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I love streaming services. I see them as an affordable way to watch movies, and when those movies rotate away, I can stream something new.

There was an age where partitioning drives was not only common, but encouraged. But PCs have changed a lot in the past few years. Nowadays, while partitioning is still an option, I'd argue that 90% of users probably shouldn't.

If you've ever dual-booted a PC, you've probably noticed a pretty marked difference between how quickly apps launch on Linux compared to Windows. On Linux, everything seems to snap open instantly, while on Windows there is a perceptible hesitation. Installing Linux on an old PC only exaggerates that even more.

Pull the plug on your internet connection and your Amazon Echo suddenly seems useless. But there's a difference between Alexa being offline and Alexa being completely switched off. I took my Echo offline to find out what still works and what doesn't.

There was a time when AIO (All-In-One) liquid coolers were the perfect middle ground between expensive and complex custom loops and loud and ineffective air coolers. No matter which AIO you chose, it was probably better than most air coolers you could have used in the same build.

Excel has changed dramatically since I first started using it. Microsoft has added features like AI tools, dynamic arrays, Power Query improvements, Python integration, and many new functions—but one of the first "advanced" features I learned is still one of the tools I use most. Setting up Custom Lists only takes a few minutes, yet it quietly saves me time every time I enter or sort recurring data.

The Raspberry Pi may have fallen out of favor among homelabbers and hobbyists for its high price-to-performance ratio, but the single-board computer still has some compelling use cases. Detecting earthquakes and other seismic activity is up there with the best of them.

If you struggle to learn terminal commands, I have four perfect remedies I've picked up over many years, some of which will boost your skills instantly.

I've heard about Linux distributions designed to be difficult to break, and it got me wondering whether I could build something similar with Windows. I actually have a few good reasons to want one. I keep a PC in my garage connected to a large monitor next to my workout equipment. In addition, I do a lot of software testing for my job, and there's a shared media PC in my living room that my family and guests can all use. In all three cases, being able to restart the computer and immediately return it to a known-good state could be incredibly useful.

Do you understand quantum parallel repetition? What about quantum complexity, lattice cryptography, or extremal combinatorics?

The new OpenAI model Astra knows all about them.

Recently, OpenAI confirmed the existence of Astra, calling it "our next major model." On Aug. 1, the ChatGPT-maker revealed that "an internal version of Astra" solved 10 major open math problems, some of which have been unresolved for decades. Then, on Aug. 7, OpenAI announced that Astra had developed such advanced cyber capabilities that new security controls were necessary and that some internal development work would be paused.

"These results, in addition to expert assessments, have led us to conclude last night that we cannot rule out critical cyber capabilities under our Preparedness Framework."

OpenAI's Preparedness Framework is the company's "approach to tracking and preparing for frontier capabilities" that could be dangerous. It tracks risk levels in three categories: biological and chemical, cybersecurity, and AI self-improvement.

Previously, GPT-5.6-Sol was evaluated as a "high" risk in cybersecurity, and so Astra could be the first OpenAI model to be classified as a "critical" risk.

"Under our Preparedness Framework, a model reaches the Critical cybersecurity threshold if it can identify and develop functional zero-day exploits of all severity levels in many hardened real-world critical systems without human intervention, or can devise and execute end-to-end novel strategies for cyberattacks against hardened targets given only a high level desired goal," OpenAI's blog post states.

OpenAI's testing now shows enough progress on agentic coding and developing zero-day exploits (previously undiscovered vulnerabilities in software or hardware) that the company is stepping back to strengthen security around Astra. To do this, the company is tightening sandboxes that keep the model contained and monitoring its Chain of Thought to "interrupt high risk activity."

OpenAI also said that it's committed to working with "relevant government agencies and select AI safety organizations to test the capabilities for this model."

Frontier AI models have progressed rapidly in the cybersecurity domain this year. Some zero-day bug bounty. programs have been forced to shut down due to the deluge of AI-discovered bugs, as Mashable has reported.

Until recently, the prospect of swarms of AI agents conducting relatively autonomous cyber attacks on critical infrastructure was mostly hypothetical. That risk seems much more real thanks to unreleased models like Claude Mythos and OpenAI Astra.

Our big Guessing Game is back! Enter now for a chance to win an Apple Watch.

What else do we know about OpenAI Astra?

Precious little, to be honest. Prior to the most recent announcement, OpenAI had released few concrete details, besides its internal name, Astra, and the fact that it was in testing to become OpenAI's next major model.

Bleeping Computer recently described Astra as "a powerful model that allows AI agents to collaborate on different parts of a larger problem." That suggests it's designed for agentic work and can "tackle complex, long-running tasks," also per Bleeping Computer.

At this point, it's unclear if Astra will eventually be released as GPT-5.7, the beginning of GPT-6, or something else entirely. If it truly has critical cybersecurity capabilities, it may never be fully released to the public, as with Anthropic's Claude Mythos.

However, let's look again at how OpenAI initially described Astra: "The results were achieved by an internal version of Astra, our next major model."(Emphasis added by Mashable.) That certainly suggested that OpenAI was preparing Astra for release sooner rather than later. However, in its Aug. 7 blog post, OpenAI's language had shifted, describing Astra as "one of our upcoming models." (Emphasis added by Mashable.)

The company has also so far declined to answer our questions about Astra, but we'll update this story if we receive more information.

However, we can make some additional deductions. Based on OpenAI's original blog post about Astra, "Ten advances in mathematics and theoretical computer science," it's safe to say that the new Astra model has made significant advances in science and mathematics, as well as in cybersecurity.

So, we talked to a mathematician about what Astra means for the future of AI and science — and what it doesn't mean.

New Anthropic and OpenAI models are really good at coding and math Credit: Photographed by Joseph Maldonado / Mashable Composite by Rene Ramos

Earlier this year, Anthropic announced that its unreleased Mythos model was so good at hacking that it was too dangerous to release to the public. At the time, we questioned this narrative, as the company's warnings effectively doubled as PR for itself. However, we can't deny that the latest frontier models from Anthropic and OpenAI have gotten remarkably good at cybersecurity, agentic coding, and discovering zero-day bugs.

More recently, OpenAI and Anthropic have shown progress on research-level mathematics as well.

First, OpenAI released a disproof of the Erdős unit distance conjecture in May. Then, an Anthropic-linked mathematician casually announced that he used Fable 5 to disprove the Jacobian Conjecture, one of the infamous Smale's problems in mathematics. Now, OpenAI has announced that Astra solved 10 more open problems in mathematics.

It's a potentially paradigm-shifting moment, though this is hardly proof that artificial general intelligence or the singularity is nigh.

First, most of these math accomplishments take the form of disproofs and counterexamples, which aren't as impressive as positive proofs that greatly expand our understanding of the universe, like, say, Andrew Wiles' proof of Fermat's Theorem.

When Fable 5 disproved the Jacobian Conjecture, I spoke to Columbia professor Andrew Blumberg, who is also on the board of directors of the First Proof project, which tested the capabilities of frontier large language models in solving research-level mathematics.

At the time, he told me that Fable 5's feat "did not cause me to update my priors about what AI can and can't do." Blumberg added, "This is exactly the kind of thing I would expect AI to be able to do. If there was a counterexample that was concise and easy to state that people haven't found because it's a pain to search through all this stuff, AI will find it."

Ultimately, Blumberg said that Fable 5's counterexample to the Jacobian Conjecture didn't necessarily teach us anything new or exciting about the world, even though it was very impressive.

I went back to Blumberg to ask about OpenAI and Astra's latest work, and he said his priors still haven't changed — AI is a very useful tool for advanced science, but Astra's math results don't suggest AI is ready to replace human scientists and mathematicians.

"If you look at what these are, they're pretty short. They are either counterexamples or they are small, extremely clever constructions that build on known things, and it's super cool, right? I want to be clear: If a person had done many of these things, that person would be justly lauded for their achievement, and so [this work is] great, but they don't change my priors."

And, as many people have pointed out (including, most recently, data scientist Nate Silver), we have to put these results in perspective. While OpenAI was keen to point out that these problems were solved with just $2,000 worth of tokens, that doesn't account for the trillions spent on AI technology in recent years.

"When you hear about the amount of money that's being poured into these machines, and you think about what it would be like if we spent a trillion dollars on hiring and training mathematicians and paying the best mathematicians football players' salaries to do nothing but solve these problems, I think we'd see a shitload of progress," Blumberg told Mashable.

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At the same time, the prospect of Astra-level models being in the hands of every scientist, physicist, and mathematician on Earth is truly exciting. Likewise, the prospect of Astra-like tools being available to hackers and other bad actors is truly concerning.

When will GPT Astra be released?

Previously, we speculated that GPT-Astra would be released by the end of the year, but now that OpenAI is delaying development for security reasons, it's much harder to say. As we mentioned earlier, it may never be fully released.

There are other factors that could delay its release as well.

First, the White House is reportedly close to finalizing a voluntary AI framework for testing new frontier models before they're released publicly. OpenAI has now publicly committed to working with relevant government agencies before releasing Astra. And if Astra is deemed to have "critical" capabilities, then additional time would be required to develop a safe-for-public-consumption version of the model.

There is reason to believe that Astra is far along in its development cycle, however. The Information recently reported that OpenAI is actively previewing Astra in Washington, D.C., and if Astra is already generating major results in math, it's likely fairly far along in testing.

Major AI companies like OpenAI and Anthropic have been releasing major updates to their models every few months, with entirely new model families coming out every one to two years. GPT-5 was introduced in August of 2025, which means we're due for GPT-6 any time now.

So far, OpenAI hasn't said anything about a release timeline.

Its most recent blog post about Astra concludes: "We’re committed to working alongside governments, safety institutes, and civil society to ensure that the frontier capabilities of models like Astra, and those that follow, are deployed responsibly and broadly for the benefit of all humanity."

Disclosure: Ziff Davis, Mashable’s parent company, in April 2025 filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.

Lenovo does something no other tech brand does — make a tablet specifically for gaming. A continuation of its Legion computers, the Lenovo Legion Tab puts gaming content into a smaller, more portable package.

Previous generations of the Lenovo Legion Tab have been impressive tablets, so my expectations were high for the recently released Gen 5 model. And here's the thing about the Lenovo Legion Tab Gen 5 — while it's built for gaming, I think it's a great everyday tablet.

Lenovo Legion Tab Gen 5 at a glance The Lenovo Legion Tab Gen 5 is one of the only tablets designed for gaming. Credit: Samantha Mangino / Mashable

The Lenovo Legion Tab Gen 5 is a tablet designed for gaming. With a 12-hour battery life and a Snapdragon processor that keeps it on par with MacBooks, it packs a lot of power within its 8.8-inch screen. It handles livestreams with ease, but its touchscreen is occasionally unresponsive. It costs $679.99, a big price hike between generations, but not a surprise considering the current memory crisis.

Here's a full rundown of its specs:

• Display: 8.8-inch 3K PureSight screen with 800 nits brightness

• Processor: Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5

• Operating System: Android 16

• Memory: 12GB

• Storage: 256GB

• Battery life: 12 hours and 24 minutes

• Geekbench 6 scores: 3,655 single-core score and 10,758 multi-core score

A tablet that can compete with a MacBook thanks to a Snapdragon chip I was shocked at just how well the Lenovo Legion Tab Gen 5 scored on the Geekbench 6. Credit: Samantha Mangino / Mashable

Presumably, a gaming tablet needs super-sized power to process high-demand tasks. Luckily, it lives up to its potential, gaining a real power boost over previous generations.

On Geekbench 6, the Lenovo Legion Tab Gen 5 has single-core and multi-core scores of 3,655 and 10,758, respectively. That puts it way above the Apple iPad, which has a 6,233 multi-core score, and into the leagues of a MacBook.

The Legion Tab Gen 5's power likely comes from its Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 Mobile Platform Processor. When I conferred with my colleague and laptop expert Haley Henschel, she noted that the Windows laptops she's recently tested that have competed with MacBooks all had Snapdragon chips. It seems Qualcomm is onto something, and Lenovo is taking advantage of it with the Legion Tab Gen 5.

Plus, it has battery life to match. In our tests, it had 12 hours and 24 minutes of battery life. That's extensive considering a gaming laptop often has just a few hours of battery life.

But how does all that power work in action?

It's reliable for live streaming

I spent a lot of time streaming on the Lenovo Legion Tab Gen 5. It handled my everyday streaming without issue. The video loaded quickly, with clear displays, and the next episodes loaded easily — perfect for when I'm trying to catch up on Love Island.

As a bigger test, I wanted to see how it could handle a livestream of a WNBA game. Once again, there were no issues with the livestream. The tablet didn't slow down, processing high-resolution video without stuttering, so I didn't miss any crucial minutes. This bodes well for gamers, too, who stream or play live with other players.

In terms of sound quality, it wasn't the best I've ever heard and did feel a bit tinny. If you're an audiophile, headphones will solve the sound quality issue.

A perfectly designed tablet? Almost. The Lenovo Legion Tab Gen 5 has not just one but two USB-C ports, a rarity for a tablet. Credit: Samantha Mangino / Mashable

The Lenovo Legion Tab Gen 5 is smaller than the standard 11-inch iPad. It has an 8.8-inch screen, which feels practical, especially for handheld gaming. Between generations its maintained my favorite design component: two USB-C ports. These days, we're getting fewer and fewer ports on devices, so two USB-C ports seem like a luxury. It's a huge boost for gamers who want to plug in a controller or headphones while simultaneously charging the tablet.

One thing I'm not a fan of? The case that comes with the Lenovo Legion Tab Gen 5. Credit: Samantha Mangino / Mashable

One thing that's not so great about the tablet? Its case. I'm certainly pleased that Lenovo includes a case when that's such a rarity on devices; however, this one is just OK. It's a lightweight, unassuming black case with a fully removable screen cover. That screen cover also doubles as a stand, but it's incredibly finicky and wobbly. It doesn't adjust to sit at multiple angles either, so you're stuck at just one tilt. Plus, I found that folding it over is a pain when you're using it handheld. It can be completely removed, but that also makes it easy to lose track of.

My one worry? The touchscreen response.

I'm not the biggest gamer, but I love a mobile phone game. The Lenovo Legion Tab Gen 5 offers access to the Lenovo Game Hub, which features an expansive selection of games, including Assassin's Creed, Skyrim, and Call of Duty. For those, you will need to connect a controller to the device.

For the more casual gamers, I tried a variety of mobile games on the device. As I was leaping across subway cars in Subway Surfer and working through puzzles, I noticed some occasional lag on the screen. Toward the center of the screen, the device was occasionally unresponsive. After closing the app and restarting, the issue seemed to resolve itself. Still, because it occurred across multiple apps, it appears to be a device issue rather than an application issue.

Price increase — not surprising considering the state of things

The last Lenovo Legion Tab I tested was the Gen 3, which had a very nice price of $549.99. Unfortunately, the Gen 5 costs more, now $679.99. The price hike isn't entirely unsurprising, considering the state of tech and the current memory crisis, which is affecting nearly every tech manufacturer. $679.99 is a pretty steep price for a tablet, but considering it's nearly as powerful as the iPad Air, which just increased to $749, it's still cheaper than other similarly powerful models.

But it is more expensive than Lenovo's Yoga Tab, which is the best Android tablet we've tested and only costs $419.99.

Is the Lenovo Legion Tab Gen 5 worth it? Looking for a gaming tablet? The Lenovo Legion Tab Gen 5 is worth it. Credit: Samantha Mangino / Mashable

Lenovo has cornered the market on gaming tablets. The Legion Tab Gen 5, the brand's latest iteration, is the most powerful model yet with impressive processing speeds and extended battery life. If you don't need a gaming-specific tablet, I suggest going for the Lenovo Yoga Tab, which isn't nearly as powerful but comes at a more affordable price point.

Lenovo Legion Tab Gen 5 $679.99 at Lenovo
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Samsung just announced a bunch of fancy new phones, but don't relax just yet. Google has a big product launch just around the corner too, and we're keeping a close eye on the latest Pixel 11 leaks, rumors, and official teasers.

The Android maker has already confirmed that it will announce the next batch of Pixel phones at a Made By Google event on Aug. 12, and it recently announced that comedian Trevor Noah will be hosting, with special guests like Stephen Curry and Alex Cooper. Google has also started dropping teasers on YouTube for the Pixel 11 Pro, Pixel 11 Pro Fold, and Pixel Watch 5. The follow-up to the Pixel 10 lineup will be unveiled in just a few days, so you'd better get prepared in the meantime.

Here is everything we know about the Google Pixel 11 lineup right now.

SEE ALSO: Samsung unpacked: New foldable phones, watches and more Google Pixel 11: Release date and price

The first part of this is easy because Google isn't keeping the Pixel 11 launch window a secret. At 6 p.m. ET on Aug. 12 in New York City, Google is holding a Made By Google event where the Pixel 11 lineup will be shown off for the first time, and Mashable will be there reporting live.

Last year's event was hosted by Jimmy Fallon, for some reason, and we expect lots of surprises and celebrity guests at this year's event. You can watch Made By Google live on YouTube, or follow the news as it happens on Mashable. The phones should be on store shelves or in your hands less than a month after that.

As with last year, we expect to see four phones: the base Pixel 11, a Pro and Pro XL model, and a Pro Fold model.

Regarding price, we live in a RAMageddon world, so it sounds like there may be some mild price increases in the works. We don't know the official figures yet, but a recent Amazon leak, as well as some reported specs and prices courtesy of Android Headlines, gave us these figures:

• Google Pixel 11: $899

• Google Pixel 11 Pro: $1,099

• Google Pixel 11 Pro XL: $1,299

• Google Pixel 11 Pro Fold: $1,899

Unfortunately, all of those are increases year over year compared to the Pixel 10. The Pixel 11, Pixel 11 Pro, and Pro XL are all $100 more to start than they were a year ago. Meanwhile, the Pixel 11 Pro Fold, if this leak is to be believed, will cost $400 more than the Pixel 10 Pro Fold. Ouch.

Google Pixel 11: What's up with Pixel Glow HiLight?

Before we get into detailed (and unconfirmed) specs for each device, there's basically one noteworthy design change that we expect to see across all four devices this year. According to both leaks and the official imagery on Google's own pre-order page, Google is going all-in on something called HiLight with the Pixel 11 series, as reported by 9to5Google.

In terms of design, that means the horizontal camera bar seen on previous Pixel phones will change slightly to accommodate a new multicolored LED light module. This module will use lights of different shades to notify you of things like incoming messages, presumably while your phone is turned over and you don't feel like looking at a screen.

Google actually gave everyone an official sneak peek at HiLight a couple of weeks before the event. In a brief teaser video showing part of the Pixel 11 Pro, you can see a small, multicolored light in the camera bar. While the video is very brief and vague, it's clear from the video that we are looking at HiLight.

Google Pixel 11: Base model rumored specs This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.

The aforementioned Amazon leak included since-removed store pages for each device in the Pixel 11 family, with colors and specs galore. Let's start with the base Pixel 11, whose color options have been reported under different names but basically come down to black, gray, pink, and green. The Android Headlines report also seems to be the most complete set of specs we've seen yet.

Based on both of these leaks, these could be the specs for the base Pixel 11:

• 6.3-inch OLED display with 2424x1080 resolution and 120Hz refresh rate

• Google Tensor G6 processor

• 12/16GB RAM

• 4,985mAh battery

• 48MP main camera

• 13MP selfie camera

There's a notable cut hiding in the base-model rumors, too: the telephoto lens is reportedly gone, leaving the standard Pixel 11 with only a main and a selfie camera. Battery capacity also dips slightly to 4,985mAh, which is said to bring the phone's weight down a touch, from 204 grams to 197 grams.

None of the above is horribly surprising or all that different from the Pixel 10, either, save for the telephoto lens thing. We'll see if that's actually true soon enough.

Google Pixel 11 Pro and Pro XL: Rumored specs

Google is also reportedly planning on two Pro variants, as in previous years. The color options here are reportedly called Olive, Obsidian, Canyon, and Fog. Here is what both Android Headlines had to say about the regular Pixel 11 Pro:

• 6.3-inch OLED display with 2856x1280 resolution and 120Hz refresh rate

• Google Tensor G6 processor

• 12/16GB RAM

• 4,850mAh battery

• 50MP wide

• 48MP ultrawide

• 48MP telephoto

• 42MP selfie camera

And here are the reported specs for Pixel 11 Pro XL. The XL is usually just a bigger, slightly improved version of the Pro:

• 6.8-inch OLED display with 2992x1344 resolution and 120Hz refresh rate

• Google Tensor G6 Processor

• 12/16GB RAM

• 5,115mAh battery

• 50MP wide

• 48MP ultrawide

• 48MP telephoto

• 42MP selfie camera

The main attraction here, at least as it relates to year-over-year changes, is that Google seems to be offering a new 12GB RAM variant of the Pro devices. Prior to this year, they just came with 16GB RAM. Perhaps models with less storage capacity will only come with 12GB this year as a way to save money on the manufacturing end of things.

Finally, we've heard rumors that the previous 100x digital zoom will be upgraded all the way to 120x for the Pixel 11 Pro and Pro XL. This would certainly be a big leap, but as AI technology progresses, it's certainly possible.

Google Pixel 11 Pro Fold: Rumored specs

Lastly, Google is making another foldable this year, if every leak is to be believed. Here are the reported specs for the Pixel 11 Pro Fold, which could have color variants called Obsidian and Olive:

• 6.5-inch outer display

• 8-inch inner display

• Google Tensor G6 processor

• 12/16GB RAM

• 256/512GB/1TB storage

• 4,806mAh battery

• 48MP wide

• 10.5MP ultrawide

• 10.8MP telephoto

• 10MP selfie camera

Remember: Mashable will be reporting live from the Made By Google event, so keep checking back for the latest Pixel 11 news, leaks, and rumors.

Pluto's famous heart is bleeding, according to new research, hinting that the distant world is more alive than it looks.

That bright, heart-shaped glacier has been a fan favorite ever since NASA's New Horizons spacecraft flew past the cold outer world in 2015. Scientists now say the heart isn't just the dwarf planet's special cutie mark, it may be slowly leaking liquid — yes, liquid — onto the surface. 

Researchers say dark streaks along the heart's rim are actually stains left by liquid nitrogen that recently seeped through cracks, flowed, and refroze. The new evidence makes a compelling case that Pluto isn't a frozen, dead world — it may have working "plumbing" under its ice.

"Pluto never stops surprising us," said Alan Stern, principal investigator of the New Horizons mission, in a statement. "In addition to suggesting that liquids have recently expressed themselves on Pluto's surface, it also suggests a new kind of time-variable feature on Pluto."

SEE ALSO: One lucky orbiter caught the SpaceX rocket crash site on moon

"Recently" here means roughly within the last million years, not last Tuesday. Still, by geological standards, that could mean this activity is ongoing today. 

Despite the fact that the New Horizons flyby happened a decade ago, scientists are still unpacking the enormous, once-in-a-generation dataset that came from it. Early work tackled some of the big-picture questions, like what is Pluto made of. Now teams are undertaking more complicated investigations, like what's really happening at the base of the heart-shaped glacier. 

A closeup view of the northern part of the leftmost lobe of Pluto's heart glacier, Sputnik Planitia, reveals dark streaks and patches. Credit: NASA / Johns Hopkins APL / SwRI

Their surprising findings, the result of many years of study, are published in The Planetary Science Journal. 

The heart is a region called Sputnik Planitia, a deep basin filled with frozen nitrogen. Nitrogen is the same gas that makes up most of Earth's air, but on Pluto's frigid surface, it behaves like rock. The basin is larger than Texas and Oklahoma combined and sits lower than the surrounding highlands.

"Pluto has many unique terrains seen nowhere else in the solar system, and this area of Sputnik Planitia is one of them," said Kelsi Singer, one of the study's co-authors, who works with Stern at Colorado-based Southwest Research Institute. "Exploring that allows us to better understand how materials behave in environments that are difficult to produce on Earth."

New Horizons revealed that this ice plain is strangely smooth and almost crater-free, which means it must be getting resurfaced in relatively short periods of time. The surface is divided into broad, city-sized cells that look like a very slow boiling pot. Scientists think the nitrogen ice rises in the middle of each cell and sinks at the edges, constantly churning, through the convection process.

So Pluto's heart already looked young and restless. The new work suggests it also bleeds.

The thin dark streaks and more diffuse dark patches have been visible in the images for years, but their origin was unclear. Some early ideas involved ice flowing around buried bumps or patterns carved by winds and frost.

In the new study, scientists compared those Pluto markings with satellite images of glaciers on Earth. Similar dark lines appear, for example, when meltwater trickles across a glacier and leaves wet trails. That raised an obvious question: If the patterns resemble damp ice, what could be "wetting" it?

If you were thinking rain, Pluto is far too cold and thin‑aired for any sort of precipitation, even nitrogen. So if something is wetting the surface, it's not falling from the sky — it's coming from beneath.

At close range, Sputnik Planitia is covered with city-size 'cells' that turn over nitrogen ice through convection. Credit: NASA / JHUAPL / SwRI

To explore that idea, the team modeled what happens at the bottom of Pluto's heart. Computer simulations suggest the nitrogen ice at the base of the thick glacier can slowly melt into liquid nitrogen, a bit like how ice melts at the base of some glaciers on Earth. That liquid can rise through cracks like slow-motion lava, pushing its way up through cracks and tubes.

In that way, Pluto's heart is a-pumpin'.

Researchers say the new work has implications beyond Pluto. Similar processes could help explain geysers seen on Neptune's moon Triton and features on distant dwarf planets like Eris, which also shows signs of nitrogen ice.

For a world many people still root for to be reinstated as a "real" planet, the research is another point for Pluto: a far more scientifically interesting place than once thought.

TL;DR: Get the iPhone 17 for free from T-Mobile when you trade in your eligible phone on an Experience More or Experience Beyond plan. Power users can get the Apple iPhone 17 Pro for free when they switch to T-Mobile and bring their number to an Experience Beyond plan (no trade-in needed).

Opens in a new window Credit: Apple T-Mobile: Free iPhone 17 or iPhone 17 Pro   Get Deal

Fresh from Samsung's impressive Unpacked event, where they announced three new foldable smartphones, two smartwatches, and smart glasses, it's almost Google's time to shine. We're expecting news on the latest Pixel phones in next week's Made by Google, but until then, we've got something for the Apple devotees out there.

We all know that Apple prices are rising due to RAMageddon, but somebody needs to tell T-Mobile. This mobile carrier continues to drop free deals on the latest iPhones:

• iPhone 17 — free when signing up for 24 months of an Experience More or Experience Beyond plan and trading in an eligible phone

• iPhone 17 Pro — free when you switch to T-Mobile and bring your number on an Experience Beyond plan (no trade-in needed).

You will be charged taxes and a one-time connection fee with these free deals, but that's a small price to pay for the latest iPhone.

Is this a good time to pick up the iPhone 17? Anytime you can get the latest handset for free is a good time to sign up, but the iPhone 18 is not too far away. We're expecting the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max to arrive in fall 2026. However, the iPhone 18, iPhone 18e, and the next-gen iPhone Air are rumored to be coming in March 2027. That's a long wait and might provide another push toward the highly capable iPhone 17.

Get the Apple iPhone 17 for free this weekend with T-Mobile.

The AI industry, not content with alienating top creators, seems to be intent on alienating book lovers too.

That much is clear in the wake of a 404 Media report on ISBNdb, a company that tracks book data and briefly offered "AI training data" in the form of "the world's largest book database."

So far so normal; AI companies looking to build better AI models are hungry for fresh data from any source that isn't the internet. Books — generally better edited and more cogent than your average Reddit thread — make AI sound smart. (There's a premium on books published before 2022, ironically because we can't be sure if books were written by AI after that date.)

But on a now-deleted page, ISBNdb also advertised a "legally-binding nondisclosure agreement" that would hide an AI company client's "identity and strategy." Why? ISBNdb explained: "Destroying millions of books evokes images of burning libraries ... the optics problem is real. 'AI company destroys two million books' is not a headline that generates sympathy."

Indeed. Turns out ISBNdb was offering destructive book scanning, an industrial process that claims to turn pages into data faster than the "move a page, take a picture" alternative — by slicing the spines off books and feeding the pages into a scanning machine, photocopier style, then recycliny them. (ISBNdb's now-deleted advice: "lead with the recycling story, not the destruction story."

But if you just recoiled with horror at the destruction story, you're not alone. It wasn't a headline so much as an impassioned pro-book post from a financial newsletter that caught the internet's attention last week.

Among the post's 2,000 outraged replies was one from Elon Musk, pledging that Grok's book training would be done the "hard way" in the case of rare books.

Though as commenters quickly pointed out, Musk offered no definition of what was a "rare book" — nor any promise that his AI company would avoid destroying books in other cases.

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As for ISBNdb, the company has belatedly walked back its destructive book offerings. "We've chosen to pivot away from that direction," the company's news site now says. The service was a "test of market interest." ISBNdb assured users it hadn't so much as scanned a single book.

But ISBNdb isn't alone. AI-feeding book destruction has happened before, and if the rare books sales spikes also noted in the 404 are to be believed, it may be happening again, right now, with other vendors under other nondisclosure agreements.

All while other less-destructive book scanning options — with less risk of messing up the scanned text — are widely available.

Which AI companies are destroying books?

It has long made sense to train Large Language Models on books. At first, that meant books legally online or in the public domain, such as the contents of Project Gutenberg. But rivalry between OpenAI, Anthropic, and other LLM builders led to a growing temptation to use online collections of pirated books.

We may never know whether OpenAI gave in to that temptation. In 2024, a class-action lawsuit from the Authors Guild found that the company had deleted the database of books it used to train its GPT models, and no one who worked on the database still worked at OpenAI.

But Anthropic was caught, and has admitted to using millions of pirated books to train Claude. That class action lawsuit, in which a record $1.5 billion copyright settlement was just approved, also revealed the scale of Anthropic's physical book-destruction operation.

Anthropic "became convinced that using books was the most cost-effective means to achieve a world-class LLM," wrote U.S. District Judge William Alsup in a lengthy legal order dated June 2025.

The company was "not so gung-ho" about using pirated material from 2024 onwards, to quote a memorable internal email in evidence, but still wanted to train Claude on "all the books in the world."

The result was called Project Panama. Alsup explains: "Anthropic spent many millions of dollars to purchase millions of print books, often in used condition. Its service providers stripped the books from their bindings, cut their pages to size, and scanned the books into digital form — discarding the paper originals."

As a matter of law, Alsup found this book mutilation was "transformative" and fell under the definition of fair use — because of the IRL book destruction, they were effectively exchanging one real-world copy for one digital copy. If Anthropic had ignored pirated databases, bought physical books from the start, then torn them apart in this manner, the authors wouldn't have a case.

But as a PR matter, Alsup's order was a disaster for Anthropic — generating exactly the sort of "AI company destroys millions of books" headlines that ISBNdb was offering to reframe. In court documents, one vendor boasted of its "hydraulic powered cutting machine" and how a recycling company would pick up the remnants.

Is there a better way to scan books? This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.

The scale and speed of Project Panama, by all accounts, were astonishing. Other court documents say Anthropic sought a vendor to "convert from 500,000 to two million books over a six-month period."

To put that in perspective, around 2 million new books were published each year (again, before the 2022 AI slop book cutoff point). Scanning a year's worth of books via six months of slicing and dicing is a pace at which nondestructive book-scanning methods might struggle to keep up.

Nevertheless, in a world where we're still haunted by Nazi book burnings, as well as by classic dystopian novels of book destruction (Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four), it is the more sensitive nondestructive scanners that maintain the moral high ground.

Take the Internet Archive, a nonprofit that preserves the internet (including those deleted ISBNdb pages) via the Wayback Machine. The archive has been scanning books for years, and in 2021, a tweet about its nondestructive Scribe scanner, above, went viral — in a good way.

The Archive has experimented with scanners where robots turn pages, but found it didn't work for rare books. Instead, every page is turned by hand. The operator in the viral tweet, one of 70 Scribe workers, said she had scanned roughly 18,000 books in 10 years.

As the Scribe was going viral, the Archive celebrated uploading its 2 millionth book — but it had taken 20 years to get there (and would soon face a copyright lawsuit of its own). Sadly, there's no way it can keep pace with a book-slicing automated document feeder.

Instead, it's possible the only thing that might keep AI companies from chopping up books at a rate that would make Bradbury and Orwell spin in their graves is the same thing that made IBSNdb back down: the spotlight of public attention.

TL;DR: Live stream the 2026 European Athletics Championships for free on BBC iPlayer. Access these free live streams from anywhere in the world with ExpressVPN.

We're still a couple of years away from the next quest for Olympic medals, but that doesn't mean the best athletes are just sitting back and relaxing. No, there are PBs to chase, rivals to beat, and world records to set. And some elite athletes will be targeting all of that and more in the 2026 European Athletics Championships.

The Alexander Stadium is welcoming some of track and field's biggest stars this month. The likes of Keely Hodgkinson, Mondo Duplantis, and Femke Bol will be battling it out for places on the podium. And Norway's Jakob Ingebrigtsen will make his long-awaited return to the track in the 5,000 meters.

If you want to watch the 2026 European Athletics Championships for free from anywhere in the world, we have all the information you need.

What are the European Athletics Championships?

The European Athletics Championships are a biennial track and field event organized by the European Athletics Association. The championships bring together the continent’s best athletes to compete across sprint, distance, field, road, and combined events for medals.

When are the 2026 European Athletics Championships?

The 2026 European Athletics Championships take place from Aug. 10-16 at the Alexander Stadium in Birmingham, UK.

How to watch the 2026 European Athletics Championships for free

The 2026 European Athletics Championships is available to live stream for free on BBC iPlayer.

BBC iPlayer is geo-restricted to the UK, but anyone can bypass these restrictions with a VPN. These tools can hide your real IP address (digital location) and connect you to a secure server in the UK, meaning you can unblock free live streams of the European Athletics Championships from anywhere in the world.

Access free live streams of the 2026 European Athletics Championships 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 the UK

4. Visit BBC iPlayer

5. Watch the 2026 European Athletics Championships for free from anywhere in the world

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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 European Athletics Championships without actually spending anything. This is obviously not a long-term solution, but it does give you time to watch the entire event before recovering your investment.

If you want to retain permanent access to free streaming platforms, you will need a subscription. Fortunately, the best VPN for live sport is on sale for a limited time.

What is the best VPN for BBC iPlayer?

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

• Servers in 105 countries, including the UK

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A two-year subscription to ExpressVPN is on sale for $68.40 and includes an extra four months for free — 80% 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 a money-back guarantee).

Live stream the 2026 European Athletics Championships for free with ExpressVPN.

TL;DR: ChatPlayground gives you lifetime access to dozens of major AI models, and it’s only $59.25 (reg. $619) for life with code AUG25.

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AI has so much potential to work quickly, but there are tons of little time-wasters and expensive frustrations. Using multiple models is a good way to produce a lot of work, but it requires you to copy pro pts between tabs and pay separate subscriptions for each model you use. If you want a smarter way to work, ChatPlayground is a new platform that consolidates many of the most popular AI tools, so you can send one prompt to all of them. It’s also only $59.25 (reg. $619) on sale.

ChatPlayground gives you access to GPT, Claude, Gemini, DeepSeek, Llama, Perplexity, and more, all in one clean interface. It works well for people who iterate fast, test variations, and actually care about optimizing results.

Beyond comparisons, ChatPlayground AI includes prompt engineering tools to refine outputs, image and PDF chat for context-aware responses, saved chat history for ongoing projects, and AI image generation powered by leading models. There’s even a Chrome extension to integrate it directly into your browsing workflow.

The Unlimited Plan means unlimited messages per month, making it ideal for startups, product teams, marketers, and prompt engineers who run experiments nonstop. You also get priority support and early access to new features and future models.

Stop paying a separate subscription for AI tools that waste your time.

Use code AUG25 to get lifetime access to ChatPlayground on sale for $59.25. Offer expires Aug. 9 at 11:59 p.m. PT.

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TL;DR: Lock in a safer internet forever with this lifetime subscription to FastestVPN PRO, on sale now for only $29.99 (reg. $600) with code Aug25 until Aug. 9.

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You lock your front door, your smartphone, and your laptop — but what are you doing to protect your internet? A VPN is a super easy way to upgrade your cybersecurity with just a few taps.

Right now, you can even snag a lifetime subscription to FastestVPN PRO for just $29.99 for 15 devices — only $2 each — with code Aug25 until Aug. 9.

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How much is your internet safety worth? We’d venture to bet more than $2, but that’s all it takes with this lifetime FastestVPN PRO subscription. It works on 15 devices and currently costs only $29.99.

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Get this lifetime subscription to FastestVPN PRO for 15 devices for only $29.99 (reg. $600) with code Aug25 through Aug. 9.

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At a glance:

• Release date: We're expecting the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max to arrive in fall 2026, but rumor has it the iPhone 18 may not arrive until early 2027.

• Colors: Possible leaks point to four main color options this year for the Pro models: light blue, silver, dark gray, and dark cherry.

• Key upgrades: Besides iOS 27 and the Siri AI beta, we're expecting bigger batteries, camera improvements (including variable aperture for the main camera), and possibly a smaller Dynamic Island.

• Pricing: Most new phones are arriving with price increases, and we think a starting price increase is very likely for the new iPhone 18 lineup, sadly.

Apple's flagship smartphone hasn't taken a year off from its updates since 2007, and barring a massive surprise, 2026 won't be different — but there will be a twist.

The Cupertino-based tech giant is widely expected to launch a new lineup of iPhones later this year, including the iPhone 18 Pro, 18 Pro Max, and the rumored iPhone Ultra, the company's first-ever foldable. The regular iPhone 18, the 18e, and the new iPhone Air are likely to arrive early next year.

We asked you to predict what Apple will do next. See the results and find out how to get a shot at winning an Apple Watch!

As we await the iPhone 18 — and its updated operating system, iOS 27 — rumors continue to trickle out. The pace of leaks on the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max in particular is likely to increase after a massive hack exposed thousands of Apple's internal documents, reportedly including iPhone 18 Pro suppliers and tests.

We won't see any of the new Apple phones in the wild for a couple more months, but we can bring you all of the latest iPhone 18 rumors and the most likely updates in one place.

SEE ALSO: Apple reportedly working on anti-phone snatching security feature iPhone 18 lineup pricing

If you're in the market for a new iPhone, you should circle September in your calendar. That's when Apple typically holds its big iPhone launch event, and there's no reason to believe Apple will change that for the iPhone 18. The first week of September is most likely — probably Wednesday September 9, to give attendees enough time to travel after Labor Day (September 7).

Expect to see new Apple CEO John Ternus take the stage, as his term of office officially begins Sept. 1. What he'll be introducing, alas, may put more of a dent in your wallet.

Thanks to the ongoing RAM shortage caused by the AI industry (also known as RAMageddon), tons of smartphones, laptops, and gaming consoles are seeing huge price hikes. Experts who've spoken to Mashable say that trend isn't going to stop anytime soon.

As the world's number one smartphone maker, Apple has some advantages over its rivals, but a price increase is very likely. Apple recently raised prices on a variety of its products, and outgoing Apple CEO Tim Cook even took the unusual step of preparing us for a pricier iPhone.

"Price increases are unavoidable," Cook told the Wall Street Journal in a June interview. The Journal quoted an analysis showing that the memory chip components in the iPhone 18 Pro will cost Apple $150 more than those in the iPhone 17 Pro.

So should you expect the phones to cost just $150 more than their predecessors (check the iPhone 17 prices for reference)? You wish. There's the pesky fact that Apple is a for-profit company, and the iPhone is the #1 smartphone in the world for a reason, even though it's already pricier than Samsung's.

How much of an increase will Apple fans bear? We may be about to find out, but the Journal estimated $1,399 for the iPhone 18 Pro ($300 more than last year). Apple analysts are coming to similar conclusions; one research note seen by 9to5Mac predicted $250 to $300 price increases.

iPhone 18, 18 Pro, and 18 Ultra launch dates The iPhone 18 Pro Max smartphones at last year's iPhone launch event. Credit: CNET

Barring a huge turn under Ternus, Apple will release the iPhone 18 Pro, the iPhone 18 Pro Max, and the foldable iPhone Ultra in early September. Apple's first foldable iPhone is the biggest headline here, but the Pro models will bring numerous improvements too.

The iPhone 18, however, alongside the cheaper iPhone 18e, and the next-gen iPhone Air, are rumored to come next year, likely in March 2027.

iPhone 18 and iPhone 18 Pro design

Again, Apple has not released any official teasers or other imagery for the iPhone 18 lineup yet, so anything reported to date could be wrong. Still, from the sum total of all reports, it sounds like Apple isn't really reinventing the wheel, design-wise. But Ternus, a hardware guy, is reportedly bringing the company's industrial design group into the center of the Apple fold.

Looking further into the future, the iPhone 20 is said to bring big changes, including a curved waterfall display.

Per our friends at CNET (Mashable and CNET are both owned by Ziff Davis), the display sizes will be roughly the same as last year:

• iPhone 18: 6.3 inches

• iPhone 18 Pro: 6.3 inches

• iPhone 18 Pro Max: 6.9 inches

However, the display quality might be a little different this year. Prominent leaker Instant Digital shared on Chinese social media that Apple's brightness demands are unusually high this year, so it would be reasonable to expect much brighter displays than in previous years.

Some iPhone 18 models could also have a smaller camera bump compared to previous models. There are reports of a slightly redesigned Dynamic Island on the screen itself, with the pill-shaped notification hub potentially being made smaller in the iPhone 18 Pro models. One alleged leaked image purports to show an iPhone 18 Pro with a downsized Dynamic Island cutout.

This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed. iPhone 18: rumored hardware features

So we know the software the iPhone 18 will run: iOS 27, introduced at WWDC 2026. Time to start talking about some of the internal hardware changes Apple is reportedly making to the iPhone 18 lineup.

For starters, it sounds like the lineup will have a standardized 12GB RAM count across the board. In previous years, the Pro models had 12GB of RAM, while the base model had only 8GB. According to Korean outlet The Bell, Apple will be upgrading the base model so that it matches the Pro models in that regard. It's also widely expected that Apple will adopt new A20 and A20 Pro chips for the base and Pro models, respectively.

It's also expected that the new iPhones will have a new C2 modem for improved cellular connectivity, and they may also have 5G satellite support. Also reported: a new N2 chip for better WiFi performance.

As for the battery, leaker Digital Chat Station on Weibo reported that the batteries will finally be upgraded to 5,000mAh, which would be a big improvement over the iPhone 17 Pro. This year, 5,000mAh has become the new standard for flagship phones, including in Samsung's new Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra.

Instant Digital posted in a separate Weibo leak that the back glass of the iPhone 18 Pro has been altered, resulting in a new unified look, as opposed to the two-tone look of the iPhone 17 Pro. Whether that change will affect durability (or if it's just an aesthetic difference) remains to be seen. Other possible upgrades include an improved LTPO+ display, Apple's new C2 modem, 5G via satellite connectivity, and the improved N2 chip, which should improve hotspot and AirDrop reliability.

The most colorful iPhone 18 Pro rumors

Courtesy of leakers, we may already know the iPhone 18 Pro colors. If that's the case, the must-see equivalent of the iPhone 17's unforgettable "cosmic orange" shade is said to be a wine-like "dark cherry," which we'd expect to sell like hot... cherry pies?

Based on numerous leaks, the most likely color lineup for the iPhone 18 Pro will be silver, dark gray, light blue, and the aforementioned "dark cherry."

Sadly, we think fans of black iPhones are out of luck, though the rumored dark gray color looks black in supposed dummy units shared by leakers like Sonny Dickson.

This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed. This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed. What about the iPhone 18 Pro Max?

Several reports out of China say that because the iPhone 18 Pro Max will have a much larger battery, it may be a bit of a chunky boy as a result.

We're not talking about a huge increase in weight and width: a quarter of a millimeter in thickness and 7 grams more, respectively. Still, every gram counts on the heftiest iPhone model you can get — so iPhone 17 Pro Max upgraders may want to check that their pocket linings can bear the bulk of a larger iPhone 18 Pro Max.

The iPhone 17 Pro has helped Apple break sales records in 2026. Credit: Stan Schroeder / Mashable iPhone 18 camera rumors

Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, a source of many spot-on iPhone reports, says the iPhone 18 Pro, in particular, will have "some of the biggest camera hardware upgrades in the lineup's history."

Why? First, the telephoto camera has a larger aperture. But more important is the variable aperture.

First reported by Digital Chat Station on Weibo, variable aperture is a huge deal. It would let the iPhone 18 Pro camera capture different amounts of light for different situations — potentially leading to a huge leap in photo quality, if you know what you're doing.

For instance, the bokeh effect famously associated with portrait mode on iPhones would be possible in-camera rather than through software processing, resulting in more natural and generally better-looking shots.

What about Siri AI?

Of course, one of the first things many users will want to know about the iPhone 18 when they get their hands on one: what is the new, revamped, AI-upgraded Siri experience like?

If you're feeling adventurous, you can try it yourself by installing the iOS 27 beta.

The new features include Siri becoming an actual chatbot with its own app. It's also able to understand what's on your screen, and it can help you write, create images, and edit photos.

For an overview, check out our guides to iOS 27 and Siri AI's top features.

TL;DR: The latest Stuff Your Kindle Day takes place on Aug. 5-8. Stuff Your E-Reader, hosted by Indie Author Collective, is offering free books in a variety of subgenres.

We're not in the habit of complaining about free giveaways, but if there is one thing that bothers us about Stuff Your Kindle Days, it's that they sometimes come and go in the blink of an eye. We need time to prepare. We need to properly assess our options and lovingly handpick the books that speak to us on a spiritual level. 24-hour events rob us of this opportunity.

Fortunately, the latest Stuff Your Kindle Day is a much more relaxed affair.

Stuff Your E-Reader, hosted by Indie Author Collective, is offering free books across a variety of subgenres until Aug.8. Everything that you download is yours to keep forever, so you really can stock up ahead of the colder winter months that aren't too far away.

SEE ALSO: T-Mobile is giving away the 2026 Motorola Razr for free — how to qualify

Looking to make the most of the latest Stuff Your Kindle Day? We've lined up everything you need to know about this popular event.

When is Stuff Your Kindle Day?

Stuff Your E-Reader takes place from Aug. 5-8. This four-day giveaway provides participants with the chance to really dig into everything on offer.

Which books are free?

Stuff Your E-Reader is an all-genre book blast, so there really is something for everyone. There's a helpful hub page with everything neatly organized. You can filter by price (free or 99 cents), platform (Kindle or Kobo), representation, and genre. There are 30+ genres to pick from, including fantasy, thriller, romance, gothic, and erotica. Something for everyone, basically.

Is Stuff Your Kindle Day the same as Amazon Kindle Unlimited?

Everything you download on Stuff Your Kindle Day is yours to keep forever, and there's no limit on the number of books you can download. Stuff Your Kindle Day downloads don't count towards the 20 books that Amazon Kindle Unlimited subscribers can borrow at the same time.

The best Stuff Your Kindle Day deal Opens in a new window Credit: Amazon Kindle (16GB) + Kindle Unlimited (3 Months) $109.99 at Amazon
  Shop Now Why we like it

These popular e-readers let you take your entire library on the go. With weeks of battery life and an anti-glare display, you can read anywhere and anytime with the Kindle. Plus, you can get three months of Kindle Unlimited for free with your purchase for a limited time.