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One of the major selling points of the Pixel phones is their AI features. However, I'm not a big fan of AI features on a smartphone. If you're like me, then keep reading to find out how to turn off all the annoying AI features on your Google Pixel phone.

With lossless audio coming to Spotify Premium, this high-fidelity audio option is now available to most music streaming subscribers on big services. That's great in principle, but is it worth sacrificing your bandwidth, storage space, and paying a premium to have access to lossless media?

Following San Diego Comic-Con this summer, New York Comic-Con brought even more exciting announcements. Here's a running list of TV and movie trailer drops and sneak peeks you need to know about.

A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms

A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is a prequel to Game of Thrones, taking place a century before the events of the original series. Based on novellas by George R.R. Martin, A Knight of Seven Kingdoms will follow shabby knight Sir Duncan the Tall (Peter Claffey) and his squire, Egg (Dexter Sol Ansell).

How to watch: A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms premieres January 18 on HBO Max.

Marvel's Wonder Man miniseries teaser

Marvel dropped a teaser for Wonder Man, an eight-episode miniseries. The trailer is pretty meta, with talk of an in-universe reboot of a Wonder Man movie. "I know your question is, 'Why one more superhero film?'" a reclusive director character says in an interview. "Everyone is tired of superheroes" — saying what many fans watching the teaser must be thinking. According to Entertainment Weekly, the series itself will be pretty meta as well, with the actual hero auditioning to be the movie version of Wonder Man.

"Have you given any thought about casting?" the interviewer asks, with the final shot of the teaser being Wonder Man (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) staring at his phone, watching.

On Marvel's website, it states that Wonder Man premieres in December, but Entertainment Weekly reported that it's shifted to January.

How to watch: Wonder Man premieres on Disney+ in January 2026.

Invincible Season 4 gets a release date

At SDCC in July, creator Robert Kirkman updated fans about Invincible Season 4, like that Matthew Rhys will be voicing Dr. David Anders/Dinosaurus. Kirkman also revealed that Grand Regent Thragg, ruler of the Viltrum Empire, would debut — and now as of NYCC, we know who will voice him: Lee Pace, Variety reported. An entire trailer dropped, as well as a release date (March).

How to watch: Invincible Season 4 premieres on Amazon Prime in March 2026.

Mercy trailer drops

Chris Pratt and Rebecca Ferguson star in this new sci-fi movie, Mercy, from Amazon MGM, releasing in January. "Mercy" is an advanced AI who acts as judge, jury, and executioner according to the trailer. (Not totally terrifying or topical at all!) Pratt plays Detective Raven, who helped develop the program, now on trial for murdering his wife. If he can't prove his innocence in 90 minutes to Mercy (Ferguson), the AI will kill him.

How to watch: Mercy will be released in theaters on January 23.

The Vampire Lestat extended first look

The Vampire Lestat, Season 3 of the AMC+ Interview With The Vampire adaptation, takes a bite at Anne Rice's second book in her Vampire Chronicles series. While Interview focused on Louis de Pointe du Lac's (Jacob Anderson) journey from human to vampire, The Vampire Lestat stars his (former) vampiric lover, Lestat de Lioncourt (Sam Reid) — in case the title didn't make that obvious. While the first trailer dropped last year at SDCC, fans will have to wait until next year for the entire season to drop, so AMC+ must've felt merciful to give fans an extended look at the 2025 NYCC.

How to watch: The Vampire Lestat premieres in 2026 on AMC+.

Adventure Time: Fionna and Cake drops Season 2 trailer

Fans at New York Comic Con got their first glimpse of Season 2 of Adventure Time: Fionna and Cake, the beloved alternate-universe duo’s next chapter. This time around, the pair set off on fresh adventures following their multiverse-hopping journey in Season 1.

The new ten-episode season premieres Thursday, Oct. 23, on HBO Max. New episodes will air weekly through Dec. 25.

Release dates for new seasons of Spider-Man, X-Men '97, and Daredevil: Born Again

Marvel Animation has given fans a clearer timeline for when to expect new seasons of its acclaimed Disney+ series: Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, X-Men ’97, and Daredevil: Born Again.

Season 2 of the animated web-slinger is set to debut in fall 2026, featuring the return of a classic-suit Daredevil and the introduction of Venom to the series.

Marvel also confirmed that X-Men ’97 has been renewed for a third season, with Season 2 arriving in summer 2026. Fans in attendance were also treated to an early look at Daredevil: Born Again Season 2, which premieres in March 2026 and marks the long-awaited MCU return of Krysten Ritter’s Jessica Jones.

First look at Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 4

Paramount+ has unveiled the latest installment of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, the hit Trek spinoff continuing the adventures of Captain Christopher Pike and the starship Enterprise. Where they’ll go next is anyone’s guess — but adventure, as always, awaits.

In the new clip premiered at New York Comic Con, the crew finds themselves trapped in a perilous, disorienting storm that puts both their ship and their resolve to the test.

No release date has been announced yet, but Paramount confirmed back in June that Strange New Worlds has been renewed for a fifth and final season.

Check back for more developments as NYCC continues.

If you're customizing your mechanical keyboard with aftermarket keycaps, it helps to understand their shapes (aka keycap profiles) so that you can pick the right ones. Here’s a quick crash course on everything you need to know about keycap profiles.

Have you ever seen the term “optical character recognition” or OCR and wondered what it meant? Well, I’m here to help you understand what OCR is. It’s very possible that you’ve used OCR and didn’t know it. You might have even used it today. Here’s everything you need to know about optical character recognition.

Save $55: As of Oct. 11, Walmart.com has the Fitbit Charge 6 on sale for 30% off. It costs $104.45, down from its list price of $159.95. 

Opens in a new window Credit: Fitbit Fitbit Charge 6 Fitness Tracker with Heart Rate $104.45 at walmart
$159.95 Save $55.50 Get Deal

This weekend, Walmart.com has an excellent deal going on the Fitbit Charge 6. If you’re someone who likes to jog, hike, or bike among the changing leaves of fall, consider scoring a new Fitbit to track your progress.

The Fitbit Charge 6 has the most accurate heart rate tracking technology yet, according to the brand. Firstly, the device is packed full of fitness and health monitoring features that I will break down in a second. The device is also an excellent smartwatch; stay connected to Google Maps, Google Wallet, and get call, text, and app notifications as much (or as little) as you’d like. 

The Fitbit also offers some fun aesthetic features, including different band colors (black, white, or coral). The vibrant touchscreen has watch faces that are fully customizable. The brand offers wrist straps in two sizes: small (140 mm–180 mm) or large (180 mm–220 mm). The battery life can last up to 6 days on one charge and is water-resistant for up to 50m.

As for the health features, there are many. The Fitbit Charge 6 features ECG and irregular heart rhythm notifications, oxygen saturation monitoring (Sp02). The device also offers notifications for an unusually low or high resting heart rate. You can also utilize your Fitbit Charge 6 for sleep wellness with smart wake alarms, nightly sleep scores, and on-wrist guided mindfulness sessions. Purchase of this model also includes a premium membership that gives users access to guided workouts, meditation sessions, and “deeper wellness insights”.

We’ve all picked up weird habits with our phones over the years. Little routines that made sense at the time, passed down like tech folklore. “Close your apps to save battery.” “Never charge overnight.” “Let your battery hit zero before plugging it in.”

Apple Vision Pro users will be able to experience select NBA games in an immersive way for the 2025-26 season, Apple announced on Friday.

Some Los Angeles Lakers matches will be in Apple Immersive video, a format specifically for the headset. The company's release states, "Viewers will feel the intensity of each game as if they were courtside, with perspectives impossible to capture in traditional broadcasts. "

SEE ALSO: Apple shelves cheaper Vision Pro to focus on smart glasses, report says

A schedule of Lakers matchups that can be watched immersively will come later this fall, and the first game will stream in early 2026. They'll be filmed with a camera called the URSA Cine Immersive Live camera from Blackmagic Design, which launched earlier this year to capture Apple Immersive videos.

The immersive games will be available through the upcoming Spectrum SportsNet App for fans in the team's regional broadcast territory: Southern California, Hawaii, and parts of southern Nevada, including Las Vegas. Users must run visionOS 26 or later to experience Apple Immersive video, and a subscription to Spectrum broadband or SportsNet is required to use the SportsNet app, according to the fine print.

On both the SportsNet and NBA apps, full game replays and highlights will be available to Vision Pro users in select regions and countries. Spectrum subscribers can also watch live and replay traditional game broadcasts with the Spectrum TV app, and if you have an NBA League Pass, you can do the same on the NBA app.

Last year, Apple dropped several immersive videos for the Vision Pro, including the 2024 NBA All-Star Weekend.

The arrival of HDR was a revelation, and for a long time TVs struggled to reach the brightness needed to make this new video standard shine, but now thanks to a relentless brightness war, even entry-level TVs can reach heights only high-end sets could dream of before.

Android phones and tablets are at just as much risk as any other device for snooping, surveillance, and cybercrime. To help you combat these dangers, we’ve put together the best VPNs for Android so you can surf more securely.

SAVE $30: As of Oct. 11, Amazon is offering a 3-month pass to XBox Game Pass Ultimate for $60 or $20 a month.

Opens in a new window Credit: Microsoft Xbox Game Pass Ultimate 3-month Pass $60 at Amazon
Get Deal

The past couple of weeks have been an emotional roller coaster for Xbox Game Pass Ultimate holders and fans. On Oct. 1st, Microsoft announced that it would be increasing the price of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate by a startling 50%. This increase was not received well by users and fans, according to Mashable’s senior culture reporter Christiana Silva. Since this announcement arrived two days before Microsoft also announced increased Xbox console prices, fans have been… upset. 

Microsoft also sent out communications on October 8th stating that some users would not experience a price increase to their subscription. Unfortunately, the US and UK were not among the people catching a break. If you’re a big fan of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, there is good news this weekend, though. Right now on Amazon, you can get a 3-month pass for Xbox Game Pass Ultimate for the current price.

If you’re curious what Xbox Game Pass Ultimate has to offer, it packs a lot into one pass. Game Pass Ultimate allows you to stream and play hundreds of games and join the heart of the Xbox gaming community with online console multiplayer. The pass includes console multiplayer, EA Play, and a sizable variety of game genres. Xbox Game Pass Ultimate also allows you to play games like Avowed, South of Midnight, and Doom: The Dark Ages the minute they are released. 

With this pass on Amazon, you can stave off the price increase to your subscription for a few months. Make sure to take note that Amazon explicitly states that this pass is non-returnable and non-refundable. The pass gives you a code for 3 free months, allowing you to decide when you begin to use it.

SAVE $250: As of Oct. 11, this 75-inch Hisense TV with 4K UHD is 35% off. Coming in at $448, which is down $250 from its list price of $698 on Walmart.com. 

Opens in a new window Credit: Hisense 75-inch Hisense TV with 4K UHD $448 at Walmart
$698 Save $250 Get Deal

"Cozymax" your fall by leveling up your living room with this 75-inch Hisense TV. Not only is this TV simply massive, it's also packed with bonus features. The metal, bevel-less edge design of this TV allows you to have such a large screen without bulky borders taking up further space. The sleek design primes the TV to fit comfortably into your existing aesthetic.

As for software, this 75-inch Hisense TV deal offers a long list of benefits. First, it comes resplendent with Hisense's proprietary 4K ULED picture. ULED refers to a collection of traits that include QLED's ability to render richer, brighter colors and a tactile, sharp image when dimmed. It also includes 600-Nit peak brightness, which allows the TV to deliver quality HDR content.

The TV also comes with Dolby Vision, Dolby Atmos (which is said to deliver cinema-quality picture and sound straight to your home). Enjoy the TV's filmmaker mode, which allows you to watch movies in the exact aspect ratio and settings that the original filmmakers intended.

Believe it or not, the list is still far from done. This TV is also a Google smart TV with built-in Google Assistant. This can fit into your existing smart home ecosystem (or maybe inspire you to start building one). Tell your TV to dim the lights as you sit down with a massive bowl of popcorn to match your massive new TV screen.

On the first day of 2026, the Steam Beta for Chromebooks will end. This means you will no longer have the option to play Steam games on your Chromebook with official support. If you're not a Chromebook user, this might not sound like much of an issue. After all, who plays video games on a Chromebook?

Billionaire Peter Thiel apparently thinks activist Greta Thunberg and AI "doomers" are "legionnaires of the antichrist," the PayPal and Palantir co-founder reportedly said in a recording reviewed by the Washington Post.

The recording is from a four-part lecture series on the Antichrist, aptly titled "The Antichrist: A Four-Part Lecture Series," according to the Post. In the lectures, which were told to be off the record according to the event listing, Thiel laid out his religious views.

SEE ALSO: Strange AI-generated clips of musicians with animals are going viral

Reuters reported that Thiel has become cautious that an ntichrist who promises to stop something like AI will emerge and forge a one-world government. That person would curtail individual freedoms and human innovation.

"In the 17th, 18th century, the Antichrist would have been a Dr. Strangelove, a scientist who did all this sort of evil crazy science," Thiel reportedly said. "In the 21st century, the Antichrist is a Luddite who wants to stop all science. It's someone like Greta or Eliezer."

The Luddites were former textile workers in the early 19th century who destroyed machines used to replace their labor; "Luddite" has become a term to refer to technology skeptics or opposer.

Thiel also referred to Thunberg, who rose to fame for her climate activism and was recently detained by Israel along with other activists on an aid flotilla to Gaza. (It is apparently not the first time he associated her with the Antichrist.)

He also named Eliezer Yudkowsky, a prominent AI researcher whose new book, If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies, poses AI as an existential threat. As Gizmodo pointed out, Thiel started funding Yudkowsky's "Singularity Institute" in 2005.

Reuters also recently reported that Thiel warned fellow billionaire Elon Musk against donating to charities.

One of the most famous read-later apps, Pocket by Mozilla, shut down permanently in October. The app was known for its ease of use, sync, and interface, leaving many loyal users shifting to similar apps.

Pennywise lives, and it won't be long before we meet everyone's least favorite clown beneath the sewers of Derry once more.

But given we've already had two IT movies that largely covered the events of Stephen King's famous novel, what is HBO Max's new series IT: Welcome to Derry going to be about?

We've seen from the trailer that Pennywise (Bill Skarsgård) will return, and that a bunch of new kids will be banding together to face him — but how exactly does this tie in with the movies and book?

We've broken down everything we know so far below.

SEE ALSO: Every single Stephen King movie adaptation, ranked Is IT: Welcome to Derry based on Stephen King's book?

Our biggest clues as to what IT: Welcome to Derry will be based on, alongside the trailer, comes courtesy of the official HBO Max logline and some helpful interview quotes from executive producer Andy Muschietti himself.

"Set in the world of Stephen King’s IT universe, IT: WELCOME TO DERRY is based on King’s IT novel and expands the vision established by filmmaker Andy Muschietti in the feature films IT and IT Chapter Two," reads the logline.

So, the show is based on the novel — but which bit? Well, for that we can turn to a Spanish interview Muschietti gave to Radio Tu earlier in the year, which has been translated by Bloody Disgusting (Mashable hasn't translated the original interview).

"It's a story that's based on the interludes of the book," Muschietti said. "The interludes are basically chapters that reflect Mike Hanlon's research. They're fragments of his research. For 27 years, it's the guy trying to figure out what it is, what did it, who did it, who saw it, and all that stuff."

For anyone who hasn't read King's novel, Mike Hanlon is the one member of the Losers' Club who stays behind in Derry after the kids defeat the monster the first time around. The novel has five interludes that are essentially diary entries written by Mike in which he compiles a history of Derry, chronicling the town's darker chapters that coincide with the cycles in which Pennywise awakens to feed.

"So they talk about catastrophic events from the past, like the fire in the Black Spot... the massacre of the Bradley Gang, a gang of bank robbers in the '30s... and the explosion of the Kitchener Ironworks," Muschietti said.

It appears these chapters of Derry's history will form the basis for the new show.

"IT: Welcome to Derry" takes place in 1962, but the show is planning to delve deeper into the town's history. Credit: HBO How is IT: Welcome to Derry related to the IT movies?

Although Andy Muschietti's IT movies were based on King's novel, there was one key difference that will have a knock-on effect for the series: While the childhood portion of the books was set in the late 1950s, the childhood section of the movies takes place in the '80s. This means that all the cycles in Muschietti's IT universe are essentially pushed back by one.

We know from the IT: Welcome to Derry trailer that the series takes place in in 1962, which is the cycle before the one shown in the first IT movie. And we know from Muschietti's interview that he's planning three seasons of this new show, each of which will jump back in time.

In the novels, Pennywise's killing cycles are bookended by catastrophic events. The 1930s cycle starts with the massacre of the Bradley Gang and ends with the fire at the Black Spot, while the cycle before that ends with the Ironworks exploding.

Based on Muschietti's comments, it seems like the show will bring these key moments in the town's history to life.

IT: Welcome to Derry debuts on Sunday, October 26 at 9:00 p.m. ET/PT on HBO, and will be available to stream on HBO Max. New episodes air weekly.

In today’s market, the average new car price has soared well beyond reach for many buyers, making affordable options harder than ever to find. But one model still stands as a reminder that value and practicality can coexist, even in 2025. It’s the last new car in America you can buy for under $20,000, a rare find in an era of rising prices and disappearing budget-friendly vehicles.

Whether you want to restrict data inputs, ensure consistency, or avoid errors, data validation in Microsoft Excel is the tool for you. It can also serve as a vital safety net if you plan to share your workbook with people who are new to Excel or unfamiliar with your spreadsheet.

Remember the metaverse? The virtual reality world from which Mark Zuckerberg's Meta gets its name may not be the trendy tech term it was a couple of years ago, but the company now wants workers building it to utilize the latest shiny tech trend: AI.

In an internal message obtained by 404 Media, Meta's VP of Metaverse, Vishal Shah, apparently told the Metaverse team to work five times faster with AI. "Think 5X, not 5 percent," a graphic in the note included.

SEE ALSO: Meta Ray-Ban Gen 2: Early reviews are in — what do they say?

"Our goal is simple yet audacious: make Al a habit, not a novelty. This means prioritizing training and adoption for everyone, so that using Al becomes second nature — just like any other tool we rely on," Shah reportedly wrote to employees.

"I want to see [project managers], designers, and [cross-functional] partners rolling up their sleeves and building prototypes, fixing bugs, and pushing the boundaries of what's possible," the note continued, according to 404 Media. "I want to see us go 5X faster by eliminating the frictions that slow us down. And 5X faster to get to how our products feel much more quickly."

A Meta spokesperson told Gizmodo that it's well-known that this is a priority and that Meta is focused on using AI to help employees with their day-to-day work. Mashable reported in April that Zuckerberg wants AI to do half of Meta's coding by 2026.

This note comes shortly after AI stole the spotlight at the developer conference Meta Connect last month, with the debuting (and failed demo) of Meta's "AI glasses." Meta also recently launched Vibes, an endless scroll of AI-generated videos, and continues to bake AI into Facebook and Instagram, like adding an "AI dating assistant" to Facebook Dating.

While AI is today's hyped product, it wasn't too long ago that Meta leaned heavily into the metaverse, despite users not being really into it. Meta's VR efforts continue to incur losses, with Meta's Reality Labs reporting a loss of over $4 billion in the second quarter of 2025.

If nothing else, generative AI has proven useful for people who want to make odd stuff for no real reason.

The latest thing? Musicians accompanied by animals. Accompanied in the official, musical sense, and also in an even more literal way — as in a kitty cat climbing all over a metal singer for reasons that are entirely unclear.

Here's this clip that's racked up 13 million likes (and about 113 million views) on TikTok.

Is this AI? Yes. Obviously so, I'd argue. Just look at the cat — the way it moves is uncanny, physics-defying in a way that's unmistakably a trademark of AI. But it is good enough to fool lots of folks.

Here's a good breakdown of the inconsistencies in the video that make it clear it's AI-generated.

That metal singer with a cat isn't the only version of the strange, specific trend. Here's an AI-generated cat accompanying a choir. It's racked up nearly 3 million likes on Facebook.

If you look at the mouths of the singers or how the cat meows, nothing really lines up. But, again, it's good enough to get people to like it as they scroll by.

AI video trends have become remarkably common. There was a whole trend of faking surveillance footage of cute animals, or there was the one with uncanny valley babies, or an entire genre where humans clean whales with heavy machinery.

So just keep this in mind as you scroll: Anything that seems unbelievable, well, maybe you shouldn't believe it these days.