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TL;DR: Live stream Djokovic vs. Zverev in the 2025 Australian Open for free on 9Now. Access this free streaming platform from anywhere in the world with ExpressVPN.

The Australian Open semi finals are here, and the big story is whether or not Novak Djokovic can continue on his quest to win a record-breaking 25th Grand Slam title. After beating Alcaraz at the quarter-final stage, it's looking more and more likely.

If you want to watch Djokovic vs. Zverev in the 2025 Australian Open for free from anywhere in the world, we have all the information you need.

How to watch Djokovic vs. Zverev for free

The 2025 Australian Open is available to live stream for free on 9Now, including Djokovic vs. Zverev.

9Now is geo-restricted to Australia, but anyone can access this free streaming platform with a VPN. These handy tools can hide your real IP address (digital location) and connect you to a secure server in Australia, meaning you can unblock 9Now from anywhere in the world.

Access free live streams of the 2025 Australian Open by following these simple steps:

1. Subscribe to a streaming-friendly VPN (like 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 Australia

4. Visit 9Now

5. Watch the 2025 Australian Open for free from anywhere in the world

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The best VPNs for streaming are not free, but leading services do tend to offer incentive deals such as free-trial periods or money-back guarantees. By leveraging these deals, you can live stream Djokovic vs. Zverev without actually spending anything. This isn't a long-term solution, but it gives you enough time to watch the Australian Open before recovering your investment.

What is the best VPN for 9Now?

ExpressVPN is the best service for bypassing geo-restrictions to stream live tennis on 9Now, for a number of reasons:

• Servers in 105 countries including Australia

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

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• 30-day money-back guarantee

A one-year subscription to ExpressVPN is on sale for $99.95 and includes an extra three months for free — 49% off for a limited time. This plan also includes a year of free unlimited cloud backup and a generous 30-day money-back guarantee.

Live stream Djokovic vs. Zverev in the 2025 Australian Open for free with ExpressVPN.

Timothy Olyphant, who played Danny Corday on The Office, doesn't seem to remember much about the experience.

He was the latest guest on the Office Ladies podcast, hosted by Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey, who played Pam Beesly and Angela Martin on the show, respectively. Olyphant appeared in just two Season 7 Office episodes, portraying the handsome, super-effective salesman Corday. It adds up, then, that Olyphant might not remember everything about the experience.

But one thing he did remember was just how funny Steve Carell was in his portrayal of Michael Scott. Olyphant recalled repeatedly breaking character during a deleted scene in which Carell has blocked him from leaving in an effort to steal Corday for the Dunder Mifflin Scranton branch.

"I do remember laughing. I'm sure I screwed up what would have been a really good scene with Carell where I just couldn't stop laughing because it was so intense and funny," Olyphant said on the podcast. "And there's a little bit of disappointment still there that I could not keep a straight face."

SEE ALSO: All 185 episodes of 'The Office,' ranked

Olyphant had lots of praise for Carell, even if the performance caused him to break character.

"He's incredible," Olyphant said. "He's fully committed. And I'm quite certain, I haven't seen it, you know, that I'm the one busting up more than he is."

Video evidence of the deleted scene would seem to agree. Olyphant does, indeed, bust up when Carell delivers a line straight-faced.

It's hard to blame Olyphant, however — Michael Scott had a way of making everyone laugh.

If your theater isn’t properly soundproofed, you are in for some hiccups. You might catch echoes bouncing around the room, outside noise creeping in, or worse, you could have your neighbors knocking on your door, fed up with the constant explosions, car chases, and blasting music. So, how do you turn your theater room into a soundproof fortress where you can crank up the volume without compromise?

Initially launched as a distribution channel for the mobile version of Fortnite stemming from a dispute with both Apple and Google, Epic Games has always had bigger ambitions for the mobile version of the Epic Games Store. Now, it's finally getting to fulfill those ambitions, and it's allowing third-party games into its mobile game marketplace.

Samsung's Galaxy S25 Ultra takes big strides in integrating AI into every aspect of the user experience, but is it enough to stand a chance against the iPhone 16 Pro Max? Let's find out.

Fitbit, a fitness technology company owned by Google, has agreed to pay $12.25 million to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC). This is to settle claims that they didn't quickly report a problem with their Ionic smartwatch, which caused the battery to overheat and led to some customers getting burned.

With today’s technology, controlling the sound system of your home theater is easy. However, you can make it simpler and more efficient with the help of a smart home assistant.

Operator, OpenAI's agent that can perform multi-step tasks autonomously, has arrived.

The ChatGPT maker introduced a preview mode of Operator on Thursday, detailing how it works and what it's capable of. Operator can browse the web, performing tasks like calculating refunds from a canceled order and finding customers with specific criteria in an internal sales database. It can also buy groceries and send emails.

On a computer, Operator can perform various tasks, like downloading files, combining PDFs, analyzing spreadsheets, and exporting images.

OpenAI is delivering on its promise of making 2025 the year of agentic AI. Last week, the company launched Tasks for ChatGPT, which lets users automate future prompts like sending a daily brief of tech news or scheduling reminders. While many of these tasks are already possible through basic tools like Google Alerts and calendars, it's an early example of AI bots doing the legwork for the user. Combined with the release of Operator and its ability to autonomously take on more complex tasks, you can start to see OpenAI's vision for making ChatGPT an indispensable tool leveraging its core product.

The model underpinning Operator is a Computer-Using Agent (CUA) that combines GPT-4o's vision mode to "see" what's on the user's screen through screenshots with graphical user interfaces (GUIs) that enable Operator to interact with the screen (clicking buttons, typing, scrolling, etc.).

Operator in action, browsing for a campsite in Yosemite with picnic tables. Credit: OpenAI OpenAI's safety approach with Operator

Obviously, safety is a big concern for a semi-autonomous AI agent like Operator. OpenAI says it has taken risks into account in a few different ways. Operator mitigates misuse by blocking harmful or illegal tasks, and can't access blacklisted sites like gambling and adult entertainment sites and drug or gun retailers.

And OpenAI is looking over your shoulder as you use Operator. The announcement says that "user interactions are reviewed in real-time by automated safety checkers that are designed to ensure compliance with Usage Policies and have the ability to issue warnings or blocks for prohibited activities," and that the company has developed "automated detection and human review pipelines to identify prohibited usage in priority policy areas, including child safety and deceptive activities."

Since Operator can make costly mistakes without human supervision, the model will ask for confirmation "before submitting an order, sending an email, etc., so that the user can double-check the model’s work before it becomes permanent." Operator is also currently limited from "higher-risk tasks like banking transactions."

Operator availability

Now is where we start to see OpenAI's new premium tier subscription, ChatGPT Pro. Operator in preview mode is only available in the U.S. to those who pay $200 a month as Pro users. But over time, OpenAI expects to expand availability to Plus, Team, and Enterprise users.

OpenAI announced Operator today, its first attempt at an AI-powered agent that can automate complex tasks and perform various actions on websites to save you time.

Despite everyone's best efforts, smartphone theft is still a problem worldwide. This is one problem Google wanted to tackle with Android 15, with a new set of features under the "Theft Protection" umbrella. Now, it's getting a new party trick, and it's called Identity Check.

The default Windows File Explorer is a perfectly acceptable tool that does its job well enough. But if you've ever felt like it was lacking in features or versatility, you might want to take a look at some alternative file management apps.

Matter and the concept behind it—smart home devices working interoperably and seamlessly between multiple smart home ecosystems—went from a pipe dream to a reality relatively recently. But that doesn't mean it doesn't have problems. Now, the organization behind Matter wants to reassure us that it will finally get it together this year.

The “I Changed My Number” text scam is a long-standing con which aims to take money from unsuspecting folks who think they’re helping a close friend or relative. The scam often looks harmless, yet the slightest lapse in judgment can set it in motion.

Buying gifts for the special woman in your life can be tricky. What do you buy a person who has everything? What should you gift to someone who's picky about their products? Our advice is to curate a gift according to her interests and personality. A gift for the lady in your life should be just that: A gift for her. Part of our bigger series on the Best Gifts For Everyone, we’ve put together this comprehensive list to guide you on your important mission. And if it happens to be a teen girl you're shopping for, then we have a list for that too.

UPDATE: Jan. 24, 2025, 8:06 a.m. EST This article has been updated following clarity from Wisp. The increase in sales occurred on Inauguration Day.

Women's telehealth company Wisp has seen a 233 percent increase in emergency contraception (EC, also called the "morning after pill") sales on Trump's inauguration day.

The spike occurred on Jan. 20 compared to Jan. 13, and on Inauguration Day itself (1/20), 57 percent of all EC sales were six-packs on Wisp.

SEE ALSO: Did Trump's executive order just make everyone in the U.S. female?

This news comes after reproductiverights.gov shut down following the inauguration, as CBS News and others reported. It is part of a trend that includes government pages on LGBTQ rights and the Office of Gun Violence Protection going dark as well.

The government reproductive rights site included information on ECs, according to an archived screenshot, as well as birth control and abortion pills. The site was launched in 2022 following the overturning of Roe v. Wade, according to The Verge. Since then, conservatives have threatened birth control and abortion pills, fueling fears about access.

Plan B, a brand of emergency contraceptive, hasn't seen an increase in traffic, the maker's comms team told Mashable. Pills aren't available for purchase there, though. If you'd like more information about ECs, visit Planned Parenthood's website.

I don't know if you've ever had the good fortune of seeing a dog discover snow, but it is pure joy. I remember my then-puppy's first snow like it was yesterday.

A rare snowstorm, however, has struck the southern U.S. — states like Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Florida — meaning many dogs are discovering snow. After all, how often does a pup in New Orleans get to see snow? In a time where you might need some cute videos — well, that time is pretty much any time — the snow in the South is certainly delivering.

Look at this pup sprinting around.

Or this adorable, if scared, big boy.

Or this little guy who has no idea what's going on.

This husky was in heaven.

This pup made literal snow angels.

Or these doggies that had very different reactions to their first snow day.

So, there you have it, some free smiles from some chilly but excited pups.

Keen-eyed individuals spotted another blow to LGBTQ protections under the U.S.'s new presidential administration.

First flagged by Media Matters for America journalist Ari Drennen, the official page for changing sexual (or gender) identification on government documents — overseen by the Social Security Administration — has been removed from public view. The page currently displays an access denied notice that reads "You are not authorized to access this page."

SEE ALSO: Resources for people worried about Trump's anti-LGBTQ executive orders Tweet may have been deleted

Drennen and others online later confirmed the page was inaccessible to all users, including those with personal Social Security accounts logged into the website. The Social Security Administration's page on Gender Identity has also been hidden, prompting users with a 404 error. Some existing FAQs on the process — which allows citizens to change their gender identification to a binary or nonbinary ("X") status — are still accessible to the public at the time of reporting. The office's resources for LGBTQI communities are also still visible.

Under a Biden administration change from 2022, American citizens did not need to show medical or legal evidence to obtain a change in sexual identification, lauded as a major victory for LGBTQ communities nationwide. Before Trump's inauguration, advocates had warned that the new leadership would move quickly to repeal such provisions, and recommended individuals update their official documents, including social security cards, prior to Trump taking office.

Credit: Screenshot / U.S. Social Security Administration

Less than 24 hours after Trump was sworn in, the new president removed all LGBTQ-related pages from the White House website, including information published by the Biden administration. Searches for "sexual identification" and "gender" on the official White House page only return a link to Trump's recent executive order on what he has called "gender ideology extremism."

Queries for pages with the terms "lesbian," "gay," "bisexual," and "transgender" populate similarly sparse results that only reference new Trump edicts. In the aforementioned executive order, President Trump declared that the United States would only recognize two biological genders, based on an ironically confusing definition of "gender at time of conception." That executive order effectively erases trans and gender nonconforming individuals who had legally changed their sexual identification on official documents. The executive order had no guidance in regards to intersex individuals or other biologically nonbinary identities, which apply to millions of Americans.

If enough hasn't already happened this week – John McAfee is apparently back from the dead.

Well, his account on Elon Musk's X has been revived at the very least.

On Wednesday night, John McAfee's @officialmcafee X account started posting again even though McAfee himself was found dead from suicide in June 2021 in a prison in Spain while awaiting extradition to the U.S. 

To be fair, the X account belonging to the eccentric founder of McAfee antivirus hadn't been completely dormant since his death. His wife, Janice McAfee, had been using his account with more than 1 million followers to mostly post and retweet other users' posts about John. 

However, in the @officialmcafee's first post since November of last year, McAfee's account claimed that he was actually back. 

In AI form. 

And he came back as AI in order to drop a memecoin.

Tweet may have been deleted

"I'm back with AIntivirus. An AI version of myself," @officialmcafee's post reads.  "You didn't think I would miss this cycle did you?"

McAfee's X count is referencing the current crypto cycle which has seen an explosion in the popularity of memecoins, buoyed by President Trump's recent launch of his own $TRUMP token.

Speculation quickly ran rampant on X about McAfee's account possibly being hacked. However, @officialmcafee followed up with another post in an attempt to calm those fears.

Tweet may have been deleted

"John's account has not been hacked," the account posted. "This is the real deal."

McAfee's widow, Janice, then posted a video on her own X account on Thursday morning explaining that the @officialmcafee's post was legit. 

Well, to be clear, not the part where John McAfee has been resurrected in the form of AI. Janice shared that the memecoin is a legitimate crypto token that she created to "honor John's legacy."

McAfee was no stranger to cryptocurrency before he died. In fact, McAfee had been indicted on crypto-related fraud and money laundering charges in addition to the tax evasion charges that landed him in prison in the first place.

McAfee reportedly lost much of his $100 million fortune before he died. According to his widow in 2023, McAfee died without a will or estate so he did not leave her any money behind.

As of the publication of this piece, McAfee's AIntivirus memecoin is sitting at a market cap of $37 million.

Sellers on eBay have capitalized on TikTok's uncertain fate in the U.S. by selling secondhand phones for thousands of dollars with the app pre-installed.

According to Wired, listings for phones with TikTok installed have proliferated on the online marketplace amidst the TikTok ban saga. On Jan. 18, U.S. users were denied access to the app with a pop-up saying, "A law banning TikTok has been enacted in the U.S. Unfortunately, that means you can't use TikTok for now." But the very next day, TikTok was back because President Trump had pledged to postpone the ban for 75 days so his administration could "determine the appropriate course forward."

SEE ALSO: As TikTok faces a ban, creators brace for an uncertain future

With its status in limbo, TikTok is not available to download on the Apple and Google app stores. This has prompted eBay sellers to take advantage of the situation and try to profit from its uncertain future.

At the time of publication, a search for "TikTok phone" produces over 24,000 results, with the lowest "Buy it Now" listing selling for $400 and the highest asking for (checks notes) $4,970,400 million with CapCut, a video editing app also owned by ByteDance pre-installed in addition to TikTok.

Others are being auctioned for $1,000,000 in the auction category. Unsurprisingly, these listings currently have zero bids. However, the mid- to low-tier auction listings in the $50 to $500 range have dozens of bids. Mashable found an iPhone 13 with TikTok installed, which currently has 5 bids and is auctioning for $10,000. So, at least some people are willing to pay a premium for access to TikTok.

SEE ALSO: Meta is reportedly paying influencers big bucks to post on Reels before TikTok

TikTok and other ByteDance apps are unavailable to download in the U.S. because the TikTok ban law, Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act (PAFACA), has not been officially repealed. According to a support page on the Apple App Store, "Apple is obligated to follow the laws in the jurisdiction where it operates."

More details about the app's functionality follow, saying, "If you already have these apps installed on your device, they will remain on your device. But they can't be redownloaded if deleted or restored if you move to a new device." In-app purchases and new subscriptions are no longer allowed on TikTok, and U.S. users won't receive updates, meaning functionality and performance might degrade over time.

So, if you bought a new phone after Jan. 19 or recently deleted TikTok, you would've been out of luck. But thanks to eBay, there's still hope, but it comes with a price.

It turns out the way to get me interested in a new Assassin's Creed (well, more interested than I already was) is to include features from the AC games I played 10 to 15 years ago.

To be a little more specific, Ubisoft's latest open-world stabbing simulator Assassin's Creed Shadows builds on the recent RPG-ish entries like Valhalla by incorporating mechanics and design philosophies from older entries like Brotherhood and Syndicate. From Brotherhood, it borrows the idea of training and deploying subordinate assassins on helpless, unsuspecting doofus guards in your time of need. From Syndicate, it takes and (from what I can tell) heavily improves on the two-protagonist setup, with one representing stealth and the other combat.

Crucially, it's also got the goods from the newer games, like a very pretty and naturalistic feudal Japan setting, and consequential dialogue choices. After playing Shadows for about three hours at a preview event, I came away fairly impressed not only at how Shadows assimilates abandoned ideas from older AC games, but also by how fun it is on its own merits thanks to greater depth in its stealth mechanics and a slightly harsher and less forgiving level of challenge than its predecessors.

SEE ALSO: PS5 vs. PS5 Slim: What are the differences? Yasuke just seems really cool Yasuke is a big dude with big appeal. Credit: Ubisoft

I'm not really at liberty to discuss the the overall narrative of Shadows because I haven't seen that much of it, but I'm very into one of the two protagonists.

That would be Yasuke, who is a bit of an oddity among AC protagonists in that he was a real person. Usually in these games, you play as a fictional assassin who has the good fortune to Forrest Gump their way through whatever historical period they live in, but Yasuke was an actual Black man from Africa who went from slave to bonafide samurai under the tutelage of Odu Nobunaga in the 16th century. He's a self-evidently fascinating figure and a fantastic choice for a protagonist.

I'm a little less sold on Naoe, the fictional female protagonist who will be the character of choice for players who want to be sneaky. However, that probably has more to with the nature of the demo I played than anything; I didn't get a great sense for her personality or motives, aside from a generic desire for revenge. I'm sure that will change as I play through the final game (after all, I prefer to play stealthily), but for now, I just don't know how to feel about her. It doesn't help that she's working alongside an exceedingly cool dude in Yasuke.

A squad of assassins await your command

The portion of the demo I'm allowed to talk about had all the trappings one would expect from a modern Assassin's Creed game: A big open zone full of main story quests, side activities, and gorgeous vistas to discover. I'll get into the finer details of how the moment-to-moment action feels a little later, but generally speaking, this is totally an Assassin's Creed game. They didn't set out to reinvent the wheel here, even though it's been more than four years since Valhalla came out.

However, where Shadows did surprise me a bit was in its deployment of awesome mechanics from older games in the series that have since been abandoned for one reason or another. Namely, Shadows brings back the thing from Brotherhood (and a few other games after that) where you have a cadre of NPC assassins at your disposal who you can recruit, train, upgrade, and then deploy how you see fit. This mostly manifests as aiming at an enemy guard and pressing a button to have your underling take them out, but I should note the demo also provided me with a summonable NPC who was built more for fighting than stealth kills, so there is seemingly some versatility to this system.

This is not only an inherently fun thing to do, but it also gives the player more solutions to the game's fairly challenging stealth sequences. Speaking of which...

Quiet is more fun, but going loud is more viable than ever You know you want to do it. Credit: Ubisoft/Steam

The dual-protagonist idea is borrowed from 2015's Assassin's Creed Syndicate, which similarly had a male assassin who was built for fights and a female assassin who was built for sneaking. The problem with that (other than the mild gender essentialism of it all) was that approximately 75 percent of Syndicate's main story forced you into playing as the dude, who wore a stupid top hat all the time and just wasn't as fun to play as the other character.

Shadows makes it a point to not repeat that mistake. All missions seem to be playable as both characters. In fact, the big finale to the main story thread I followed in the demo gave me three different opportunities to choose a character during the mission. It's nice that you don't have to commit to one character for an entire mission if you don't want to.

Let's talk about Naoe. I actually spent most of the demo playing as her because I'm a stealthy guy, and I came away pretty satisfied with the additions to sneaky gameplay Ubisoft has made this time around. For starters, enemies seem to have better eyesight than before, as they regularly spotted me from pretty far away when I wasn't careful. Beyond that, you have to use light to your advantage; lanterns can (and should) be destroyed with throwing knives, and shadows provide enough cover for nearby guards to not notice you right away.

Expect to see this a lot. Credit: Ubisoft/Steam

The biggest change, though, is the ability to go prone and crawl around on the ground. It's the only way to get through certain grassy areas unnoticed, and genuinely saved my ass about half a dozen times during the demo. If an enemy spots you, you can quickly go prone and hope to God whatever is around you provides enough cover to get them off your trail. Anyone who has ever played a Metal Gear game will agree that crawling around on your stomach is a fun way to sneak around, not only because you feel super stealthy, but also because you're incredibly vulnerable in that state. When you do it right, you feel awesome. When you do it wrong, you die. That tension should add a lot to Shadows.

Naoe also has a grappling hook that she can use pretty freely to scale vertical structures, and the areas I snuck through were definitely built with that in mind. Trying to quickly climb a rope up to a roof before a nearby guard turns around and sees you is the exact kind of juice I want from a stealth game.

While both characters are clearly geared for a specific style of play, you can technically fight dudes one-on-one with Naoe, or sneak around as Yasuke. Both seem fairly inadvisable, though. Naoe is lithe and nimble, but she can die in just a couple of hits. Yasuke, meanwhile, is a burly, lumbering samurai who climbs slower and doesn't have all of Naoe's stealth tools (like the grappling hook) at his disposal.

Most of your time spent with Yasuke will probably look like this. Credit: Ubisoft/Steam

What he does have, however, are a katana and the willingness to use it. With Yasuke, I played the final mission like an action game, totally unconcerned with being stealthy. This was admittedly less compelling to me than the Naoe approach. Even basic enemies feel a bit like damage sponges who take a few too many hits to kill. I'll give Shadows the benefit of the doubt here and assume Yasuke will feel more powerful after dozens of hours of gameplay, but the demo didn't really give me the satisfaction of cutting through guys in one precise blow, like you see in so much other samurai fiction. Still, it wasn't bad by any means, and I did have some fun after figuring out how Yasuke's various abilities work.

Even with my gripe about enemy health, it's probably for the best that Shadows is a more challenging game than the ones that came before it. More broadly, it's great that people who don't like stealth (but find other aspects of these games appealing) can seemingly play the entire game as a big old tank.

I was always going to check out Assassin's Creed Shadows just because I've played almost all of these games since 2007 and it would be ridiculous to stop now. But I came away from this demo pretty pleased with what Ubisoft has put together. Between bringing back NPC assassins from Brotherhood and doing the whole two-character thing in a substantially more freeform way than Syndicate, Shadows has something to like for almost any AC fan.

We'll see if that's enough to make it fun for 50+ hours, though.

Assassin's Creed Shadows launches on March 20 for PS5, Xbox Series consoles, and PC.