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TL;DR: ChatPlayground AI Unlimited is $59.97 for life through Oct. 11, bringing 20+ AI models into one interface for side-by-side comparisons, unlimited messages, file chats, and AI image generation.

Opens in a new window Credit: ChatPlayground AI ChatPlayground AI: Lifetime Subscription (Unlimited Plan) $59.97
$619 Save $559.03   Get Deal

If you’ve ever copied the same prompt into three different AI tools just to see which one gives the best answer, you’re not alone. Different models excel at different things — but juggling tabs and subscriptions gets old fast. ChatPlayground AI puts the top AI models in one place, so you can compare responses side by side without the back-and-forth.

Through Oct. 11, a lifetime subscription is on sale for $59.97 (reg. $619) during this Deal Days sale, an alternative to Prime Day.

GPT-4o, Claude Sonnet, Gemini, DeepSeek, Llama, Perplexity, and more — all in one clean interface. It’s built 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.

If you’re already paying for multiple AI tools — or constantly switching between them — this consolidates everything into one streamlined platform.

Grab lifetime access to ChatPlayground AI Unlimited for $59.97 through Oct. 11 for Deal Days and stop juggling models for good.

Click here to view more of the Deal Days collection.

StackSocial prices subject to change.

Girl meets boy. Girl falls for boy's impeccable taste in music. Boy turns out to be a girl. That's the irresistible premise of The Guy She Was Interested in Wasn't a Guy at All, the fan-favorite yuri manga making its anime debut in 2027 as a series.

At New York Comic Con on Thursday, Crunchyroll unveiled the adaptation's world premiere trailer, giving fans their first look at Aya and Mitsuki's budding romance.

Based on the manga by Sumiko Arai, The Guy She Was Interested in Wasn't a Guy at All — affectionately called Green Yuri by its fans because of its neon color palette — follows Aya Osawa (voiced by Akari Kitō), a popular high schooler who develops a crush on the mysterious, effortlessly cool employee at her local CD shop. With his dark clothes, piercings, and encyclopedic knowledge of rock music, he's basically her dream guy. There's just one problem: He's not a guy at all.

The employee is actually Mitsuki Koga (voiced by Mariya Ise), Aya's quiet, unassuming classmate, whom she barely notices at school. Outside the classroom, however, Mitsuki has an entirely different look. And while Aya remains blissfully unaware of her crush's true identity, the two begin to bond over their shared love of music.

SEE ALSO: How social media changed what it means to be an anime fan

What starts as a case of mistaken identity gradually blossoms into something much sweeter, as Aya and Mitsuki navigate friendship, attraction, and the complicated business of figuring out their feelings.

The manga has become a favorite among romance fans, thanks in part to Arai's striking black-and-green artwork and its deep affection for rock music. Music isn't merely background noise in this story. It's the language through which Aya and Mitsuki first connect, with their shared tastes providing the foundation for a relationship neither quite knows how to define.

And fittingly for a love story built around a shared obsession with rock music, the anime has some serious grunge credentials. Nirvana's 1991 track "Breed" will serve as the opening theme, a collaboration that even has Dave Grohl's stamp of approval. In a special interview with Arai, the former Nirvana drummer and Foo Fighters frontman said he believed Kurt Cobain would have loved the series, citing its message, aesthetic, and overall vibe. After all, Cobain was never one for rigid gender norms.

Now, the question is how that distinctive visual and musical identity will translate to animation. For fans who have spent years imagining what Aya and Mitsuki's world might look and sound like in motion, the first trailer offers an exciting glimpse.

The Guy She Was Interested in Wasn't a Guy at All is slated will debut on Cruncyroll on Jan. 8, 2027.

I’ve been running a homelab for about eight years now, and during that time I’ve used both mini PCs and NAS systems for all kinds of workloads. I’ve also gone through several generations of Mini PCs and NAS. After all that experimentation, there is one I would recommend to most people starting their first homelab.

Every extension you install adds startup time, uses memory, and gives you one more thing that can break after an update. Over the years, VS Code has absorbed many once-essential extensions by replacing them with built-in features. That means you might be running an extension for something VS Code can already do natively, making your setup more cluttered than it needs to be.

Google's one-handed gestures for the Pixel Watch have quietly grown from a niche trick into a real way to control the watch. With Wear OS 7 on the Pixel Watch 5, double pinch and wrist turn reach far more screens. Here's what they do and whether they're worth enabling.

I still clearly remember the first time I installed Windows 8 Professional on my computer. I was excited because I'd scored an amazing launch deal good enough that I could actually afford two copies of the OS for my computers.

The pace of technological development is frightening, with AI tools doing things we would have barely believed just a few years ago. That doesn't mean newer is always better; I still use several gadgets daily that are 10 years old or more.

Just when you thought Apple was done with big events for the year after the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone Duo announcement last month, the company has announced another special fête for later this month.

Apple Senior VP of Worldwide Marketing Greg Joswiak posted a video on his X account on Thursday which teased an upcoming Oct. 13 event. The video shows two women cross-stitching a rainbow Apple logo with the words "Welcome home" and the event date below it.

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What products could Apple possibly be teasing for the event next week? It seems fairly clear that "welcome home" is referring to its Home products line. 

Some long-rumored products that will likely be unveiled at the event include the HomePad, which is an entirely new product from Apple. HomePad isn't the official name for the product, so Apple could change it. However, the product is largely called that when referring to Apple's upcoming smart display device. It's meant to act as a smart home hub, like the HomePod, but with a display. Siri AI will be a major feature on the device as well.

Apple is also expected to launch a new HomePod mini 2, its smart speaker with AI assistant features, as well as a new Apple TV 4K. There hasn't been a new HomePod device since 2023. The Apple TV streaming device line was last refreshed in 2022. So, obviously, both lines are in need of an update.

There's also a good chance that Apple will also unveil the smart home product line it has partnered with LG on.

One interesting aspect about the video Joswiak posted is the design choice for the Apple logo. The rainbow Apple logo certainly looks like a call back to the old Macintosh era. Are we looking into this too much? Or does Apple have something retro up its sleeve that it's planning to unveil too?

We'll find out on Tuesday, Oct. 13.

You're lucky to get a handful of ports on a new laptop, so it's worth investing in a docking station, like this one from Acer, to connect multiple monitors or other devices. It has a slimline design that fits most laptop bags, and you'll never have to stress about your limited port selection again.

Android tracker tags have improved significantly over the past couple of years, but there are still a few areas where AirTag still reigns supreme. The focus is often put on software features, like notifying you when an item is left behind, but I think the real downside is something nobody talks about: their actual physical design.

The Pixel Watch 3 was only released two years ago, but it's already shedding a potentially vital feature. Google has warned that LTE models of the Pixel Watch 2 and 3 are losing free cellular access to Safety Signal on December 12.

The mechanical keyboard hobby has evolved significantly over the past few years. What was once a fairly niche hobby for gamers and typists has become much more mainstream.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What could Cyberleek release next?

The latest Cyberleek video ended with an allusion to some sort of long-term "project," the likes of which we know nothing about. It's not clear if more leaks are coming or not, but given the October dump, it's possible we'll see more from Cyberleek before the game launches in November.

You can see the game officially now

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Save 50%: As of Oct. 8, the Sony WH-1000XM5 headphones are on sale for $198 at Amazon, knocking $201.99 off their $399.99 list price.

Opens in a new window Credit: Sony Sony WH-1000XM5 $198 at Amazon
$399.99 Save $201.99   Get Deal

Just one month ago, Sony launched a pair of mid-tier headphones targeted toward the more budget conscious consumer who didn't want to sacrifice quality. Who knew that 30 days later, Sony would be offering a deal on its former flagship headphones that offered an even better value?

As of Oct. 8, the Sony WH-1000XM5 headphones are on sale for $198, bringing them down to their lowest price ever, and slashing $201.99 off their total price of $399.99. At first glance, this already looks like a pretty great deal. The context behind it, however, makes it even better.

Let's start with how these headphones compare to the current flagship model, the WH-1000XM6 headphones. While the XM6s come with some minor upgrades, including improvements in sound and folding ear cups, in my head-to-head comparison, I didn't find any wild discrepancies between the two headphones. They're visually very similar and have the same exact battery life. While the XM6's eke out as a slightly better pair overall, they also retail for $459.99 at full price (and are currently on sale for $378). In other words, even on sale they're $180 more — expensive enough that you could nearly buy the XM5s on sale twice over.

SEE ALSO: The 13 best headphones of 2026: We tested the top contenders from Sony, Apple, Bose, and Beats

That's not all. The new WH-1000XM4C from Sony were designed for people who didn't need the best of the best, but still wanted a solid-performing pair of headphones that could stand the test of time. Being a newer pair, they didn't go on sale for October Prime Day and are currently available for their list price of $299.99. Considering they're still over $100 more expensive than the XM5s, the choice seems a no-brainer, unless you're really committed to the look of the XM4Cs or having folding ear cups (which the XM5s do not).

Amazon's flagged the pink XM5s as a "deal selling fast," and the only other color available, on sale, and still in stock is the midnight blue, so if you're interested, you'll want to act sooner rather than later.

The top story in Hollywood is easily the official merger of Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery to form Skydance. How it will affect the entire streaming landscape has yet to be seen. For now, turn your attention toward things you can actually control, like picking out shows to watch this week.

When I read on NPR this week that people are turning to ChatGPT to tell them how to vote, I shook my head. Here we go again, I thought: another search for the easy way out. Voting is too serious of a right to turn over the thought process to AI.

Then I ran the experiment myself, and while I still stand by my old-world views of doing the homework yourself, I must admit that, barring just voting blindly, AI might be better than doing nothing at all.

Politics has been my obsession for as long as I can remember. In college, one of my top goals was to become a press secretary on Capitol Hill. I got there at 23, the youngest press secretary on the Hill at the time, and spent seven years there before moving into a career in public relations.

Now, in a bit of a full-circle moment, I'm an opinion columnist writing about politics for several sites. That’s why I have always taken the right to vote very seriously, and for most of my life, I prided myself on voting for the best person, not the party.

That self-imposed rule came undone in recent years. I won't pretend otherwise.

But my politics are beside the point here. Because of who I am, and my encyclopedic knowledge of politics, my friends, neighbors and family from all over the country reach out to ask who they should vote for in their districts and states.

SEE ALSO: Who are we expecting to save us from AI?

Until a few years ago, I never would have offered a name or a party. I'd tell them to pick the issues they care about most, go to each candidate's website, see where they stand, and decide who has the best point of view or gets the most done. I tried to be impartial.

So, to see if they, too, could be impartial, I asked ChatGPT and Claude, "Who should I vote for?"

Both gave me essentially the answer I give my friends. Neither gave recommendations. Both pointed me toward finding my ballot, choosing my issues and checking the candidates' records. When I listed the issues, both laid out a side-by-side comparison of where the candidates stand.

That is a shortcut, but it's a shortcut to the research, not around it. So, before I proceed, I won’t be using AI to help me cast my ballot, but if all else fails for you, then maybe it’s not such a bad idea.

I say this with a hint of reservation, and with consideration for how most voters get their information, and that’s through the impartiality of political ads. They begin running ad nauseam the Tuesday after Labor Day and repeat over and over and over again until Election Day.

When you mouth the words coming out of the candidate’s mouth as their ad runs, you know you’ve seen it one too many times.

That’s intentional. Drumming messaging into the heads of voters is a time-honored tradition. And those ads have an implicit call to action. They are built to make you angry or to make you cheer, to vow to vote with or against someone. They can also be misleading and downright mean-spirited.

For many Americans juggling jobs, kids, extracurriculars and managing budgets, those 30-second spots are the only contact they might have with the people asking for their vote. Relying on those ads is not the best way to determine who to vote for, but sometimes it’s the only option available.

Compared with that, an AI assistant that helps you map out a strategy and gives you a quick, organized take on where candidates stand looks like a step up.

I'm not suggesting this replaces the real work. It's still best to read the candidates' own platforms, do your own research and dig into the records. And sure, reach out to friends or acquaintances who might know a little more than you. 

I may be old-fashioned, but I still believe in carefully weighing every candidate. However, for those short on time, getting a little help from an AI tool is far better than being swayed by attack ads, guessing blindly, or closing your eyes and picking a name at random.

There is one condition, and it matters more than anything else. If you take the time to ask the question and figure out where the candidates stand, you must take the time to act on it. Vote. Whether you drop your ballot in the mail or step into a booth, nothing beats the pride of knowing you did your civic duty, and that you took the time to prepare and do it right.

Someday, as AI spreads into every corner of our lives, you may be able to tell an assistant who you want to vote for and it will handle the rest. Don’t laugh, because snail-mail ballots might be the last vestige of doing things the old-fashioned way.

Stranger things have happened. But if it ever comes to that, I'll do it the tried and true way, just as I prefer to research my candidates on my own.

This article represents the opinions of its writer.

John Casey is a columnist at Raw Story, the Advocate, Daily Beast, and Outsports. He's also the author of Love: The Heroic Stories of Marriage Equality.

The application of AI in the productivity space, especially note-taking, has been growing rapidly. We've seen newer tools like Granola and Fathom gain popularity, while established platforms like Notion have also integrated AI, helping users generate transcripts and notes from hours-long meetings. It looks like Google is also experimenting in the space but with a twist—a tool called Google AI Edge Foresight that runs locally on your Mac leveraging Apple Silicon. The company is experimenting with Foresight through Google AI Edge wing, a collection of technologies and tools designed to run AI models locally on devices.

Excel is one of those tools I can reach for whenever I need to organize something, which is exactly why I ended up using it as a task manager. But there's a point where a growing list of things to do stops being a spreadsheet problem and starts being a workload problem. So I turned to Super Productivity, and it has become my go-to when I need to get a handle on everything I have to do.

If you haven't been able to get your hands on Nintendo's special-edition Legend of Zelda Switch 2 console yet, plan on camping out at your local Best Buy next month.

In a press release Thursday, the electronics chain confirmed that some of its stores will have the Zelda 40th Anniversary Switch 2 available in limited quantities on Nov. 5, at its late-night launch events for The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. The system's matching Pro Controller will also be up for grabs while supplies last.

These launch events will kick off at 12 a.m. ET on Nov. 5 or the local equivalent. Best Buy stores in the Central Time Zone will open at 11 p.m., West Coast stores will open at 9 p.m., and so on. You can find participating stores near you using Best Buy's store locator tool.

Opens in a new window Credit: Nintendo Nintendo Switch 2 "The Legend of Zelda" 40th Anniversary Edition $519.99 at Best Buy
  Learn More Opens in a new window Credit: Nintendo Nintendo Switch 2 Pro Controller "The Legend of Zelda" 40th Anniversary Edition $99.99 at Best Buy
  Learn More

Gamers who preorder a physical copy of Ocarina of Time from Best Buy will be able to pick it up in person during the festivities. If you already opted to have a preorder delivered, you can change it to store pickup on the Purchase History page of your My Best Buy account.

Featuring gold Triforce accents and green Joy-Con 2 controllers, the Zelda Switch 2 system has been extremely difficult to buy since it first went up for preorder on Sept. 8. (It's set for release on Oct. 29.) GameSpot reported that it sold out "immediately" and spotted reseller listings on eBay with 50% markups. Nintendo has randomly dropped restocks over the past few weeks, but they go fast. At the time of writing, it was out of stock everywhere.

The Zelda Switch 2 costs $519.99, or $30 more than the standard version of the console (which got a $50 price hike this fall amid "RAMageddon"). Of note, it does not include a copy of Nintendo's Ocarina of Time remake — you have to buy the game separately. The Zelda 40th Anniversary Pro Controller costs $99.99, and it's also sold out everywhere.

A physical copy of Ocarina of Time will set you back $69.99, though preorders have been discounted for the last few weeks at Amazon and Walmart (which both promise free release-day delivery). The digital version of the game costs $59.99 and can be pre-loaded on your Switch 2 console so you can play it as soon as it's out.

"The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time" (Nintendo Switch 2) $59.88 at Walmart
  Pre-order Here at Walmart Pre-order Here at Amazon Pre-order Here at Best Buy "The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time" (Nintendo Switch 2 digital code) $59.99 at Amazon
  Pre-order Here at Amazon Pre-order Here at Best Buy Pre-order Here at Nintendo

Every year, Google announces a new Pixel phone with a handful of new features. Some of these goodies never make their way to old models as recent as the Pixel 8. You have options when it comes to bringing your Pixel up to date with the latest and greatest.