song on your Halloween party playlist. He's still pretty underground but seems to be on the come-up: A video of him posted on Instagram a few weeks ago has hit almost 2 million views.

The DJ skeleton was out of stock on the Lowe's website in early October, but you might have luck finding it in person at a Lowe's store, or on eBay or Facebook Marketplace.

Opens in a new window Credit: Lowe's Haunted Living 5.7-foot Motion-Activated Bluetooth DJ Lighted Skeleton Animatronic $299 at Lowe's
  Learn More A salacious singing jack-o'-lantern This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.

A crooning pumpkin decoration called Jabberin' Jack went viral on TikTok in September after one perturbed mom pointed out that it included a suggestive song called "Wicked for One Night." (Some lyrics: "How would you like to scream all night? I'll fill you full of fright. / I'll spoil you with my roasted pumpkin seeds." Sir, this is a pumpkin patch.) On second thought, I don't know if I'd necessarily call this one of the "best" Halloween decorations of 2026, but it's definitely one of the most memorable.

The president of Mindscope Products, the company that makes Jabberin' Jack, apologized for the song and told Business Insider that it won't be included on next year's version — so if you want a piece of brief internet history, order one soon. It's currently $5 off on Amazon.

Opens in a new window Credit: Mindscope Products Jabberin' Jack Talking Animated Pumpkin with 8-inch Screen and Built-in Projector + Speaker $39.99 at Amazon
$44.99 Save $5   Shop Now Honorable mention: Homemade Captain Clark animatronics

Halloween creators Wicked Makers, Terror Hauntz, and Haunted Halloween Guy turned some old zombie props into sick DIY animatronics of the deformed pirate monster from Backrooms, A24's hit horror movie based on creepypasta. You can't buy them anywhere, but mark my words: Big-box stores will be selling some versions of these within a year.

Brand deals usually pay influencers to post. But Jack Doherty says his latest agreement pays him to stop.

The controversial YouTuber and livestreamer says he signed a contract with cryptocurrency casino Shuffle.com without fully reading it, only to discover that its terms prevent him from posting online. Shuffle co-founder Noah Dummett says the agreement is real and has a six-month term. But without the full contract, the scope of the restriction — and whether it can be enforced — remains unclear.

The arrangement appears to have started with a less-than-friendly exchange on X. In late September, Doherty asked whether he should livestream himself trading meme coins. Shuffle’s official account responded: "At this point we will pay you to shut the f**k up."

For anyone unfamiliar with Doherty, his content revolves around stunts, public pranks, and confrontational livestreams. His videos include titles like "I crashed into a cop car" and "I got banned from Disney." Earlier this year, he was removed from the Phoenix Open after appearing to pay a spectator to shout during a golfer’s pre-shot routine.

Recently, Doherty went looking for sponsors. In an Oct. 7 post, he said his $JACK meme coin wasn’t performing as well as he’d hoped and invited brands to contact him. Shuffle resurfaced its earlier response, adding, "legit offer btw."

By the end of the week, Doherty was telling followers he wanted out.

"Hey guys, I think I actually f**ked up," he wrote in a statement shared on X. "I recently signed a contract with a casino called shuffle.com but I didn't read the contract fully... One of the terms is that I'm not allowed to post online anymore, which I thought was a joke but now they're enforcing it."

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Doherty said he was working with his lawyer to resolve the situation, adding: "This might be my last post for a while, I'll try and be back soon."

Dummett’s response suggested the company had little interest in reconsidering. In an Oct. 10 post, he described the agreement as "money well spent to get this mf off the internet." He also said Doherty’s lawyers were pushing to scrap the contract, but Shuffle intended to stand firm.

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A portable charger is a staple of plenty of travel bags. But a power bank reportedly caught fire aboard an IndiGo flight on Sunday, forcing the plane to change course and make an emergency landing in Hyderabad, India.

IndiGo Flight 6E 6115 was traveling from Delhi to Chennai on Oct. 11 when the fire broke out in an overhead luggage compartment. Around 180 passengers and seven crew members were aboard, according to a statement carried by local outlets. Cabin crew extinguished the fire, and the aircraft landed safely at Rajiv Gandhi International Airport.

Footage shared online shows passengers responding to the IndiGo power bank fire in midair, as reported by People. The video shows passengers standing in the aisle and attempting to contain the flames in the overhead compartment. No injuries were reported.

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IndiGo said smoke had been detected from a passenger’s "personal electronic device." (Local reports identified that device as a power bank.)

"The cabin crew responded promptly, and the situation was brought under control," the airline said. IndiGo arranged another aircraft to continue the journey to Chennai. Authorities have launched an investigation.

Can you bring a power bank on a plane?

The incident puts a familiar travel accessory — and the rules around packing it — back in the spotlight.

IndiGo’s published baggage policy states that power banks must remain within a passenger’s reach, such as under the seat, in a seat pocket, or on their person. They cannot be stored in overhead compartments or checked baggage. Its cabin baggage guidance also prohibits using, charging, or recharging them during a flight.

Those restrictions are part of a wider push to address battery risks aboard aircraft. In March, the International Civil Aviation Organization introduced new specifications limiting passengers to two power banks and prohibiting passengers from recharging those banks during flights.

For U.S. travelers, the Federal Aviation Administration and the Transportation Security Administration require power banks to travel in carry-on baggage. If your bag gets checked at the gate, the power bank needs to come out and remain with you in the cabin. Battery terminals also need protection against short circuits. Airline-specific restrictions can be stricter, so check your carrier’s policy before packing.

SEE ALSO: Airlines are cracking down on portable chargers over fire risk concerns Why can power banks catch fire?

Power banks typically use lithium-ion batteries, the same rechargeable battery technology found in phones and laptops. According to the FAA, these batteries can overheat and undergo "thermal runaway," a process in which temperatures rise uncontrollably and can produce gases and flames. Damage and short-circuited terminals can also cause battery fires.

The risks have prompted recalls, too. In June 2025, approximately 1.16 million Anker PowerCore 10000 power banks were recalled in the U.S. because their batteries could overheat. That recall covered model A1263 units with qualifying serial numbers.

Reporting on Sunday’s IndiGo power bank fire did not identify the charger’s brand or model.

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TL;DR: MacPaw has launched Email Cleanup within CleanMyMac to bulk-purge years of Gmail clutter, clear heavy attachments, and unsubscribe from junk mail using metadata alone. Test out the full plan with a 7-day free trial ($3.33/month billed annually).

Opens in a new window Credit: MacPaw CleanMyMac   Get Deal

Nobody actively decides to abandon their inbox to chaos, but it happens anyway as marketing promos, newsletter signups, and old threads stack up over time. It’s the ultimate low-reward task that constantly takes a back seat to actual work, compounding daily until the sheer volume of unread messages feels overwhelming to tackle.

To cut through that noise, MacPaw launched Email Cleanup within CleanMyMac, a smart pre-work filter built exclusively for Gmail at launch that lets you reclaim your inbox and shared Google storage in bulk. Located directly in the My Tools sidebar menu, it scans your inbox and groups clutter into actionable categories such as Newsletters and Promotions, Subscriptions, Spam, abandoned Drafts, Senders, and custom Smart Cleanup suggestions.

Rather than deleting threads one by one, you can mass-clear marketing blasts, archive old conversations, or use a single button to unsubscribe from lists you don't read. In the process, it spots heavy, space-hogging attachments, making it easy to free up gigabytes across your connected Gmail, Google Drive, and Google Photos accounts.

Total privacy with zero snooping

Because people avoid cleaning out their inbox for fear of accidentally deleting critical files or leaking sensitive data, Email Cleanup relies entirely on metadata analysis rather than inspecting your private correspondence.

It scans headers, file sizes, and dates without reading, storing, or sharing message contents, connecting securely through official Google APIs that you can disconnect at any time. It also supports multiple Gmail accounts simultaneously, letting you manage work and personal inboxes from a single unified space without switching between browser tabs.

You're always in control

You stay in full command of the process, as no emails are ever deleted, archived, or unsubscribed automatically without your explicit confirmation. You can review items by sender, year, category, or file size before taking action, and any deleted messages are routed straight to your standard Gmail Trash, giving you a 30-day window to restore anything cleared by mistake.

You can test the entire feature suite risk-free with a 7-day free trial on CleanMyMac's Annual Plan at $3.33/month ($39.96 billed annually), while those who only need basic on-device Mac cleaning can opt for the budget-friendly Essential Trio tier at $1.66/month ($19.95 billed annually).

Ready to turn your thousand-message Gmail nightmare back into a clean slate? Head to MacPaw to test out CleanMyMac’s Email Cleanup with a 7-day free trial.

Comedian and viral creator Kyle Gordon sits down for an interview with Mashable Executive Producer, Mark Stetson, on Say More to discuss his comedy roots, musical parodies, and creative process. From childhood Chris Farley impressions and Christopher Guest influences to shooting the Mr. Jambo music video in South Africa and Eswatini, Kyle opens up about his journey, live shows, and balancing music with comedy.

Kyle Gordon is Everywhere is now available.

Your grocery store’s dairy aisle might seem like an unlikely place to start a conversation about AI safety. But Microsoft President Brad Smith says it offers a useful comparison for how the technology should be regulated.

Speaking to the BBC’s Big Boss Interview podcast on Oct. 11, Smith called for global AI safety rules, arguing that everyday products like milk face more safeguards than increasingly powerful AI systems.

"Right now, your washing machine is subject to more safety rules than AI. Every carton of milk that you see in the grocery store is subject to safety rules and inspection," Smith said.

His proposed protections go beyond asking companies to promise their technology is safe. Smith wants legal requirements for companies to report safety incidents and notify victims when rogue AI agents breach their systems. He also called for "emergency brakes" that could pause or slow AI systems, alongside rules determining when independent evaluators should review new technology before its release.

"We know how to do this for other products," Smith said. "We should build on that knowledge and think about how to apply it to AI."

Smith's comments echo recent warnings from Bill Gates. The push for stronger AI protections also comes as President Donald Trump has favored industry self-regulation. At a White House meeting in September, major AI companies agreed to voluntary safety standards, including working with independent auditors to assess whether their systems behave as intended.

Smith welcomed that agreement and said Microsoft was happy to sign it. But he argued that voluntary commitments would no longer be enough. "It's a good step, it's a necessary step... But I don't think it's sufficient any longer," he told the BBC.

The problem, in his view, is that responsible companies will follow voluntary rules. Less responsible ones may not.

Who gets to set the rules?

That question has also surfaced in Mashable’s reporting on AI leaders’ calls for stronger safety standards. As Rebecca Ruiz reported in September, experts caution that companies can support safeguards while still seeking control over how those safeguards work.

SEE ALSO: AI leaders say they want safety, but on whose terms?

Pete Furlong, senior manager of policy and research at the Center for Humane Technology, told Mashable that companies’ transparency efforts need to come with expectations beyond those they set themselves.

"It can’t be entirely up to these companies to dictate the terms of their transparency," he said.

Smith suggested the UK could help lead the development of global rules, pointing to the technical expertise of its AI Security Institute. The institute already gets access to major AI models before deployment through voluntary agreements, allowing it to assess their capabilities and risks.

For Smith, the next step is making safety obligations enforceable — including requiring companies to tell people when something goes wrong.

"It's the companies that are not as responsible that you need to worry about," he said.

Want to learn more about getting the best out of your tech? Sign up for Mashable's Top Stories and Deals newsletters today.

Meta announced the launch of a new AI model family, Muse Wonder, which is already rolling out to developers. Independent benchmarks indicate that Muse Wonder places Meta firmly at the AI frontier for the first time.

The release comes just six weeks after the launch of Muse Spark 1.3, the latest version of a model family that debuted in April. Last year, Mark Zuckerberg and Meta invested heavily in AI recruiting and infrastructure after falling behind rival tech companies, culminating in Meta paying $14.3 billion for Scale AI and naming its wunderkind CEO, Alexandr Wang, then 28, Meta's new Chief AI officer.

Those efforts appear to be paying dividends.

Artificial Analysis, an independent AI benchmarking organization, showed Muse Wonder leapfrogging powerful models like GPT-Astra from OpenAI, Fable 5 from Anthropic, and the newly released Gemini 4 from Google. On the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index leaderboard, which uses a weighted composite score to rank AI models, Muse Wonder Full is now second only to Claude Opus 5.5 Max, and tied with Claude Sonnet 5.5 Max.

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The results suggest that Meta has caught up to the AI frontier, after previously being more of an afterthought in the AI market.

That started to change recently with the launch of the hugely popular AI agent Muse, which quickly surpassed 5 million app downloads. In its Muse Wonder announcement blog post, Meta said that the new model family "will soon power experiences in Muse," though it will only be available to paid subscribers.

Introducing Muse Wonder, designed for agentic AI

In the blog post introducing Muse Wonder, Meta emphasized that the model was designed for agentic workflows as well as user safety. (The company said a full report about its safety evaluations "will be available soon.") Wang said the model family was developed under the codename "watermelon," according to CNBC.

"Meta is introducing Muse Wonder and Muse Wonder Full, our most capable models to date, built to deliver state-of-the-art performance on personal and professional agentic tasks — from navigating an insurance claim to making sense of a lease to building a working app," reads Meta's announcement.

Muse Wonder features Active Focus and Active Memory, which Meta said are essential to keep AI agents on task during complex, long-running assignments.

The company defined Active Focus as "the ability to keep working toward your goal when a task gets hard, try other approaches, recover from errors, and follow through, asking for clarification when needed and checking in before following through on anything important." It described Active Memory as "the ability to carry what matters to you across conversations and bring back the details that are relevant to the task at hand."

Finally, Meta said that Muse Wonder models would "avoid sharing private information without permission," which has been a notable alleged issue with Muse. The models will also refuse harmful requests, Meta claimed, while helping organizations and users with cybersecurity defense.

Muse Wonder: Benchmark performance

The independent benchmarking organization Artificial Analysis released a detailed breakdown of Muse Wonder's performance on X and its website. The organization wrote, "Both models exhibit a material jump in overall Intelligence Index score...Muse Wonder Full (max) places in the top three on six of the ten Intelligence Index evaluations, and is particularly strong in agentic knowledge work and scientific reasoning."

Meta also released its own internal benchmark results in a report on Muse Wonder's performance.

Meta released this graph showing its AI models' improved performance over the past year. Credit: Artificial Analysis

The company also released results for a variety of AI benchmark tests:

Credit: Meta How to try Muse Wonder

Muse Wonder is available now to developers through the Meta Model API and Muse Code. The more robust Muse Wonder Full is available now to Muse Code subscribers.

In the near future, Meta said that Muse Wonder will power its popular Muse AI agent, though at a cost. CNBC reported that the new models will be available in Muse for users who pay $20 or $100 per month.

You can also read the full Muse Wonder model card.

If you haven't already secured a pre-order for Grand Theft Auto VI, then Amazon may not be the best place to do it.

As noted on Reddit, "physical" copies of GTA 6 were sold out on Amazon as of Monday morning, with both the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S versions listed as "currently unavailable."

As of this writing, the PS5 version is back in stock. Mashable reached out to Amazon to ask about GTA 6 inventory and restocks ahead of the Nov. 19 release, and we'll update this story if we receive more information.

You'll notice that I put "physical" in quotes because the game, rather infamously, will not ship on a disc.

SEE ALSO: GTA 6 Cyberleek update: Everything leaked so far, what could be next That message doesn't appear when you switch to the PS5 version. Credit: Screenshot: Amazon

You might be wondering how it's possible for a game that's only available as a digital download to sell out ahead of time. If you read between the lines on the Amazon store page, you can put it together. Pre-ordering via Amazon or another physical retailer will get you a box for the game, but the box will only include a download code instead of a disc, according to the fine print on Amazon.

In other words, it seems like Amazon has run out of Xbox boxes with download codes in them for the time being. As a reminder, you can still pre-order the game directly from the Xbox digital storefront on your console, as long as you don't care about having a box to put on your shelf. You can also pre-order Grand Theft Auto VI (and the $99.99 "Ultimate Edition") on the Rockstar Games website.

SEE ALSO: 'GTA 6' official merch is live, and it's already selling out: Where to buy

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A celebrity shopping complaint can become everyone's business pretty quickly. This weekend, that customer was Kelly Clarkson. The purchase in question? A $15,000 singing bird.

"Just drove all the way to Brooklyn to check out this store I thought looked really rad and had a few things in mind to buy and literally was looked at as if I couldn't afford it and was told he could find something comparable for me," Clarkson posted on X on Oct. 10. "Wow, dude. You're an idiot and just lost a huge sale."

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The shop in question is the Brooklyn Heights store Art of Play, which sells games, puzzles, toys, books, and home goods. Clarkson called it out by name, comparing her experience to the boutique scene in Pretty Woman, where employees famously dismiss Julia Roberts' character because they assume she can't afford to shop there.

"But y'all should go check out Art of Play in Brooklyn if you enjoy being treated like Julia Roberts character in Pretty Woman," she wrote. "For sure, check it out."

The shop, however, had a different explanation for why she hadn't left with the bird. In its Oct. 11 Instagram response, Art of Play said Clarkson had asked about Molly, a singing and dancing mechanical bird used in its magic shows. "Molly is permanently attached to the wall and isn't for sale," the business wrote.

The shop acknowledged that Clarkson's account would resonate with anyone who had felt judged while shopping, but maintained that customers were welcome whether they bought anything or simply browsed. It said the response to her post had brought a wave of unwanted attention.

"Imagine our surprise when our small local business was suddenly attacked by 8 million people who have never visited our store," the statement read. "It's been a surreal experience to be the focus of such widespread outrage after just one mention by a celebrity." The statement also included a nod to Clarkson's own music: "As a talented popular singer once said, 'What doesn't kill you makes you stronger.'"

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That's not where this feud ended, though. Clarkson then responded with a photo — specifically, one showing a $15,000 price tag labeled "Singing Bird." In a second X post, she alleged that the employee had looked her up and down like an "elevator" and, in a condescending tone, told her that the bird was for sale for $15,000 before offering to find something comparable.

"So you're not only rude, you're also a liar," she wrote. "Got it."

She also pushed back on the idea that calling out a small business was off-limits. "I love small businesses and know they are important, and I always support them, but you don't get a free pass to treat people less than in your store just because you are a small business," she wrote. "It's not that hard to be kind."

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The shop, run by twin magicians Dan and Dave Buck and author Adam Rubin in 2013, offered additional context in a follow-up statement. According to the shop, Molly, the singing and dancing mechanical bird Clarkson had admired, is permanently attached to the shop’s wall and used in its magic shows. But her creator, Seattle artist Bliss Kolb, owns a nearly identical version that could be purchased.

"He told us he would be willing to part with Molly’s twin for $15,000," the shop wrote. "We explained all of this to Kelly Clarkson."

The shop said it had also offered to show Clarkson another singing bird, made by a German clockmaker, which she could have taken home that day. "It costs about $2,000," the statement continued. "She did not stick around long enough to see it."

Online, the disagreement has already become much more about what was available to buy. Some commenters defended Clarkson's right to describe a bad experience.

"We never doubted you queen. Their response was in extremely poor taste," one wrote. Others argued that naming the shop exposed a small business to a disproportionate response. "Wow, you're just determined to destroy a small business, aren't you? I hope they EXPLODE in popularity," said another.

The fallout reached the shop's Facebook page. "Anyone who's been a fan of Kelly’s for years knows that she is incredibly kind, generous, and very humble. And she's far from being a diva. The experience she had at that store had to be pretty bad for her to speak out about it…" wrote one user.

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Others focused on the shop’s response, questioning why it hadn’t apologized or offered to connect Clarkson with the artist. "Why not say, 'We can put you in touch with the maker?'" another user wrote. "I’d bet they’d be thrilled to have Kelly as a customer." One Clarkson fan wrote, "Is the apology in the room with us?"

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Business Insider reported seeing recent negative Google reviews that appeared to be connected to the dispute, but they were no longer visible when it checked again later. It also found polarized responses on Yelp, though it's unclear whether the reviewers had visited the store. Some users questioned the price tag, while others accused Clarkson of using her platform against the shop.

"So a celebrity walks into a small, privately owned business. She doesn’t get exactly what she wants, so she cops an attitude and trashes said small business," wrote one reviewer. "Even if you weren’t lying, you still did the morally wrong thing."

Others shared accounts of shopping there themselves. One woman said she visited over the summer with her family and described a welcoming experience. "I was a little nervous since there [is] some really expensive stuff in there, but I felt very welcome," she wrote.

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Some were harsher. One wrote, "There's no place like Art of Play. It's one of one. Not everything there is for sale, regardless of how famous you are. Go write a song about it. Stop using your online influence to sh*t on a brick and mortar shop that's as dope as Art of Play. If you're near Brooklyn, you have to check this place out!"

This isn't the first time this month that Clarkson has received negative backlash for public commentary: Clarkson's enthusiasm for AI on Las Culturistas prompted disappointed reactions from some fans, as Mashable reported Oct. 2. "Kelly no...this isn't you...," one commenter wrote.

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These disputes come as Clarkson settles into a new TV chapter. The Kelly Clarkson Show ended its seven-season run on Aug. 31, after she announced she was stepping away to prioritize her children. She’s still on television, though, returning as a coach for Season 30 of The Voice, which premiered in September.

As of now, Art of Play says it has reached out to Clarkson directly, leaving open the possibility that the next conversation will happen privately.

"We've reached out to Kelly directly to try and clear the air," the shop wrote. "We really do wish her the best and hope that someday we can all laugh about this misunderstanding."

Russia's army of bots is apparently offline. At least, that's according to chatter on social media and even Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Over the past week, Ukrainian drones struck three data centers belonging to Yandex, the tech giant often called "Russia’s Google." The first strike happened on Oct. 8, followed by a second attack on Oct. 9. On Sunday, Oct. 11, a third strike damaged a Yandex data center in the Vladimir region, east of Moscow. The company said operations at that facility were completely suspended and some of its services were unavailable, according to the BBC.

SEE ALSO: California's new AI law: Ban on bots used to fire employees

The attacks disrupted Yandex services, from its AI chatbot to its smart home devices. Per the BBC, the military strikes were meant to target "places that provide revenue streams for Moscow's war machine."

Speaking at the Warsaw Security Forum on Monday, Zelenskyy said "everyone noticed" a drop in Russian bot activity on social media after the strikes. On X, Reddit, and elsewhere, users in several Western countries reported seeing less right-wing activity in their feeds, from pro-GOP accounts in the U.S. to supporters of Germany’s far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party. Czech member of the European Parliament Tomáš Zdechovský also pointed to claims that online support for the AfD had dropped after the strikes.

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The prediction market Polymarket’s X account was among those amplifying the claim. Take that with a grain of salt, though, as the account has a tendency for posting breaking-news-style claims without sources or verification.

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Much of the buzz traces back to a report from U24 Media, the media arm of United24, a platform run by the Ukrainian government.

To its credit, U24’s own report is careful about what the numbers can and can’t prove. It cites an Oct. 12 analysis by The Deep Dive of data from Cloudflare Radar, which monitors internet traffic. According to that analysis, automated web traffic from Yandex’s network fell sharply after Oct. 8 and nearly disappeared by Oct. 11. At one point, it measured just 0.3 percent of the chart’s peak, compared with 88.2 percent at the same hour a week earlier. U24 also cites German tech publication t3n's report of a similar plunge — with bot traffic dropping to about 0.4 percent of the previous week’s level before bouncing back to around 20 percent later in the day on Oct. 11.

Credit: Cloudfare Radar / Mashable screenshot

The catch is that "automated traffic" and "Russian propaganda bots" aren’t the same thing. Automated traffic is any request sent to a website by software rather than a person. Most of it is mundane, e.g., search engine crawlers indexing pages or monitoring tools checking whether sites are up. Because Yandex runs Russia’s biggest search engine, its network constantly sends out crawlers to index the web. Knocking its data centers offline would bring traffic to a halt regardless of whether a single troll account went quiet.

As U24 itself notes, the measurements show a sharp drop in automated network activity, but they can’t tell us whether propaganda bots disappeared or whether damaged infrastructure simply stopped producing ordinary automated traffic. The numbers also track how much traffic Yandex’s network sent relative to its peak, not how many social media accounts were active.

Mashable has yet to see published evidence tying Russian influence operations on X or Reddit to Yandex’s servers specifically. Many of the claims to that effect are sourced from the same Cloudflare Radar and Deep Dive data reports that we cited here.

Influence campaigns can run on infrastructure anywhere, and the accounts posting the content don’t have to live on Yandex’s network at all. It's easy to see why the claim has caught on, as social media platforms are rife with hyper-polarization fueled by ragebait political engagement.

However, not all political content online comes from Russian bots. As The Atlantic's Ali Breland writes, operatives based in Eastern European countries like Latvia are paying people to post pro-GOP talking points — $3 for every 1,000 views.

That also doesn’t mean the strikes had no effect online.

Per U24, the bombings have found a way to rattle Russia’s internet, including widespread outages. Whether it also silenced Russia’s online propaganda machine is a much bigger claim.

Will AI vibecoded apps soon displace paid legacy software like Photoshop and Microsoft Word? Or will the deluge of apps spun up by AI models show that those legacy apps are superior products?

Earlier this month, Reddit user u/ai_art_is_art, who Tom's Hardware revealed to be a software engineer named Brandon Thomas, shared a project he's been working on: A rebuild of the entire Adobe Creative Suite, under the banner ArtCraft. There is one key difference between ArtCraft and Adobe software, however: You have to pay to access Adobe.

From Adobe Premiere to Photoshop to After Effects, Thomas recreated them all with help from AI in Rust, a programming language. Named PhotoCraft, FilmCraft, DesignCraft, EffectCraft, PdfCraft, VectorCraft, and LightCraft, each duplicated one of the signature apps found in Adobe's software suite for creatives. 

And Thomas has released them all as free, open-source tools.

Now, the developer is taking on the Microsoft Office suite.

Thomas has just released WordCraft, DeckCraft, and GridCraft (along with additional creative duplicates like SoundCraft, DesignCraft, and CADCraft), which are his take on Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, and Excel.

These apps have caused a bit of a controversy on Reddit and elsewhere on the internet over AI-generated code. While Thomas has clarified that he is a software developer who knows how to code, concerns over cybersecurity and the ethics of AI-generated code have resulted in posts about his apps being removed from some subreddits. 

In addition, there is concern that Thomas is now overseeing a suite of apps by himself, although the community has been invited to contribute to the open-source project as well.

Thomas is clearly pro-AI, which has also been a point of contention for some critics. He has released these apps under his ArtCraft brand, a for-profit suite of tools for AI-generated art. Also, if you take another look at Thomas' Reddit username, it is "AI art is art."

Supporters of Thomas and his apps, however, view this as an act of protest against companies like Adobe and what they see as unscrupulous subscription tactics, in which Adobe makes it difficult for customers to cancel plans.

It's unclear if Thomas's apps have staying power at this point, but that hasn't stopped social media users from speculating that the era of paid legacy software is over. Indeed, we're seeing a similar trend in the gaming world, where AI-assisted jailbreaks and decompiled games are now readily available.

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Fans of Shayla Palmer (@mesamistoys) know her for her next-level crochet projects. With more than 650k followers on TikTok and over 1.1 million on Instagram, she's made a name for herself one stitch at a time, creating big, fluffy toys, including Stitch, Batman, and Mario. But on Sept. 19, 2026, Palmer took on her biggest challenge yet: stitching a 10-foot-long Appa toy, based on the flying bison from Avatar: The Last Airbender.

In the first episode of her series on its making, she revealed the yarn but not who she'd be stitching for. Fans were quick to recognize Appa's signature color scheme. Fifteen more episodes followed, detailing the process, including the times when Palmer hit a few snags. Then, just last week, Palmer revealed this particular toy was created for a special event, tied to New York Comic Con.

Paramount Games Studio hosted a double-elimination tournament for the newly launched video game Avatar Legends: The Fighting Game at OS NY on Oct. 9. The special event invited gamers to compete for a cash prize, surrounded by food carts offering treats from the four nations (Water. Earth. Fire. Air), boxes of cabbages with a certain beloved cart vendor on them, and Palmer's completed Appa.

You can see images from this tournament below.

While the gaming kicked off, Mashable spoke with Palmer about her journey from that first video to its big debut. And she's got pointers for any fan looking to make toys of their own.

Images from the Avatar Legends: The Fighting Game at OS NY event on Oct. 9. Credit: Kristy Puchko Mashable: We've finally seen the unveiling of your completed Appa. Tell us about what the process has been like for you.

Shayla Palmer: Oh my gosh, the process was long, but not as long as you would expect. I had 16 days to complete a 10-foot-long Appa. It was a lot of time every single day. It was, let's say, 10-16 hours a day for 16 days straight.

It was kind of crazy. But it was so much fun. I encountered a lot of issues, though, like forgetting to create a hole for the head and then having to pivot from there. It's just like a lot of things that I've had to pivot with. But all in all, it was so much fun. I had a great time, and I'm so happy that the end result is here, and the people who have seen the process can now see it in person. It's so surreal. I love it.

It's amazing to see your Appa in person. What was it like to finally see it set up inside?

Seeing it set up inside was like, 'Oh my god, this looks so much bigger here than it did in the space that I was creating it in!' I can't even comprehend it fully right now.

I also created a mini Appa that is now sitting on top of it, and it's so crazy to see that the mini one looks so small compared to the big one, and it's really not that tiny. But yeah, it's just a full-circle moment, I can say.

For people who are interested in crochet through your work, where would you say they should start?

I actually do sell crochet kits. If you do want to start crocheting, I have beginner, beginner plus, intermediate, and intermediate plus kits, and I teach you everything you need to know to start crocheting toys.

One thing I will say, though, is you need to be very, very, very patient and very forgiving with yourself. It's so much fun, and it can be so calming. You just have to understand that there's going to be a lot of hiccups. There will be a lot of times when you have to tear out your work. You just have to forgive yourself.

But yeah, I highly recommend it. It's the best hobby ever.

As a content creator, what is it that you depend on to make your content on your level?

I would say intuition. It's a lot of trusting my gut. It's a lot of pivoting, being very comfortable with the Plan B, being very able to immediately scrap your Plan A and just restart everything you need to restart.

And honestly, I'm very transparent in my content. I like showing people that not everything I plan on doing is gonna happen. So yeah, it's just very transparent. It's very authentic. I don't do any crazy editing. It's just here's my camera and here's what I'm doing. I just want you to be a fly on the wall and see everything that's going on.

Images from the Avatar Legends: The Fighting Game at OS NY event on Oct. 9. Credit: Kristy Puchko That's great. I think, especially with crafting, people can be really intimidated if they're not good at it right away. So when you're having those moments where you're like, 'I need to trust the process,' what gets you through those points?

Knowing that it will probably take me longer to stick to Plan A than it would to pivot and go with Plan B. It happens almost every single time I'm in a series. And I show people, "This is what I wanted to do. It's not working, so I have to do this because this is time-dependent."

I don't have 100 days to work on these things, and, quite honestly, I don't want to be working on them for that long anyway. So yeah, just trusting the process, honestly.

Who's your favorite Avatar character?

Is it crazy if I say Appa? Is it crazy? If it's not Appa, it's gotta be Sokka. I don't know what it is. He's just so, like, he's just so angry. But it's just so funny to see it all happen. So yeah, Appa then Sokka.

Is there anything else you want people to know about the process of making your Appa?

So it's actually really funny. I'm a huge believer... I literally just had to ask God. I said, "I want something really exciting. Like for the rest of the year, I want something really exciting. Something that's gonna make me feel reassured."

Then I got a message from Jordan [Chalmers] from Black Flag NYC (the experiential marketing firm). Great guy, love him, love him, love him. I got a message from him. He said, "Hey, have you ever watched Avatar?" I'm like, "Please tell me you want me to make Appa."

So the way that it all came to be was just like, I literally cried. I cried three times, and then I called my mom immediately. I was like, "Hey, um, can you get on a flight? Because I'm gonna need help running errands. I need to feed myself, and I can't do this right now."

So yeah, the way that it came to me was honestly such a dream come true. I was so happy with that.

On the final day, when I finished my six-legged statue, I always like to show myself sitting on it. And as soon as I finished [Appa], I got a chair. I like jumped on it, and I was like, "Appa, yip yip!"

Honestly, I've been waiting, like, 14 years to do that!

If you've used dating apps, you've probably gotten an off-the-wall message or two and wondered if the sender just lacked basic social skills. Or maybe you sent a joke that fell flat. Either way, Hinge has a new strategy for handling "well-intentioned" daters who send inappropriate messages: mandatory re-education.

If a user violates Hinge's harassment guidelines in a chat, human moderators will weigh the context and severity of the message. If it's deemed a minor infraction, the user gets a warning and must complete a brief "educational walkthrough" to continue using the app. Severe or repeated offenses, however, will still get you permanently banned. An example of a minor infraction in Hinge's Oct. 1 blog announcing the change is the message: "Great dress. I think I have an outfit that will match perfectly," along with a winking emoji.

SEE ALSO: Hinge won't ban users for a single piece of problematic content anymore

Hinge says the walkthrough covers basic messaging etiquette, complete with examples of harmful language and reminders on how to express interest without being weird. Users might get prompts reminding them to build mutual interest before making things sexual, keep jokes playful instead of personal, or refrain from making unsolicited comments about someone's body.

The goal is to help daters recognize how their words land. While Hinge notes that cultural or generational gaps often shape how people communicate, intent doesn't negate the impact of unwanted behavior — especially for women, LGBTQIA+ daters, and people of color, who bear the brunt of online harassment.

The new educational walkthrough joins Hinge's existing suite of safety tools, including its "Are You Sure?" feature (which prompts users to reconsider potentially harmful text before sending), the "Did This Bother You?" feedback prompt, and customizable comment filters. This also builds on Hinge's policy not to ban users for a single piece of problematic content, and instead removes the content and explains why.

Hinge's CEO, Jackie Jantos, mentioned the curb-cut effect at the Heads Up With Hinge conference this month: features created to help the most vulnerable can lead to broader benefits for the general population. We'll see if this bears out with better-educated daters.

Before generative artificial intelligence took off, the process of jailbreaking a video game console was a slow, tedious ordeal. That's not the case anymore.

Within the PS5 homebrew scene on Reddit, the forums have been lit up with posts about PS5SX2, an app that lets jailbroken PS5s play PlayStation 2 games. It's a big deal, given that Sony removed backward compatibility from its consoles starting with the release of the PS4 in 2013.

PS5SX2 is part of a larger wave of PS5 jailbreaks, which are coming at a furious pace in 2026.

SEE ALSO: Leaker claims the PlayStation 6 costs Sony $960 to manufacture

Version 1.00 of PS5SX2 had plenty of early bugs, with commenters trading fixes for crashes and missing-game errors. Within roughly two weeks, a 2.00 update had added frame generation and multi-disc support. Another post in the jailbreak community claimed that PS3 games can now run on jailbroken PS5s as well.

Additionally, there's another public jailbreak called Relapse. Released in late September, the exploit chain was published by developer Nathan Fargo and works on firmware versions 7.00 through 13.60. The previous public jailbreak topped out at 12.70, so Relapse covers a big chunk of recent consoles. It works on any PS5 that hasn’t been updated to firmware 14.00, which Sony released on Sept. 16.

For decades, console jailbreaking moved slowly for a reason. As reported by Gizmodo, it’s both legally risky and technically demanding. In the U.S., circumventing a console’s copyright protection runs afoul of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The Librarian of Congress grants exemptions every three years for devices like smartphones and smart TVs, but consoles aren’t among them.

Finding an exploit has also required deep knowledge of a console’s firmware, which historically limited the work to a small group of skilled hackers. So normally, hackers will find an exploit, release a jailbreak, Sony patches it, and hackers start back at the beginning.

But that cycle is speeding up, and AI coding assistants may be part of the reason why. There’s no confirmation that the Relapse developers used AI, but it fits a broader pattern that has exploded over the past few weeks.

The AI decompilation boom

Decompilation is huge in the homebrew gaming scene at the moment. Decompiling means working backward from a game’s compiled code to rebuild readable source code that produces the same game. It’s how fans have created unofficial PC ports of classics like Super Mario 64, and it traditionally took volunteers years of tedious work.

From a technical standpoint, it's a grueling process. In the context of video games, those are shipped in compiled code that consoles can run, but humans can't easily read. However, AI is speeding up the tedious grunt work of doing so.

Hundreds of vibe-coded, AI-decompiled emulators and games have appeared in just the past couple of weeks, crediting Anthropic’s latest model, Claude Opus 5.5. That includes browser-based ports of games like Halo: Combat Evolved, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, and Skate 3, some of which Kotaku said run surprisingly well.

The results have also produced some truly unhinged mashups. One of the first to go viral added skateboarding from Skate to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, letting players kickflip across the shooter’s maps. Others have put Minecraft inside Elden Ring (and Grand Theft Auto V) and Mario Kart vehicles into Call of Duty Zombies.

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While fun stuff to be sure, not everyone is a fan. The developers behind the fan-made Zelda: Recompiled and Banjo: Recompiled projects have publicly rejected AI and called AI-generated knockoffs of their work disrespectful. Other critics say many of these AI ports come from amateurs with little programming experience, leaving behind a pile of buggy, broken releases.

Altogether, a faster jailbreak cycle isn’t much of a surprise. If AI tools can rebuild entire games from compiled code overnight, digging through console firmware for exploits starts to look a lot more approachable. It helps that AI agents like Claude thrive on verifiable loops, ie, being able to write, test, and repeat ad nauseam until it gets it right with no fatigue involved.

Gizmodo writes that this could be Sony's Napster moment — an existential crisis for the gaming industry just like the music business faced in the early 2000s. It's one thing to sue a bunch of hackers, but Sony doesn't have much goodwill with the public at the moment. It helps, though, that jailbreaking a console requires having it in the first place, and that jailbreaking any console risks bricking it.

Given that RAMageddon is causing a GPU shortage, one might exercise caution, as a second-hand PS5 Pro could cost $1,300 or more.

Since August, someone (or perhaps a group of people) called Cyberleek has been very busy sharing various gameplay clips of Grand Theft Auto 6. On Aug. 20, Take-Two Interactive, the parent company of GTA-maker Rockstar Games, filed subpoenas against Microsoft and Discord to try to unmask the leaker, followed soon after by subpoenas against Google and X Corp. Those filings specifically cited "stolen content," confirming that the Cyberleek videos are legitimate.

Prior to the August "Extended Look" on Netflix, the GTA 6 leaks represented the first real glimpse of gameplay from the hotly anticipated title. After the Netflix trailer, Cyberleek stopped posting for more than a month before suddenly reappearing in October with a 24-minute gameplay video and some other decidedly NSFW clips. We're not going to embed or link to any of these clips; however, they're easy enough to find on X or Reddit if you look hard enough.

SEE ALSO: What is Cyberleek? Everything we know about the alleged GTA 6 leakers. Every GTA 6 leak from Cyberleek so far

At the time of publication, more than a dozen gameplay clips and map screenshots have been posted by Cyberleek that show different aspects of GTA 6, including glimpses of cutscenes. The leaker did post some minor story spoilers in the most recent release, so be careful if you want to avoid them.

Here are the GTA 6 leaks Cyberleek has shared so far:

• Map sneak peek 1: A small, cropped portion of the in-game world map, showing a location called Dalton Island.

• Map sneak peek 2: Another cropped portion of the map showing locations called Tequesta Retreat, Gloriana Key, and Catalan Key.

• Basketball video: A clip of protagonist Jason Duval throwing a basketball into a hoop in a mini-game.

• Full map: An alleged view of the entire in-game map.

• Random video 1: A clip of Jason driving around for a little bit before beating up a truck driver.

• Taser video: A clip of Jason driving at night, stealing a security guard's taser, and using it on him. Jason then repeatedly kicks the guard while he is on the ground.

• Junkies video: A clip that appears to show a healing drug called Zombix. A tooltip indicates that Zombix's effects will weaken over time if the player uses it too much.

• Plane video: A clip of Jason flying a plane over Vice City, with much of the game world visible below. At the end, whoever is playing the game in the clip shoots the word "LEEK" into a wall with bullets, suggesting the leaker has a playable build of the game.

• Hypercar part 1: A clip of Jason driving a high-end sports car around Vice City.

• Hypercar part 2: A clip of Jason driving the sports car some more, before committing armed robbery.

• Strip club: Jason wanders around a strip club, then a short clip of an in-game cutscene is shown.

• Gas station: Jason causes trouble at a gas station, steals a truck with a bed full of gasoline, and crashes and dies; more of the previous cutscene is shown.

• Plane video 2: Jason flies a plane over Vice City at night.

• Nudist colony: Jason explores a nudist hangout spot (where the NPCs are, obviously, nude) and attacks NPCs.

• Nightclub: A pretty uneventful video of Jason walking around the interior of a nightclub.

• Beach cycling: Jason riding a bicycle on a beach full of NPCs.

• Video game store: Jason walking around a video game store with shelves full of fake video game boxes.

• How does Cyberleek drive? Jason steals a hot rod and evades the police; the clip ends with a cutscene showing Lucia Caminos, the game's second playable character, for the first time. Caminos talks about someone who "drives like a bitch."

• Lucia prologue: A four-and-a-half-minute video of a prologue introducing Caminos; the clip includes minor story spoilers.

• 24-minute extended leak: A long video featuring multiple vehicular races, car customization, first-person gameplay, and both protagonists rendered in the nude.

• Nude Lucia videos: Several videos of Lucia performing various in-game activities, such as walking around, driving, and parachuting, while completely nude.

What could Cyberleek release next?

The big 24-minute Cyberleek video in October ended with an allusion to some sort of long-term "project," the likes of which we know nothing about. However, the leaker has now threatened to release a "Full 200+GB playable build" of the game, played from beginning to end, if the Cyberleek memecoin reaches $30 million in market value. At the time of publication, the coin's value is at about $2.5 million, a far cry from that goal.

In addition, as of Oct. 12, websites associated with Cyberleek are hosting a poll, which is titled, "Lucia closeup 4k video." In the past, Cyberleek has hosted polls asking followers what clips to release next, with users voting using the leaker's memecoin. This strongly suggests new GTA 6 leaks featuring Lucia are coming soon.

The leaker is also once again calling on Rockstar and Take-Two to release the new Grand Theft Auto on a physical disc, part of a long list of grievances.

SEE ALSO: Who is CyberLeek? Everything we know about the alleged GTA 6 leakers. You can see the game officially now

Speaking of the Netflix trailer, it's now on YouTube in all of its 26-minute glory. There were plenty of little details that Cyberleek never showed, such as gameplay footage of Lucia, among many other things. If you want a real idea of how GTA 6 works, you're probably better off watching the Netflix video than anything Cyberleek posted at this point.

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Updated on Monday, Oct. 12 at 11:40 a.m. ET — We've updated the story to reflect the latest leaked videos, as well as the threat to release a full build of the game.

Updated on Thursday, Oct. 8 at 2:15 p.m. ET — We've updated the story to reflect the latest Cyberleek leaks.

Updated on Friday, Aug. 28 at 1:30 p.m. ET — We've updated this story with additional details.

Updated on Wednesday, Aug. 26 at 3:20 p.m. ET — We've updated this story with details on Rockstar's statement and additional GTA 6 leaks.

Updated on Tuesday, Aug. 25 at 11:40 a.m. ET — We've updated this story to reflect the latest Cyberleek videos.

Updated on Monday, Aug. 24 at 1:30 p.m. ET — We've updated this story to reflect the latest Cyberleek leaks.

Updated on Friday, Aug. 21 at 3:00 p.m. ET — Take-Two Interactive Software Inc., the parent company of Grand Theft Auto-maker Rockstar Games, has filed two subpoenas naming Microsoft and Discord as it hunts the leaker known as Cyberleek. The legal filings specifically cite "stolen content," seemingly confirming that the leaks are legitimate. Take-Two is also requesting the removal of leaked material that violates its copyrights, as well as information that could unmask the leakers. Read more about the Microsoft and Discord subpoenas.

SAVE $762: As of Oct. 12, the Sunseeker X3 Plus robot lawn mower is on sale for $836.98 instead of its usual $1,598.99. That's nearly 50% in savings and its best price on record.

Opens in a new window Credit: Sunseeker Sunseeker X3 Plus robot lawn mower $836.98 at Amazon
$1,598.99 Save $762.01   Get Deal

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