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Smart furniture is stupidly expensive. On my hunt for full-length mirrors with smart RGB lighting, it hit me. I don't want to pay $150 or more for something that does not even connect to my smart home ecosystem. That's why I decided to make it myself, all on a tight budget. Going the DIY route let me create something perfect for my needs, instead of sifting through the boring, overpriced options on the market. The total cost of making my own smart RGB mirror was astonishingly cheap. Here's how I did it.

Dremels have long been trusted by people who want a comfortable, reliable rotary tool that works for everything from odd jobs around the house to professional daily use. The brand's latest 8150 takes things to another level with upgraded design features, and now you can get it at its lowest price ever on Amazon.

Updated on Friday, Nov. 13 at 4:59 a.m. ET / Thursday, Nov. 13 at 1:59 a.m. PT — Microsoft says it's "seeing early stabilization and capacity improvements as recovery actions continue." The company also said it has extended email timeout to 48 hours to help preserve delayed mail during this event.

Updated on Friday, Nov. 13 at 1:08 a.m. ET / Thursday, Nov. 12 at 10:08 p.m. PT — Microsoft is still looking into the cause of the outage, but states that at present it is "not aware of any malicious activity that is causing this incident."

Updated on Thursday, Nov. 12 at 10:58 p.m. ET / 7:58 p.m. PT — Unfortunately, Microsoft's efforts to bring servers back online aren't going as planned. It appears to have been unable to address the issue of them becoming unresponsive again, and has stated it is now searching for different ways to increase traffic capacity.

"We've monitored the status of the changes applied to improve serviceability and confirmed they're not taking as expected," Microsoft wrote in an update on X.

Updated on Thursday, Nov. 12 at 8:07 p.m. ET / 5:07 p.m. PT — Microsoft has revised its list of features and services impacted by this outage, stating that it is affecting ones that interact with Exchange Online and email services. Microsoft Outlook, SharePoint Online, Teams, Copilot AI, and 365 are all continuing to have various issues, though Azure appears to be operational.

Updated on Thursday, Nov. 12 at 7:53 p.m. ET / 4:53 p.m. PT — Microsoft has issued a new update stating that the servers they've brought back online may become unresponsive again when they receive traffic. The company is currently investigating the issue, though in the meantime it's limiting the types of traffic going to these servers in some locations.

Updated on Thursday, Nov. 12 at 6:23 p.m. ET / 3:23 p.m. PT — Microsoft states that it is bringing some servers back online, and "they remain stable so far." Users should expect a "gradual recovery."

"We're also shifting traffic to alternate routes wherever possible and observing limited recovery," Microsoft wrote in an update on X. "In parallel, we've streamlined the process of returning the remaining affected servers to service."

Updated on Thursday, Nov. 12 at 4:17 p.m. ET / 1:17 p.m. PT — In its latest update, Microsoft stated on X that it's deploying fixes and some servers have already come back online. The company's status page still listed Microsoft 365 service as "degraded."

Updated on Thursday, Nov. 12 at 3:01 p.m. ET / 12:01 p.m. PT — The Microsoft 365 Status account on X shared updates explaining why the outage is happening and what they are doing to fix it.

Updated on Thursday, Nov. 12 at 2:20 p.m. ET / 11:20 p.m. PT — The Microsoft service status page is loading normally again, and a notification reads: "Users may be unable to connect to multiple Microsoft 365 services."

The status page in question. Credit: Screenshot: Microsoft

Updated on Thursday, Nov. 12 at 1:45 p.m. ET / 10:45 p.m. PT — Microsoft initially described the issue as primarily affecting mailboxes "in the Americas." However, in an update posted to X, the company acknowledged other services and locations were also affected.

Thousands of Microsoft Outlook users reported an outage on Thursday afternoon, with user error reports for Microsoft products spiking sharply.

The platform DownDetector showed error reports spiking around 12:30 p.m. ET. By 1:12 p.m. ET, the service had received more than 130,000 reports, indicating serious problems with the popular email service. Virtually all Microsoft services showed elevated error reports, including Microsoft 365, Microsoft Copilot, and Microsoft Teams.

Credit: Screenshot courtesy of DownDetector

Mashable reached out to Microsoft for comment, and we'll update this story if we receive more information.

From the beginning, there were signs of a widespread problem with Microsoft services. Case in point: The Microsoft service status page was not loading for Mashable reporters for part of the day, though it has since come back online.

The Microsoft 365 Status account on X initially posted a message acknowledging an outage at 12:54 p.m. ET: "We're investigating reports of users experiencing issues accessing Exchange Online mailboxes through multiple connection methods in the Americas."

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At 1:07 p.m. ET, the company wrote, "While we're working to mitigate impact, we've confirmed the issue may affect Microsoft 365 service connectivity for users in any region, more information will be provided in the Microsoft 365 admin center under EX1550543." The company added, "a portion of infrastructure is experiencing elevated load across multiple regions, which is likely contributing to the connectivity errors."

The company's status page indicated that the outage specifically affects Microsoft 365, the company's suite of tools for enterprise customers. Microsoft consumer products should still be operational.

Microsoft also clarified that users may have trouble accessing Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, Microsoft Copilot 365, and Microsoft Defender XDR, in particular.

In the latest updates, posted to X at 4:06 p.m. ET, Microsoft said it had started deploying a fix that would allow some servers to come back online. The company has also found "a small number of configuration updates" that may be part of the overall problem.

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Outlook previously experienced a widespread outage in August. At the time, the company cited a "misconfiguration issue that prevented authentication components from deploying correctly.

This is a developing story...

One of 2026's new movies on HBO Max has found a substantial audience in streaming. That movie is The Invite, an excellent comedy starring Olivia Wilde, Seth Rogen, Penélope Cruz, and Edward Norton. The Invite hit HBO Max on Oct. 23, and it's seemingly been in the top three ever since. I cannot recommend it enough; it's that good.

Updated on Friday, Nov. 13 at 4:59 a.m. ET / Thursday, Nov. 13 at 1:59 a.m. PT — Microsoft says it's "seeing early stabilization and capacity improvements as recovery actions continue." The company also said it has extended email timeout to 48 hours to help preserve delayed mail during this event.

Updated on Friday, Nov. 13 at 1:08 a.m. ET / Thursday, Nov. 12 at 10:08 p.m. PT — Microsoft is still looking into the cause of the outage, but states that at present it is "not aware of any malicious activity that is causing this incident."

Updated on Thursday, Nov. 12 at 10:58 p.m. ET / 7:58 p.m. PT — Unfortunately, Microsoft's efforts to bring servers back online aren't going as planned. It appears to have been unable to address the issue of them becoming unresponsive again, and has stated it is now searching for different ways to increase traffic capacity.

"We've monitored the status of the changes applied to improve serviceability and confirmed they're not taking as expected," Microsoft wrote in an update on X.

Updated on Thursday, Nov. 12 at 8:07 p.m. ET / 5:07 p.m. PT — Microsoft has revised its list of features and services impacted by this outage, stating that it is affecting ones that interact with Exchange Online and email services. Microsoft Outlook, SharePoint Online, Teams, Copilot AI, and 365 are all continuing to have various issues, though Azure appears to be operational.

Updated on Thursday, Nov. 12 at 7:53 p.m. ET / 4:53 p.m. PT — Microsoft has issued a new update stating that the servers they've brought back online may become unresponsive again when they receive traffic. The company is currently investigating the issue, though in the meantime it's limiting the types of traffic going to these servers in some locations.

Updated on Thursday, Nov. 12 at 6:23 p.m. ET / 3:23 p.m. PT — Microsoft states that it is bringing some servers back online, and "they remain stable so far." Users should expect a "gradual recovery."

"We're also shifting traffic to alternate routes wherever possible and observing limited recovery," Microsoft wrote in an update on X. "In parallel, we've streamlined the process of returning the remaining affected servers to service."

Updated on Thursday, Nov. 12 at 5:26 p.m. ET / 2:26 p.m. PT — Microsoft services remained down on Thursday evening, as Microsoft acknowledged ongoing problems in an update posted to X.

The Microsoft global outage has affected Outlook, Teams, and other Microsoft 365 services, starting around 12:30 p.m. ET.

If Outlook wouldn't load for you on Thursday, Microsoft now has a theory about what went wrong. The company said in an X post on Nov. 12 that a component responsible for checking whether its servers are working properly may be behind the failures that took some of them out of service.

SEE ALSO: Microsoft outage: Microsoft 365, Teams, Outlook, Copilot all impacted

In its service health update, Microsoft said some servers went offline after failing automated health checks. With parts of its infrastructure under heavier load than usual across multiple regions, the company said that extra strain was likely contributing to connection problems.

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Microsoft also says it’s "deploying a targeted change to bypass this component on a subset of servers" to see if that brings them back online. It has also taken steps to keep more servers from going out of service. So far, Microsoft says it hasn’t found a recent change that coincided with the start of the outage. The company is still investigating why the checks failed.

Microsoft initially flagged trouble accessing Exchange Online mailboxes in the Americas. Exchange Online is the service that stores and delivers email for many Outlook users.

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The company later warned that the issue "may affect Microsoft 365 service connectivity for users in any region." Around 1 p.m. ET, nearly 130,000 Outlook problem reports appeared on Downdetector, and users reported trouble loading their inboxes and sending or receiving emails. Copilot users also reported problems.

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Earlier Thursday, Microsoft had also flagged problems with Teams in North America under incident TM1550488. In a follow-up on X, the company said its automated recovery systems had kicked in and were reducing the disruption.

Microsoft is posting updates under EX1550543 and MO1550821 in the Microsoft 365 admin center. If the admin center is also out of reach, Microsoft is directing users to its public service status page.

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This is a developing story...

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Microsoft's popular suite of enterprise products, known as Microsoft 365, which includes Outlook, Teams, and Copilot, suffered from a massive outage on Thursday.

Or did it?

While more than 100,000 users reported problems accessing Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft 365 on the platform DownDetector, Microsoft is saying it's actually a cloud tool called Microsoft Exchange that's causing problems.

So, what is Microsoft Exchange? And why does it being down affect your ability to access your email or message your coworkers?

Microsoft Exchange is the backend cloud tool that sends data updates to Outlook. It's essentially the server that stores the actual data, handles the mail flow, syncs the data to services like Outlook, and controls account security policies. Put simply, Outlook is the front end; Exchange is the back end.

For most users, though, this is a distinction without a difference. The end result is that users can't access their email, calendar, or messages.

The company has been providing updates on the situation on X:

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Mashable reached out to Microsoft with questions about the outage, but the company has not responded, as of this writing.

I have been using Fedora as my daily driver for years now. In fact, it's been so long that I don't even remember exactly when I switched to it, and I really like it. I have tried several Linux distros over the years, including Ubuntu, but I always find myself coming back to Fedora. Part of that comes down to personal preference. I have always felt that Ubuntu is a little bloated, and even when I tried it again recently, I couldn't quite shake that feeling. Fedora just feels cleaner to me, particularly in how it handles the GNOME desktop.

There are a few ways to react when Outlook goes down in the middle of the workday. Some people keep refreshing their inboxes or ask a coworker if theirs is loading. On Thursday, plenty of people used the downtime to post on social media, where an afternoon without email turned out to be pretty good material.

An ongoing Microsoft 365 outage left people struggling to open their work inboxes, and Microsoft said other services, including Teams and Microsoft 365 Copilot, could also be affected. Reports of Outlook problems began spiking around 12:30 p.m. ET, and by 1:12 p.m. ET, Downdetector had logged more than 130,000 reports, as Mashable previously reported, with the apt subtitle, "Because there's not enough happening in the tech world today..."

SEE ALSO: Is Outlook down? Possible Microsoft outage locks down email inboxes.

For some X users, the outage hit just as they were getting started with their days. "As soon as I sign in outlook is down. Aww man!" wrote one user. Another declared himself "off work for the afternoon." In a reply to Microsoft's outage alert, one X user said, "if outlook doesnt work in the next 15 minutes we should all be able to leave work early today."

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For others, the outage landed around lunchtime on the East Coast, and Adweek had an idea for how to spend it. "outlook is down which means the three-martini lunch is back," the publication posted on X. In the replies, users were grateful to "whoever chewed the wires at the outlook offices, bless your heart fr," while some were very worried about the state of their inbox. "oh noooo Outlook is down, how will I respond to all of these very important emails? ahhh I hope they hurry up and fix it oh noooooo"

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There was a good chunk of those on social media who weren't surprised one bit by the outage. "If I had a dime for every 365 issue, I’d be rich!" wrote one user on Reddit. Another said Microsoft's Power Platform was running slowly. "So everything is as expected." One commenter dubbed the service "Microsoft 364," and another figured it would be down to Microsoft 363 if the outage lasted more than 48 hours. "Microsoft when Outlook and Teams go down. Again," wrote one user on X, alongside a GIF from The Naked Gun in which Leslie Nielsen's Frank Drebin tells a crowd there's "nothing to see here" as a fireworks factory explodes behind him. Subtle comparison.

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. This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed. What else was affected by the Microsoft outage?

Microsoft first flagged trouble accessing Exchange Online mailboxes in the Americas at 12:54 p.m. ET. The company later said the outage could affect Microsoft 365 users in any region. Microsoft's public status page listed consumer products as operational, while its business and enterprise customers faced connectivity issues.

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Exchange Online, the service behind many work and school Outlook inboxes, was the hardest hit. Microsoft also listed Teams, Microsoft 365 Copilot, SharePoint Online, and Defender XDR as potentially affected. The company said unusually high load on part of its infrastructure was likely contributing to the connection problems and that it had rerouted traffic and was restarting affected servers.

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NFC tags are a simple and effective way to trigger smart home automations. You can scan a tag with your phone to do things such as turning on lights or starting timers, but there are plenty of uses you might not have considered.

Apple has changed its trade-in values once agin. While many of the company's products now offer more during trade-ins, several key products — including some iPhone Pro versions — are now worth less when you turn them in. Apple hasn't publicly explained why it changed trade-in prices today, but it arrives amidst over seven updates in the past year alone, including its most recent update in late October.

Most Android phones come loaded with apps you never picked and don't always want. I got tired of working around them, but I didn't want to just delete or deactivate them. That is why I went to open-source replacements on F-Droid. These apps cover the basics without asking for an account.

Investors and industry experts have long worried that the AI industry will expand until it inevitably bursts. And in the wake of a historic midterm election cycle that decidedly challenged the interests of Big Tech, the AI industry is facing enormous strain from all sides.

Former Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, a leading figure of the AI boom, has gone down in a salacious scandal involving extramarital affairs and accusations of Chinese espionage. SpaceXSI owner Elon Musk invested and lost millions on Republican campaigns during the midterms that he and other Big Tech leaders hoped would open up the floodgates to greater AI infrastructure. OpenAI and Anthropic have been implicated in numerous cybersecurity scandals on top of a domestic mental health crisis. Google, Meta, and OpenAI's ChatGPT are at the epicenter of a child safety reckoning that could change education and social media forever.

Is the AI reckoning truly here?

SEE ALSO: AI agents may run your household. What could go wrong? A new sweeping lawsuit against the AI industry

The latest challenge the industry is facing down is a lawsuit filed today (Nov. 12) by a safety and civil society groups Public Citizen, Irreplaceable Education Fund, Heat Initiative, and The Alliance for Secure AI. The groups argue that AI's developers are aware of "imminent and catastrophic risks to humanity" posed by AI and urges courts to freeze the industry's development completely in the name of public safety.

"Despite endless warnings about the grave risks their products pose to public safety and even civilization itself, AI company executives are rushing to develop and deploy ever-more advanced AI systems," wrote Robert Weissman, co-president of Public Citizen, in a press release. "We the People should not simply stand by and tolerate AI executives’ unhinged risk-taking at the public’s expense. Our lawsuit asks the court to apply existing law and find the AI corporations’ reckless practices unlawful and freeze further AI development."

SEE ALSO: Nvidia stock plunges as CEO Jensen Huang resigns: How low it might go

The group argues that companies are risking public safety by developing and releasing products they have admitted are potentially harmful, and that further development can be halted under California's Unfair Competition Law.

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman have previously agreed on the need to slow the growth of highly advanced AI systems. In a September essay, Amodei proposed a three-point plan to "pace the frontier" of AI, which Altman later signaled his support for.

"Children have already paid the price for Big Tech prioritizing profit over safety. We’ve watched chatbots push kids toward suicide and AI tools turn their ordinary photos into AI-generated child sexual abuse material,” said Brooke Istook, CEO of child advocacy organization Heat Initiative. "Now these companies are racing to build AI systems they admit they may not be able to control. If that happens, the protections we’ve spent years fighting for won’t be enough."

Parents band together to protest and demand action

Some believe the country's incoming Democratic Congress may finally hold tech companies' feet to the fire. Coinciding with the lawsuit, dozens of survivor parent-advocates sent a letter to California Attorney General Rob Bonta and Delaware Attorney General Kathy Jennings, urging them to compel OpenAI to restructure its corporate structure and board membership to better support safe AI deployment. The group argues the two states, which led a joint investigation into OpenAI's recent restructuring, could force the AI company into adopting even stronger safety measures.

While the industry debates appropriate regulation and courts mull over the legal system's power over AI, schools are becoming their own battleground.

In the first education-related lawsuit of its kind, a family is arguing their teen's access to AI on school-issued Chromebooks posed a life-threatening risk to her mental health.

Then on Nov. 11, a coalition of school and child safety groups led nationwide protests over Google's new controversy-stirring policies for schools. In an announcement a week prior, Google announced that its AI tools would now be opt-in by default, including its AI-powered Search. Because Search's AI tools can't be turned off, districts with AI bans would be forced to choose between allowing Search or violating AI guidelines.

Advocates argue that Google's "ultimatum" presents an opportunity to pressure the tech giant into relinquishing some of its far-reaching AI goals. Many have urged districts to cancel contracts with the company and find AI-free alternatives.

Room lighting often clashes with what is happening during a movie, but keeping a room completely dark isn't feasible for most, either. A TV backlight kit like the Govee TV Backlight 3 Lite adds reactive lighting behind your set, making the spectacle of watching movies all the more immersive.

Microsoft Outlook users have experienced widespread disruption on November 12, with hundreds of thousands reporting problems accessing Microsoft's email service.

GPU prices are a bit of a sad joke right now, so much so that many people turn to handhelds. And even before things got this bad in the PC hardware market, the Steam Deck was a popular alternative for people who wanted versatile gaming in a small footprint.

The company that makes the chips behind much of the AI we use every day is suddenly looking for a new CEO.

Jensen Huang, who co-founded Nvidia and ran it for 33 years, resigned Thursday after reports of two extramarital affairs: one was reportedly with a Nvidia executive who worked for him named Kimberly Powell, the other was with Alice Huang (no relation), a former executive at Nvidia customer Megaspeed whom U.S. officials suspect of spying for Beijing.

Before all this, Trump and Huang knew each other pretty well. Huang was already one of Trump's tech advisers, and Nvidia had been asking the administration to let it sell more AI chips in China. When Trump invited Huang to Beijing at the last minute in May, the executive hopped aboard Air Force One during a fuel stop in Alaska.

When the allegations involving Alice Huang came up at Mar-a-Lago on Oct. 31, reporters asked whether Trump would keep Huang on as a tech adviser. Trump said he'd like to. "I’ve always found Jensen Huang to be very above board," he told reporters at his Florida resort on Halloween.

SEE ALSO: Jensen Huang resigns: A timeline of the Nvidia affair

A little over a week later, on Nov. 8, reporters asked Trump again about Jensen Huang's future, this time at Nvidia. Earlier that day, Huang had apologized to employees in a bombshell email admitting he'd been unfaithful to his wife. Nvidia opened an investigation into whether he'd been targeted by foreign intelligence after reports of an affair with suspected spy Alice Huang. The board said at the time it had no reason to believe company secrets or U.S. national security had been compromised. Trump agreed, called Huang "an honorable guy." Did he think Huang should still run Nvidia? "I think so, oh yeah, sure."

Trump said he hadn't spoken to Huang about the allegations when he made those remarks. When he spoke to reporters again on Monday, Nov. 9, he said he'd asked Huang whether he knew about Alice Huang's alleged ties to Chinese intelligence. Jensen Huang told the president he had no idea, according to Trump. "I really believe him," the president said.

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That left a question about what Trump himself knew. On Monday, Nov. 9, a reporter asked whether he'd heard about the allegations when he and Huang flew to Beijing in May. "No, I didn’t hear about it then," Trump said. The Washington Post reported on Thursday, Nov. 12, that Secretary of State Marco Rubio had briefed Trump about the alleged relationship aboard Air Force One on May 12, before Huang boarded in Alaska.

Credit: Tierney L. Cross/Bloomberg via Getty Images

As new information from the New York Times and Reuters started coming out with reports that Huang had also had an affair with an Nvidia executive who reported to him, it became a little more difficult to maintain trust in the Nvidia boss — Thursday morning, Nvidia announced that Huang had resigned as CEO and stepped down from the company's board.

Trump wasted little time pitching a replacement only a few hours later. He wrote on Truth Social:

NOW THAT Nvidia CEO JENSEN HUANG, who has done a fantastic job, has resigned, there is only one man to take his place - TIM COOK of Apple. A Legend replaces a Legend! President DONALD J. TRUMP

For now, Nvidia's finance chief, Colette Kress, is running the company while the board looks for a permanent CEO.

As for Cook, he still has a job at Apple. He stayed on as executive chairman after stepping down as CEO in September, and neither he nor Apple immediately responded when Reuters asked about Trump's suggestion.

This is a developing story...

We've been talking about OLED TVs as the ultimate TV display technology for years, and they've finally become affordable enough that many of us can bring one into our living rooms.

Even the most open and trusting person in the world would tell you they aren't comfortable with people snooping through their phone. There is nothing wrong with wanting a little bit of privacy. With our phones becoming more integrated into our personal lives, they tend to contain more sensitive information that you wouldn't just want anyone seeing. Sometimes, this can make things a bit awkward when someone asks to use your phone for something.

Over the past four years, Roku tried to convince you that the company behind your TV stick should also guard your front porch. This awkward side hustle appears to be coming to an end.

Many of us are traveling this holiday season and need a comfortable, spacious backpack to carry our laptops and other items. Oakley's Blade 30L Backpack is a stylish choice with all the space you can ask for. Get it now on Amazon at 40% off and make your travels easier.