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Why age-verification bills for porn sites wont work

Mashable - Sat, 06/28/2025 - 00:04

UPDATE: Jun. 27, 2025, 2:13 p.m. EDT This article was originally published in March 2023. It has been updated in January 2025 and again in June, in light of SCOTUS's age verification ruling. It includes original interviews from 2023 as well as updated law information.

Free speech online has been attacked in recent years, from the (delayed) TikTok ban to the death of net neutrality. Given President-elect Donald Trump's second term on the horizon and the proposals of Project 2025 (a conservative wishlist for said term) a real possibility, U.S. lawmakers will likely continue to target access to the free and open internet. One such example is the growing trend of age-verification bills, which mandate individuals to provide proof of age in order to access adult content, or in some cases, even to browse social media platforms. Experts warn that these bills pose serious threats to digital privacy and free speech.

What are age-verification bills?

In 2022, Louisiana passed Act 440, which requires visitors to sites with over 33.33 percent of adult content to use a commercial age-verification system (AVS) to prove they're over 18, such as with a government-issued ID. The law went into effect on Jan. 1, 2023.

Following this, a wave of similar bills emerged across the country. As of publication in early 2025, age-verification laws have been enacted in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisana, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, and Virginia. Georgia's version, SB 351, will take effect July 1, 2025. The Free Speech Coalition, a porn industry lobby group, has been tracking these bills through a comprehensive database.

On Jan. 15, the Supreme Court heard Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton, a case about Texas's age-verification law. Then on June 27, SCOTUS decided to uphold the law, clearing the way for such laws throughout the country.

In the UK, similar legislation will go forward in late July. France also instated age-verification in June 2025, only for its law to be suspended weeks later until it's ruled legal under EU law.

Project 2025 and age-verification bills

Project 2025 calls for an outright porn ban and for porn creators to be imprisoned. One of the authors of Project 2025, Russell Vought (who Trump asked to return as the head of the Office of Management and Budget), was caught on a secret recording stating that age-verification bills are a "back door" way to do just that.

"We came up with an idea on pornography to make it so that the porn companies bear the liability for the underage use," Vought told two men undercover as potential donors for his conservative think-tank Center for Renewing America, as reported by The Intercept, "as opposed to the person who visits the website getting to just certify" their age.

"We've got a number of states that are passing this," Vought also said, "and you know what happens is the porn company then says, 'We’re not going to do business in your state.' Which of course is entirely what we were after, right?"

What Vought is referring to is companies like Pornhub blocking states with age-verification laws. As of January 2025, Pornhub is blocked in 17 U.S. states.

The downsides to "porn passport" laws

While these bills may initially seem sound — no one wants children to access adult content — they are steeped in political implications, as stated above. Even beyond that, the experts say that they won't work for their (so-called) intended purpose and will cause a host of problems.

In terms of the former, these statutes are difficult to enforce and easy to get around. For one, there are going to be websites based in other countries that won't comply with these regulations, said Mike Stabile, director of public affairs at the Free Speech Coalition. "My greatest fear when I looked at [these bills] was that this is…going to push kids to more and more dangerous sites," he said.

For another, software like VPNs (virtual privacy networks) are built to make it seem like the user is somewhere they're not. Days after the Louisiana law went into effect, a Redditor asked if they can use a VPN to get around it. "Yep," the top comment read. "So easy a five year old can do it."

Beyond enforceability, experts say they cause a tremendous privacy risk.

"The immediate concerns are that there is no foolproof age-verification system that is not intrusive, comprehensive, effective, and can be introduced quickly," said Jason Kelley, associate director of digital strategy at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit focused on defending digital rights. Since there aren't systems in place to implement these regulations, tech companies will scramble to respond to these laws. They may do the right thing or the wrong thing unintentionally, like setting up an AVS that's insecure because they don't know how AVS works, or they may do the wrong thing intentionally to gather people's data. 

"You create this whole ecosystem, where people's individual behaviors — the websites that they visit — can be tracked and connected to their identity," Kelley continued. "We're essentially creating this immediate requirement for people to share their private information alongside their pornography preference with companies that don't necessarily have a system in place to protect that data."

SEE ALSO: Stripperweb empowered strippers. Where will they go now?

A longer-term concern is that there will be a domino effect, which is already happening with the copycat bills. If they were all to pass, Kelley said we'd have an extremely complicated system where different states accept different forms of verification. This could lead to these websites requiring verification from everyone regardless of state to ensure they comply. 

"The end result is that we won't have access that's anonymous to much of the web," Kelley said of these flurry of age-verification bills, "which is important for free speech" and other things, like privacy protection. If all these bills went into effect, many people wouldn't be able to access the internet at all without an ID. As it is, there's a "digital divide" where millions of Americans don't have an adequate internet connection at home; verification would only exacerbate this issue of access. While those who do have IDs could get through these barriers, they would need to give up anonymity to do so.

If all these bills went into effect, many people wouldn't be able to access the internet at all without an ID, and those who could access would need to provide documentation.

That's not the only potential issue. As former senior security analyst Max Eddy at PCMag (which is owned by Ziff Davis, Mashable's parent company) warned, identity theft could increase in the wake of these laws. It's already happening: "We've already heard reports of phishing going on in Louisiana, where people are impersonating adult sites, and getting people to upload their ID and then selling those IDs…for Bitcoin," Stabile said. "We expect that…identity theft is going to skyrocket." 

Users aren't the only people impacted by these laws; adult creators are, too. 

Online sex workers are already pushed offline due to bills FOSTA-SESTA, an amendment to Section 230 meant to stop sex trafficking, but has resulted in the removal (or shadowbanning) of sex workers and remotely sexy content from major social platforms like Facebook and Instagram. (Only a single trafficker has been prosecuted under FOSTA-SESTA in its first five years.) Should age-verification bills progress, the problem will inevitably worsen.

"It's just going to censor us," said adult performer and advocate Alana Evans. "How is it going to affect a platform like Twitter?" Currently, Twitter does allow adult content, and Evans sees it as the only platform that has a safe space for performers — but that status hangs in the balance. "If Twitter decides that we can't advertise my cam links anymore" or similar links, she said, "it would kill my business. It would kill my income."

How to protect children from adult content

"I worked my butt off to keep my kids away from that material," said Evans, who's a parent. "The most important thing is actually being aware of what your kids are doing in the first place." This includes checking their devices and having open conversations about sex and porn. She's had talks with her son, who's now an adult, where she explained that porn isn't real but rather a "theatrical version" of sex. 

"I don't think parents should be afraid of having that conversation," Evans said. One reason teens look at porn is simply because they're curious. "If you're having a conversation with them," she continued, "the curiosity is taken away."

Like Evans, Stabile also calls on parents to be involved with their kids' internet browsing and to have those conversations. There's lots of content beyond porn that's not appropriate for kids — portrayals of violence, for example — and it may be impossible to protect kids from seeing any of it, but you can talk to them about it. 

Beyond conversations, Stabile recommends device-level filters that block all websites that are registered RTA, or "Restricted to Adults." "It signals to filters, whether it's your Apple filter or Net Nanny or something like that, that this site should be blocked," he explained. It doesn't matter if a child tries a VPN or some other workaround — the site will be blocked on that device. 

The idea behind these bills "is not wrong," said Evans — no one, especially those in the adult industry, wants children watching their content. These bills, however, create risks and can cascade into an online privacy and censorship nightmare that hurts sex workers and other internet users. 

"If even a few of them [age-verification bills] pass in different contexts, it will be dangerous for everyone in the United States who goes online," Kelley warned, "because we will not be able to access things privately."

UPDATE: Jun. 27, 2025, 4:51 p.m. EDT This article has been updated with information about the latest age verification laws and a recent Supreme Court ruling.

Categories: IT General, Technology

Supreme Court upholds Texas age-verification law for adult content

Mashable - Fri, 06/27/2025 - 22:49

Today, the Supreme Court has decided to upload Texas's age-verification law for porn sites. The decision is 6-3, with Justices Kagan, Sotomayor, and Jackson dissenting.

Around a third of states in the U.S. have enacted such laws. They typically require sites with more than a third of explicit content to require viewers to submit some verification of age, such as a facial recognition scan or a government ID. In January, SCOTUS heard a case about the constitutionality of Texas's law in particular, Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton.

What did SCOTUS rule on age verification?

SCOTUS had to decide what standard to use to review the law: strict scrutiny (the most rigorous review) or rational basis (which is less strict).

SEE ALSO: Thinking about a kid-friendly smartphone? Here are your options.

But the majority of justices decided that the Texas law is subject to intermediate scrutiny, which is in the middle. The opinion, delivered by Justice Clarence Thomas, states that the law "has only an incidental effect on protected speech, and is therefore subject to intermediate scrutiny."

The opinion goes on to state, "[A]dults have no First Amendment right to avoid age verification. Any burden on adults is therefore incidental to regulating activity not protected by the First Amendment. This makes intermediate scrutiny the appropriate standard under the Court's precedents."

Writing the dissent, Justice Elena Kagan argues the opposite. "Texas's law defines speech by content and tells people entitled to view that speech that they must incur a cost to do so. That is, under our First Amendment law, a direct (not incidental) regulation of speech based on its content — which demands strict scrutiny."

Reactions to the SCOTUS age-verfication ruling

"My mind went to the nightmare of actually enforcing this law," said Ricci Levy, president and CEO of the sexual freedom nonprofit Woodhull Freedom Foundation. Levy asked who would determine which sites fall under this law — and suspected sites will err on the side of enacting age-verification rather than risk violating it.

Legal counsel for Woodhull, Lawrence G. Walters, asked, "How do you possibly determine whether a platform like Reddit has 33.3 percent material that is potentially obscene as to minors?" That itself, he said, is a difficult determination, "and the default will likely be additional censorship."

Adult industry attorney Corey D. Silverstein told Mashable that he agrees with the dissenting justices, and that based on past First Amendment cases, strict scrutiny should apply. 2004's Ashcroft v. ACLU, also about whether an act to prevent children from accessing online porn violated the First Amendment, is one such case. (In Ashcroft, the court ruled that it did.)

Silverstein said that if a law impedes a person's free speech rights, it is supposed to use the least restrictive means to achieve a compelling interest. That's what strict scrutiny is, he said.

"I don't understand how they got outside of strict scrutiny," he said. The intermediate scrutiny standard is rare, he continued, but it was also used to uphold the TikTok ban earlier this year. (President Trump has since delayed the TikTok ban more than once.)

Walters told Mashable the same. The majority opinion tries to justify the ruling by claiming the internet has changed and more people, including children, have ready access.

"But this law is a content-based restriction on speech. It burdens adult access to speech, and that falls — or has fallen — squarely in the category that requires strict scrutiny," he said.

Now, this ruling opens the door for the government to be able to create other burdens on adults attempting to access various types of speech, Walters said.

The outward reason for these laws is to protect children. As Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (the Paxton in Paxton) posted on X, "This is a major victory for children, parents, and the ability of states to protect minors from the damaging effects of online pornography."

"Companies have no right to expose children to pornography and must institute reasonable age verification measures. I will continue to enforce the law against any organization that refuses to take the necessary steps to protect minors from explicit materials," he continued.

This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.

"They can sit here and people are blue in the face that this is about protecting children," Silverstein told Mashable, "but I'm not buying what they're selling."

"If that were, in fact, the case...when they [wrote] these statutes, they would have found a way to make it far less burdensome," he explained. (Also, in an early study out of NYU, results suggested that age verification doesn't work because minors can use VPNs to circumvent the age checks, or go on sites that aren't complying with the laws.)

Walters pointed to a brief filed by the International Centre for Missing & Exploited Children (ICMEC) last year, in opposition to the Texas law. Among other arguments, ICMEC stated that the law could harm children because it makes them more vulnerable to exploitation on foreign-held sites that aren't subject to the law, and that children can just use a VPN to access explicit material.

Silverstein, like other critics of age verification Mashable spoke to, is in favor of device-level filters instead.

Age verification, free speech, and Project 2025

Since before the 2024 election, free speech advocates and those in the adult industry feared what would happen if Project 2025 (the conservative policy blueprint for President Trump's second term) was set into motion. Project 2025 calls for an outright ban on pornography and the imprisonment of its creators. In January, Oklahoma Senator Dusty Deevers introduced a bill to do just that. Last month, Republicans introduced another bill that would effectively ban porn.

One of Project 2025's writers, Russell Vought (who now leads the Office of Management and Budget) was caught on secret recording last year calling age verification a "back door" to banning porn.

Today's decision will change the adult entertainment industry, Silverstein said. "Age verification in the United States is not going anywhere, and so that's going to be the new norm," he said, "and there are many people that will now not have the ability to view content that is constitutionally protected" if they don't want to submit their ID or other identifying information to a third-party.

The decision extends beyond explicit content, as well. Both Silverstein and Aaron Mackey, the Electronic Frontier Foundation's free speech and transparency litigation director, called SCOTUS's decision a blow to free speech rights. It will also, Mackey said, endanger people's online privacy.

"Today's decision in Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton is a direct blow to the free speech rights of adults," Mackey wrote in a statement emailed to Mashable. "This ruling allows states to enact onerous age-verification rules that will block adults from accessing lawful speech, curtail their ability to be anonymous, and jeopardize their data security and privacy. These are real and immense burdens on adults, and the Court was wrong to ignore them in upholding Texas' law."

Pornography has historically been the "canary in the coal mine" for free expression, Alison Boden, executive director of the adult industry trade organization, Free Speech Coalition, said in a statement shared on Bluesky.

“As it has been throughout history, pornography is once again the canary in the coal mine of free expression,” said Alison Boden, Executive Director of the Free Speech Coalition. “The government should not have the right to demand that we sacrifice our privacy and security to...

— Free Speech Coalition (@fsc.bsky.social) June 27, 2025 at 12:00 PM

"The government should not have the right to demand that we sacrifice our privacy and security to use the internet. This law has failed to keep minors away from sexual content yet continues to have a massive chilling effect on adults," Boden continued. "The outcome is disastrous for Texans and for anyone who cares about freedom of speech and privacy online."

UPDATE: Jun. 27, 2025, 4:00 p.m. EDT This article has been updated with expert commentary.

Categories: IT General, Technology

How to watch The 1975 at Glastonbury 2025 online for free

Mashable - Fri, 06/27/2025 - 22:08

TL;DR: Live stream The 1975 at Glastonbury 2025 for free on BBC iPlayer. Access this free streaming platform from anywhere in the world with ExpressVPN.

Glastonbury attracts the biggest and best musical acts in the world. That's why hundreds of thousands of revellers turn up every year. Sure, the promise of absolutely no responsibilities and copious amounts of refreshments is appealing, but the performances are what really matters.

And the first headliner of the weekend is absolutely huge. The 1975 will kick things off in style on the first proper evening of the festival, and you can watch along without spending anything.

If you're interested in watching The 1975 at Glastonbury 2025 for free from anywhere in the world, we've got all the information you need.

When is Glastonbury in 2025?

Glastonbury 2025 takes place on June 25-29. The 1975 are headlining the Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury on June 27. Their set is scheduled to take place from 10:15 to 11:45 p.m. BST.

How to watch The 1975 at Glastonbury 2025 for free

The 1975's set at Glastonbury 2025 is available to live stream for free on BBC iPlayer.

BBC iPlayer is geo-restricted to the UK, but anyone can access this free streaming platform with a VPN. These tools can hide your real IP address (digital location) and connect you to a secure server in the UK, meaning you can access BBC iPlayer to live stream Glastonbury 2025 from anywhere in the world.

Live stream Glastonbury 2025 by following these simple steps:

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The best VPNs are not free, but they do tend to offer money-back guarantees. By leveraging these offers, you can watch Glastonbury Festival without fully committing with your cash. This is obviously not a long-term solution, but it gives you plenty of time to live stream The 1975 at Glastonbury 2025 (plus the rest of the festival) before recovering your investment.

What is the best VPN for BBC iPlayer?

ExpressVPN is the top choice for streaming live content on free platforms like BBC iPlayer, for a number of reasons:

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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 30-day money-back guarantee. Alternatively, you can get a one-month plan for just $12.95 (with money-back guarantee).

Live stream Glastonbury 2025 for free with ExpressVPN.

Categories: IT General, Technology

Who belongs in the internet Hall of Fame? We asked the people already in it.

Mashable - Fri, 06/27/2025 - 21:09

This year, VidCon did something it had never done before: it honored the creators who helped build the internet as we know it. At the first-ever Hall of Fame ceremony, nine iconic YouTubers — including Joey Graceffa, Tyler Oakley, Rhett & Link, Rosanna Pansino, Hank Green, Grace Helbig, and the SMOSH duo — were inducted for their lasting impact.

Naturally, we had to ask them: Who else deserves a spot?

SEE ALSO: YouTube turns 20: How one video at the zoo changed the internet forever Who should VidCon induct into its Hall of Fame next?

One name came up again and again: Philip DeFranco. The content creator has 6.6 million subscribers and has been on YouTube since 2006, so next year would mark two decades on the site. Helbig and the SMOSH co-founders both remarked that his cultural critique and news videos are still making an impact on the internet today.

Helbig also noted, "I mean, we have half of a Green brother; I think we need the other Green brother." John Green is one-half of the VlogBrothers channel and co-founded VidCon alongside his brother Hank, who was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2025. Off the internet, John Green is the author of several bestselling novels, including The Fault in Our Stars.

SMOSH co-founders Ian Hecox and Anthony Padilla, as well as Hank Green, all mentioned that lonelygirl15 had earned a place in the Hall of Fame for her vlogs, which took YouTube by storm 19 years ago. She is widely credited as one of the first viral stars for her vlogs, which were later revealed to be a production created by Miles Beckett, Mesh Flinders, Greg Goodfried, and Amanda Goodfried.

Another name repeated amongst the honorees, like Joey Graceffa and Rosanna Pansino, was iJustine. She has garnered over 7 million subscribers in her 19 years on YouTube. Her tech-focused content focuses on product reviews and interviews with tech CEOs.

Tyler Oakley recommended GloZell, the YouTuber with 4.54 million subscribers who nearly broke the internet with her cinnamon challenge that has racked up 60 million views.

Other YouTubers who received shoutouts from the inductees included Ingrid NilsenLilly SinghCaptain SparklezFredVSauce, and Ze Frank. But who will actually earn a spot in the VidCon Hall of Fame next year? We'll stay tuned to find out.

Categories: IT General, Technology

The Kadrey v. Meta fair use ruling is just the start of a long, complex AI copyright battle

Mashable - Fri, 06/27/2025 - 20:58

On Wednesday, the judge in the landmark AI copyright case Kadrey, et al. v. Meta Platforms Inc. ruled in Meta’s favor. And U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria seemed to do so reluctantly, calling his own ruling “in significant tension with reality.”

Thirteen authors, including Sarah Silverman, Ta-Nehisi Coates, and Junot Diaz, sued Meta for its unlicensed use of their books to train its Llama AI models.

The facts of the case seemed particularly egregious. Not only did Meta pirate unlicensed copies of the authors’ works, but internal Meta messages revealed during discovery showed that the company's own employees expressed legal and ethical doubts about pirating those works. Other messages suggest that employees sought to eliminate traces of piracy, looking for words like "stolen" and "pirated" as part of the team's "mitigation" efforts.

Instead of settling the messy copyright battle over AI training, Chhabria's ruling adds another layer of complexity to this legal issue.

Just a day earlier, a judge in a similar AI copyright case ruled in favor of another AI company, Anthropic. In the same Northern District of California, U.S. District Judge William Alsup declared in Bartz v. Anthropic that Anthropic's use of pirated books in shadow libraries Books3 and LibGen (the same datasets in the Meta case) was fair use.

However, Robert Brauneis, an intellectual property law professor at George Washington University Law School, said Judge Alsup and Judge Chhabria used dramatically different reasoning. Both cases hinged on the fair use legal doctrine, particularly the fourth factor in such defenses — potential market harms. 

"Judge Alsup has a very narrow view: if a generative AI output does not itself infringe a particular work used to train the model, any loss in sales of the training work caused by people using the AI output instead cannot be taken into account as 'market harm' under the fourth factor," said Brauneis, who was among a group of copyright lawyers that filed an amicus brief in support of plaintiffs in Kadrey v. Meta.  

"Judge Chhabria says that's wrong: harm caused by 'diluting' the market for a training work can and should be taken into account, and serious market dilution harm can even outweigh a high level of transformativeness under the first factor."

So while both judges sided with the fair use argument, their opposing rationales lay the groundwork for a complex and fragmented legal landscape.

The Kadrey plaintiffs whiffed on the fair use argument

The plaintiffs tried, and failed, to argue against Meta’s fair use defense. In a blog post written after the May 1 oral arguments, Kevin Madigan, senior VP of policy and government affairs for the Copyright Alliance, wrote that the plaintiff’s lawyer “shockingly” failed to present potential counterarguments.

Of the four fair use factors, the case mostly hinged on factor one, whether the use is transformative, and factor four, whether the use harms the existing or future market for the copyrighted work. Chhabria favored Meta on factor one. "There is no serious question that Meta’s use of the plaintiffs’ books had a 'further purpose' and 'different character' than the books — that it was highly transformative," said Chhabria in his ruling. 

The deliberation then turned to the fourth factor, or market harms, where Chhabria had much to say about the plaintiff's counsel's argument. They simply failed to successfully argue that Meta caused market harm.

In discussing market harms during oral arguments, Chhabria brought up a hypothetical — future Taylor Swifts.

"Even if a million songs are produced by [Meta's Llama] model in the style of a Taylor Swift song, it's not going to affect the market for Taylor Swift songs. But what about the next Taylor Swift?" Chhabria asked Meta lawyer Kannon Shanmugam. "What about the up-and-coming, relatively unknown artist who is writing songs… and by feeding copyrighted works like hers into the model, it enables the model to produce a billion pop songs?"

Chhabria seemed to foreshadow his eventual ruling when he questioned plaintiff counsel David Boies about evidence of market harms.

"Whether it's in the summary judgment record or not, it seems like you're asking me to speculate that the market for Sarah Silverman's memoir will be affected by the billions of things that Llama will ultimately be capable of producing," said Chhabria "and it's just not obvious to me that that's the case."

Chhabria told Boies, "you lose if you can't show that the market for the copyrighted works that are being used to train the models are dramatically impacted."

Ultimately, Chhabria decided that Meta had the stronger argument.

"Meta has defeated the plaintiffs’ half-hearted argument that its copying causes or threatens significant market harm," said Chhabria. "That conclusion may be in significant tension with reality, but it’s dictated by the choice the plaintiffs made... while failing to present meaningful evidence on the effect of training LLMs like Llama with their books on the market for [AI-generated] books."

On the day of the ruling, a Meta spokesperson provided this statement to Mashable: "We appreciate today’s decision from the Court. Open-source AI models are powering transformative innovations, productivity and creativity for individuals and companies, and fair use of copyright material is a vital legal framework for building this transformative technology."

In his decision, the district judge said his ruling was less about the fair use defense of using pirated books to train AI models and more about the shortcomings of the plaintiffs' argument. "The Court had no choice but to grant summary judgment to Meta," said Chhabria, before adding:

"This is not a class action, so the ruling only affects the rights of these thirteen authors—not the countless others whose works Meta used to train its models. And, as should now be clear, this ruling does not stand for the proposition that Meta’s use of copyrighted materials to train its language models is lawful. It stands only for the proposition that these plaintiffs made the wrong arguments and failed to develop a record in support of the right one."

His ruling also leaves the door open for other artists to file similar copyright suits against Meta — and other AI companies. Chhabria even postulated that "it will be illegal to copy copyright-protected works to train generative AI models without permission."

But this ruling also has symbolic meaning for artists.

"If this case comes out and says that training of large language models on pirated datasets from which copyright information has been stripped is fair use, then that is a horrible, horrible outcome for millions of creative professionals around the world," said Justin Hughes, a law professor at Loyola Law School, in an interview with Mashable before the ruling. 

AI is already impacting creative livelihoods 

Kadrey v. Meta is one of dozens of copyright lawsuits against AI companies. At the time of publication, AI blog ChatGPT Is Eating the World counted 39 ongoing cases. 

But while courts deliberate, generative AI is already making a big impact on creative industries. 

Generative AI's ability to automate the creation of text, images, video, and audio is already replacing creative jobs. In 2024, researchers from the Imperial College London Business School and the Berlin School of Economics published a paper analyzing how generative AI is affecting the labor market. Since the introduction of ChatGPT, they found "nearly immediate decreases in posts for online gig workers across job types, but particularly for automation-prone jobs." The jobs most impacted were writing gigs, which decreased by 30 percent. 

A 2023 report commissioned by the Animation Guild to measure generative AI's impact in entertainment industries stated, "almost two-thirds of the 300 business leaders surveyed expect GenAI to play a role in consolidating or replacing existing job titles in their business division over the next three years. According to the study, which was conducted by CVL Economics, that's 203,800 missing jobs by 2026. 

Many artists see the existence of AI tools like Llama as an existential threat. Adding insult to injury, AI models were trained on the very human expression they’re accused of replacing. 

In an amicus brief in support of the plaintiffs, the American Association of Publishers argued that this case was much simpler than it seemed. Meta, "a company valued at over a trillion dollars, asks this Court to declare that it is free to appropriate and commercially exploit the content of copyrighted works on a massive scale without permission or payment for that content, a ruling that would have catastrophic consequences for authors and publishers of books, journals and other textual works protected by copyright."

What happens now?

While Meta prevailed on the fair use ruling, Madigan called Chhabria's decision a "mixed bag." 

"The things that are not good for copyright owners are Judge Chhabria's treatment of transformative use under the first factor, and also his unwillingness to recognize licensing markets under the fourth." Here, Madigan was referring to the plaintiff's potential loss of licensing deals, an argument that Chhabria said he wouldn't take into account. 

"But why that is not necessarily the worst thing in the world, is that it's so cabined to the specifics of this case and the failure to develop a record and raise certain issues," Madigan continued. The plaintiffs will also likely appeal, he added.

A spokesperson for Boies Schiller Flexner, the firm representing the plaintiffs, told Mashable, "The court ruled that AI companies that ‘feed copyright-protected works into their models without getting permission from the copyright holders or paying for them’ are generally violating the law. Yet, despite the undisputed record of Meta’s historically unprecedented pirating of copyrighted works, the court ruled in Meta’s favor. We respectfully disagree with that conclusion." They did not respond to the question of whether they would file an appeal.

Kadrey v. Meta and Bartz v. Anthropic are often lumped together because they both focus on the inputs of pirated books as data to train AI models. By contrast, other high-profile AI copyright cases — the New York Times lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft, another case against Anthropic from major record labels (Concord v. Anthropic), and the more recent Disney v. Midjourney — focus on AI models' outputs. 

For these cases, "where they've all shown evidence of infringing output, [Kadrey v. Meta] has absolutely no bearing," said Madigan. With cases that focus on output, "you don't have to get into sort of these more abstract doctrinal discussions about transformative use and whether training is transformative in purpose. You just have to show side-by-side verbatim copies," he continued. 

Categories: IT General, Technology

TikTok is plotting your perfect (and totally chaotic) wedding entrance

Mashable - Fri, 06/27/2025 - 20:46

TikTok is doing its best to plan the most chaotic wedding entrances of all time.

You might've seen the bridesmaid trend and its offshoots floating around your FYP. The trend is simple and silly. Typically speaking, someone picks an unserious song, then has an increasingly chaotic or impossible plan for how the bridesmaids or others from the wedding party will enter to it.

For instance, you've got a bride moonwalking to the Law & Order theme song or the groom cranking that Soulja Boy down the aisle. Or you've got the pope showing up or the cops dragging away a bridesmaid.

Here are just a few of the many popular iterations of the trend all over TikTok.

In case you missed it, this trend is a riff on a viral TikTok from a few months ago, where a woman imagined her wedding set to Alex Warren's chart-topping song "Ordinary." People noticed that in her dream wedding, the bridesmaid would have to sprint to keep up with the pace. Naturally, that led to a lot of jokes.

It's not exactly clear why that TikTok and the new offshoot trend surfaced months later. But it is certainly a funny and welcome bit of silliness.

Categories: IT General, Technology

How to watch Drop: Heres when the Blumhouse thriller starts streaming

Mashable - Fri, 06/27/2025 - 20:38
The best streaming deals to watch 'Drop' at a glance: BEST NON-STREAMING DEAL Buy or rent 'Drop' on Prime Video $9.99 or $5.99 Get Deal BEST PEACOCK DEAL FOR MOST PEOPLE Peacock Premium yearly subscription $79.99/year (save 17%) Get Deal BEST FOR STUDENTS Peacock Premium for Students $2.99/month for 12 months (save $5/month) Get Deal BEST FOR FIRST RESPONDERS/MEDICAL PROFESSIONALS Peacock Premium for First Responders and Medical Professionals $3.99/month (save $4/month) Get Deal BEST FOR MILITARY PERSONNEL Peacock Premium for Active Military and Veterans $3.99/month (save $4/month) Get Deal BEST FOR TEACHERS Peacock Premium for Teachers $3.99/month for 12 months (save $4/month) Get Deal BEST THIRD-PARTY DEAL Peacock Premium annual subscription Free for Instacart+ subscribers (save $79.99/year) Get Deal BEST FOR FREQUENT FLYERS Peacock Premium Free for one year for JetBlue TrueBlue Mosaic status members (save $79.99/year) Get Deal

One of the most anticipated movies out of SXSW this spring, Drop is the latest from filmmaker Christopher Landon (Happy Death Day) and Blumhouse (M3GAN, Five Nights at Freddy's). Dubbed "solidly fun" and "a great date night movie" by Mashable's Film Editor, it's a popcorn thriller with some depth. It features The White Lotus star Meghann Fahy as its leading lady, alongside Brandon Sklenar (It Ends With Us), who are "a demented pleasure to watch."

If you missed it in theaters, you can get in on the action at home as it is now officially streaming. Here's everything you need to know about how to watch Drop.

What is Drop about?

Written by Jillian Jacobs and Chris Roach, Drop follows widowed mother Violet (Fahy) as she gets back on the dating scene. On her first date in years, she starts receiving anonymous airdropped threats on her phone that put her son (Jacob Robinson) and babysitting sister (Violett Beane) at risk. As it turns out, a masked intruder is in her house and monitoring her every move. The only way she can save her family is by killing her date.

Check out the official trailer:

Is Drop worth watching?

Despite a less-than-excellent opening weekend, debuting in fifth place at the box office — behind A Minecraft Movie, The King of Kings, The Amateur, and WarfareDrop has already earned more than double its $11 million budget since its release. Earning $27.7 million worldwide to date, that's a pretty good sign for a low-budget horror. Critics and audiences both have been loving it to boot. Drop currently holds an 84 percent critic rating and 79 percent audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes — a pretty impressive feat for a popcorn thriller.

"Jacobs and Roach's script is so full of twists that while you may see some coming, others will undoubtedly catch you by sweet surprise. Whether relishing in the situational comedy of an awkward first date or combatting mysterious and malevolent forces, Drop's characters are a demented pleasure to watch," Puchko writes in her review. "All of these successes mean that Drop is charming enough to make up for its biggest flaw. In the climax, when the plot takes a big swing with a dubious but pivotal kill, you might well eye-roll over the unlikelihood of such a demise, but you won't get the ick."

Read our full review of Drop.

How to watch Drop at home Credit: Universal Pictures

It's time for audiences to show up for Drop from their couches. There are a couple of different ways you can watch. You can buy it or rent it on digital for as low as $5.99, or you can subscribe to Peacock and stream it. See the details below.

Buy or rent it on digital

Drop made its at-home debut on major digital platforms (Prime Video, Apple TV, etc.) on April 29, 2025. The film is available to buy for as low as $9.99 or rent for $5.99. While it's certainly tempting to save a few bucks and opt for the rental option, just be aware that you'll only get 30 days to watch the film and just 48 hours to finish it once you start. If you choose to buy it instead, then it's yours to keep.

Here are some quick links to rent or purchase Drop:

Stream it on Peacock

As a Universal Pictures film, it comes as no surprise that Drop will make its streaming debut on Peacock, the NBCUniversal-owned streaming service. You can stream the popcorn thriller on Peacock beginning July 11, exactly three months to the day from its theatrical debut.

Don't have a Peacock subscription? You can sign up for as low as $7.99 per month with ads or $13.99 per month without. But before you get ahead of yourself, be sure to check out the best ways to save some money on a subscription below.

The best Peacock streaming dealsBest Peacock deal: Save 17% on an annual subscription Opens in a new window Credit: Peacock Peacock Premium annual subscription $79.99 per year or $139.99 per year (save 17%) Get Deal

The best Peacock deal on any given day is the annual subscription deal. You'll get 12 months of streaming for the price of 10 if you pay for a year upfront. The annual Peacock subscriptions cost just $79.99 per year with ads (which breaks down to about $6.67 per month) or $139.99 per year without ads (which breaks down to about $11.67 per month). That's about 17% in total savings.

Best Peacock deal for Xfinity customers: free Peacock Premium for eligible accounts Opens in a new window Credit: Peacock / Xfinity Peacock Premium Free for select Xfinity customers Learn More

Are you an Xfinity customer? Be sure to check the eligibility details below, as you might be able to score a Peacock Premium subscription for free. Here's a breakdown of who is eligible for the deal or you can head to Xfinity.com for more details.

  • Xfinity Internet users on the Gigabit or Gigabit+ plans can get Peacock Premium (with ads) for two years (offer ends June 25, 2025) for free.

  • Xfinity Internet customers who are Diamond or Platinum Xfinity Rewards members can get Peacock Premium for free by redeeming a reward for it. Sign in at xfinity.com/rewards and choose Peacock as a reward. Then, wait for your email (it may take a few hours) with instructions on activating the offer.

  • NOW TV customers can also receive Peacock Premium as part of their service.

  • New customers with Xfinity Internet and an X1 TV Box, Flex streaming TV Box, or a Xumo Stream Box from Xfinity can get Peacock Premium for free for six months.

Best Peacock deal for students: Save $5/month for one year Opens in a new window Credit: Peacock Peacock Premium for Students $2.99 per month for one year Get Deal

Students can get an entire year of Peacock Premium at a discounted rate of $2.99 per month instead of $7.99. That's a total of just $35.88 for the year. You'll have to verify your student status via SheerID to get the unique promo code that will unlock the savings. Just note that it can only be used once, and after the promo year is up, you'll be charged full price again.

Best Peacock deal for first responders: Save $4/month Opens in a new window Credit: Peacock Peacock Premium for First Responders and Medical Professionals $3.99 per month Get Deal

First responders and medical professionals are also able to score a Peacock Premium subscription at a discounted rate. Just verify your first responder or medical professional status via SheerID, and you'll get a unique promo code that will drop the cost of a subscription from $7.99 per month to just $3.99. If you continue to meet verification qualifications, you can renew the deal each year — although you may have to go through the verification process each time and receive a new promo code. Learn more about eligibility terms and requirements.

Best for active military and veterans: Save $4/month Opens in a new window Credit: Peacock Peacock Premium for Military $3.99 per month Get Deal

Active duty U.S. military service members, Reservists, National Guard members, veterans, or U.S. military retirees can also score a Peacock Premium subscription for a discounted rate of $3.99 per month instead of the usual $7.99 per month. You'll have to prove your military status using SheerID and retrieve a promotional code to activate the offer. Eligible military personnel who continue to meet requirements can redeem the deal annually.

Best for teachers: Save $4/month for one year Opens in a new window Credit: Peacock Peacock Premium for Teachers $3.99/month for 12 months Get Deal

Teachers can get in on the savings as well. For one year, educators who can verify their status on SheerID can get Peacock Premium for just $3.99 per month. However, once the promotional period ends, you'll be charged full price. Be sure to cancel before the year ends.

Best for Instacart users: free Peacock Premium for Instacart+ subscribers Opens in a new window Credit: Instacart / Peacock Peacock Premium annual subscription Free for Instacart+ subscribers (save $79.99/year) Get Deal

If you sign up for Instacart+ for $99.99 per year, you'll unlock a free Peacock Premium subscription. And that's on top of free grocery delivery, lower fees, and credit back on eligible pickup orders. That's a $79.99 per year value tacked on to your Instacart+ subscription for free. Not to mention, if you're new to Instacart+, you'll get a free two-week trial to test the waters. If you wait until the streaming release of Drop, you could even watch it for free during the trial period.

Best for JetBlue members: free Peacock Premium for one year for Mosaic status members Opens in a new window Credit: Peacock / JetBlue Peacock Premium Free for one year for Mosaic status members Get Deal

If you're a JetBlue TrueBlue Mosaic status member, you can get your first year of Peacock Premium for free through July 2025 (a $79.99 value). If you don't have Mosaic status, you can earn 1,000 free TrueBlue points when you sign up for Peacock. Learn more about eligibility and terms over on Peacock's special offer page.

Categories: IT General, Technology

The best early Prime Day drone deals to shop now

Mashable - Fri, 06/27/2025 - 19:41
Best early Prime Day drone deals: Best deal overall Holy Stone HS440 $99.99 (save $30) Get Deal Best drone for kids and beginners Holy Stone HS210 $39.99 (save $10) Get Deal

Prime Day is one of the best times of the year to buy a drone (second only to Black Friday), and the deal season is officially kicking into high gear. While everyone is watching to see what Amazon will do for its main event in July, its competitors are already launching major sales to get a head start, dropping serious discounts on top-rated drones from brands like DJI (most DJI drones are sold out on the retailer's website), Holy Stone, and more.

SEE ALSO: The best drones for every level of pilot

Our team of shopping experts is tracking all of these competing sales to find the best discounts for every skill level and budget. This gives you a huge advantage: You can snag the drone you want before the Prime Day rush — and potentially before it sells out.

To help you find the absolute best deal available today, our running list below features the top picks from across the internet. We're vetting every offer, comparing prices, and weeding out unreliable third-party sellers (Amazon is notorious for this) to make sure every discount we list is a legit deal. We'll be updating this page constantly, and if Amazon drops a price worth knowing about, you'll see it here first.

Best drone deal overall Opens in a new window Credit: Holy Stone Holy Stone HS440 $99.99 at Holy Stone
$129.99 Save $30.00 Get Deal Why we like it

You can get the Holy Stone HS440 for $99.99, down from $129.99, directly from the Holy Stone site. It’s the same price at Amazon, but Amazon isn’t listing it as a deal, and the seller is DeeRC, so it’s probably better to buy it directly from Holy Stone.

This foldable drone is ideal for beginner pilots, thanks to its user-friendly features and affordable price tag. It comes equipped with a 1080p HD auto-adjustable camera, has a 20-minute flight time, and includes safety features like Emergency Stop, Headless Mode, and Altitude Hold. You’ll also get a carrying case, a USB charging cable, spare propellers, and one battery.

More drone deals directly from the retailer Amazon drone deals you can trust
Categories: IT General, Technology

Google reboots its AI Ask Photos feature

Mashable - Fri, 06/27/2025 - 19:32

It's take two for the AI search feature in Google Photos.

After pausing the rollout of Ask Photos, due to latency issues and user experience criticisms, Google is back with an improved version and expanding access (via Engadget). Previously, it was only available to select users with early access.

Ask Photos, a feature that was introduced at 2024's Google I/O, is a Gemini-powered search tool within the Google Photos app that can find images in your library using natural language search. It's touted as being capable of handling more complex queries that are indirectly related to photos you may have on file, such as "what's my license plate number?" or "what did I eat on my trip to Barcelona?"

But those complex queries incidentally slowed down results for simpler queries like "beach" or "dog," and Google paused the rollout in early June. And getting to the traditional search interface was replaced by the AI search feature, which complicated the user experience.

This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.

On Thursday, Google shared improvements: "You’ll now see results right away while Gemini models continue to work in the background to find the most relevant photos or information for more complex queries," the announcement said. Basically, the classic search interface is back, but with Gemini.

With these improvements shipped, Google is now rolling out Ask Photos to eligible users in the U.S. To be eligible, you must be 18 years old and up, be in the U.S., have a Google account (duh), and have Face Groups turned on, which lets Google search for people and pets.

Categories: IT General, Technology

Early Prime Day book deals: Save up to 80% on hardcovers, paperbacks, and Kindle editions

Mashable - Fri, 06/27/2025 - 18:54
The best early Prime Day book deals at a glance: BEST HARDCOVER DEAL "Atmosphere" by Taylor Jenkins Reid $21 (save $9) Get Deal BEST PAPERBACK DEAL "The Crash" by Freida McFadden $9 (save $8.99) Get Deal BEST KINDLE BOOK DEAL "So Far Gone" by Jess Walter $2.99 (save $12) Get Deal

Amazon Prime Day is nearly here (officially running from July 8 through 11), and we're already being blessed with tons of deals. If you're looking to stack your summer reading list with books, it's time to get going.

On top of Amazon offering three free months of Kindle Unlimited and Audible to new members, we're also seeing some pretty sweet discounts on books themselves. Whether you want to load up your Kindle with e-books or you prefer physical books in your hands, there are a ton of deals waiting for you at Amazon weeks ahead of the formal Prime Day start.

From bestsellers to hidden treasures, we'll be tracking all the best early Prime Day book deals below and updating the list with the latest and greatest price drops as we inch closer to the main event.

Best early Prime Day book deal Opens in a new window Credit: Ballantine Books Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid $21 at Amazon
$30 Save $9 Get Deal Why we like it

Atmosphere is the latest from the New York Times bestselling author of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo and Daisy Jones & The Six, Taylor Jenkins Reid. Just released earlier this month, it's already listed as one of Goodreads' most popular books of the year. It follows Joan Goodwin, a professor of physics and astronomy at Rice University, who is selected as one of the first women scientists to join NASA’s Space Shuttle program in the 1980s. The hardcover copy is already on sale ahead of Prime Day for $21, down 30% from its list price.

Hardcover book dealsPaperback book dealsKindle book deals
Categories: IT General, Technology

Even TikTok is hosting an anti-Prime Day sale

Mashable - Fri, 06/27/2025 - 18:47

TikTok Shop joins the long list of online retailers to announce summer sales that compete with Amazon Prime Day. The in-app shopping platform will run a 13-day "Deals for You Days" savings event from July 7 to 19, according to a company press release. Meanwhile, Prime Day 2025 is slated for July 8 to 11, making it Amazon's longest members-only sale on record.

TikTok said its Deals for You Days event will feature discounts of "up to 50% off across all categories and brands," including Fenty Beauty, Crocs, and Philips, adding that eligible shoppers can save even more at checkout by paying with Venmo.

TikTok Shop will also introduce a price-match guarantee for items featured in select shoppable livestreams during Deals for You Days, the company said. If a customer finds a product on sale for a lower price off-platform, they'll earn cash back on the difference.

SEE ALSO: Everything you need to know about Amazon Prime Day 2025: Dates, deals, and the competition

This marks the second year TikTok Shop has hosted a Deals for You Days sale alongside Prime Day — though its first iteration, a nine-day affair, didn't move the needle. According to a July 2024 Modern Retail report that analyzed Salesforce data, TikTok Shop's gross merchandise growth was down 6 percent during last year's 48-hour Prime Day sale. In contrast, non-Amazon retailers saw 3 percent year-over-year gross merchandise volume growth during the same period.

"Part of the issue may have been that TikTok’s sales event didn’t offer sharp enough discounts," Modern Retail's Allison Smith wrote at the time. "The average discount on TikTok was 18% compared to the average discount during Prime Day, which was 22%, according to Salesforce." Reportedly, that's even with TikTok helping certain brands subsidize their markdowns.

SEE ALSO: Is that the sound of the TikTok Shop bubble popping? These creators aren’t worried yet.

It certainly doesn't help that the competition elsewhere is fierce. Bigger retailers have been competing with Amazon's flagship sale for years, including Walmart, Best Buy, and Target. In 2025, the former has plans for a six-day Walmart Deals event during Prime Day; Best Buy is hosting a concurrent Black Friday in July sale; and Target has a conveniently timed Circle Week sale in the pipeline. All three events will run both in stores and online.

That said, TikTok Shop's immense recent growth could make it a more viable player in the anti-Prime Day game. In the first five months of 2025, the platform saw a 120 percent increase in U.S. sales compared to the same period last year, according to TikTok's press release. (What trade war?) TikTok Shop now counts over 70 million products across 750 categories since launching in September 2023, the company said.

Categories: IT General, Technology

Dont miss this pre-Prime Day discount: 50% off the Instant Pot Vortex Plus

Mashable - Fri, 06/27/2025 - 18:46

SAVE $65: As of June 27, get the Instant Pot Vortex Plus for $64.99, down from its usual price of $129.99 at Amazon. That's a discount of 50%.

Opens in a new window Credit: Amazon Instant Pot Vortex Plus $64.99 at Amazon
$129.99 Save $65.00 Get Deal

If you spend a lot of time in the kitchen, you know how valuable it is to have appliances that claim multiple functions. Not everyone has a ton of space to put a toaster, an air fryer, a rice cooker, a slow cooker, etc. So something like the Instant Pot Vortex Plus or one of its variations is a great idea. And if you've been thinking about adding one to your kitchen, now's the best time to do so with this pre-Prime Day deal.

As of June 27, get the Instant Pot Vortex Plus for $64.99, down from its usual price of $129.99 at Amazon. That's $65 off and a discount of 50%.

SEE ALSO: Early Prime Day kitchen steals — save on air fryers, blenders, and more

The Instant Pot Vortex Plus is a 4-quart cooker with multiple functions: it can air fry, broil, roast, dehydrate, bake, and reheat. It has a one-touch setup for smart programming options that you can customize to your liking as well, so you can just press a button and start cooking right away.

It's large enough to hold large portions, like a 12 ounce box of chicken tenders, a couple of potatoes to bake, or even some veggies so you can feed your family or partner and kids, or just yourself easily. It has a simple touchscreen display, it's easy to clean with a non-stick dishwasher safe air fry basket and tray, and it's super compact.

So if you want to save significantly on a device that can help you sling out food quickly, this is the time to grab one ahead of the Prime Day kitchen deals. You'll be getting dinner on the table in record time.

Best home and kitchen deals
Categories: IT General, Technology

The best gaming deals ahead of Prime Day 2025: Consoles, accessories, and more

Mashable - Fri, 06/27/2025 - 18:41
Best early Prime Day gaming deals 2025 Best PlayStation deal 'Final Fantasy XVI' $24.88 (Save $15.11) Get Deal Best Xbox deal Xbox Elite Series 2 Core Wireless Gaming Controller $159 (Save $40.99) Get Deal Best Nintendo deal Nintendo Switch $299 (Save $20) Get Deal

2025 has already been a huge year for video games. Between the Nintendo Switch 2 launch and this year's game release schedule, our gaming backlogs are looking downright scary at the moment (not to mention expensive).

Good news, though — Amazon Prime Day 2025 is just around the corner, and the event always marks a great time to pick up everything on your gaming wishlist at a big discount. While Prime Day doesn't officially begin for a few more days (the event runs July 8 to 11), there are still plenty of live deals from the gaming space that are worth checking out, from individual titles, to consoles, to accessories, and beyond.

SEE ALSO: This third-party charging case is my favorite Nintendo Switch 2 accessory

Take a look at our top deal picks ahead of the sale, and be sure to keep checking backing regularly, because we'll be updating this page every time a new batch of discounts come in.

Best PlayStation deal Opens in a new window Credit: Square Enix 'Final Fantasy XVI' $24.88 at Amazon
$39.99 Save $15.11 Get Deal Why we like it

Final Fantasy XVI is unlike any FF game that came before it, and honestly, we think that's a good thing. That's because Final Fantasy XVI is a truly fantastic character action game that combines engaging combat, an intriguing story, as well as the visual spectacle we've come to expect from the series to make an incredibly worthwhile adventure for all PS5 owners to experience.

PlayStation gamesPlayStation hardware

Headsets

Best Xbox deal Opens in a new window Credit: Xbox Xbox Elite Series 2 Core Wireless Gaming Controller $159 at Amazon
$199.99 Save $40.99 Get Deal Why we like it

Xbox's Pro-style controllers are some of the best on the market, so when you have the chance to get one at a discount, it's always worth it. The Core model comes with many of the accessories from the more expensive version, including a charging case. Pick one up ahead of Prime Day and save $40.99.

Xbox gamesXbox hardware

Headsets

Best Nintendo Switch deal Opens in a new window Credit: Nintendo Nintendo Switch $299 at Amazon
$319 Save $20 Get Deal Why we like it

If you have any interest in handheld gaming, a Nintendo Switch needs to be part of your repertoire. It's no doorbuster deal, but the original Switch is $20 off ahead of Prime Day. If you don't feel like springing for the cutting-edge Nintendo Switch 2, we wouldn't recommend against going back a generation.

Nintendo Switch gamesNintendo Switch hardware

Consoles

Controllers and accessories

Memory cards

Categories: IT General, Technology

Early Prime Day air fryer deals: Instant Pot and Ninja both have one standout option

Mashable - Fri, 06/27/2025 - 18:27
The best early Prime Day air fryer deals at a glance Best basket air fryer deal Instant Pot Vortex Plus (4-quart) $64.99 (save $65 with Prime) Get Deal Best air fryer oven deal Ninja Prestige 10-in-1 XL $249.99 (save $100) Get Deal

We can't scientifically prove this (yet), but time moves slower when you're hungry and waiting for the oven to preheat. Such prolonged agony is probably the reason many air fryer havers you know bought theirs. If you've been envying their vast recipe opportunities, you might as well grab an air fryer on sale to see what the hype is about. Prime Day is one of the best times of year to find kitchen deals overall, and a few good air fryer deals are even popping up before Prime Day officially starts on July 8.

SEE ALSO: Walmart's anti-Prime Day sale is extra competitive this year

We'll be tracking the best Amazon air fryer deals through the week of Prime Day. Make sure you're signed up for Prime, as most of the best early deals are already locked to Prime members.

Best air fryer deal ahead of Prime Day Opens in a new window Credit: Instant Pot Instant Pot Vortex Plus (4-quart) $64.99 at Amazon
$129.99 Save $65.00 Get Deal Why we like it

Instant Pot pressure cooker deals aren't the hot commodity that they were five years ago. Instant Pot air fryers are another story — at a full 50% off, the 4-quart Instant Pot Vortex Plus is seeing the largest discount percentage-wise in this entire list. Now, you're gaining the ability to air fry, bake, roast, broil, dehydrate, and reheat all in one $65 countertop device. You can between cooking settings on the digital touch display.

More air fryers on sale

Basket air fryers

Air fryer ovens and glass cooking systems

Categories: IT General, Technology

The best travel deals to shop ahead of Prime Day 2025

Mashable - Fri, 06/27/2025 - 18:18
The best early Prime Day travel deals at a glance: BEST TRAVEL EXPERIENCE DEAL Budget car rentals save up to 30% on base rates + get 10% back in an Amazon gift card Get Deal BEST LUGGAGE DEAL American Tourister Stratum 20-inch carry-on $45.89 (save $44.10) Get Deal BEST TRAVEL ACCESSORY DEAL Apple AirTags (4-pack) $74.99 (save $24.01) Get Deal BEST CHARGING DEAL Anker 633 MagGo portable charger $42.99 (save $17) Get Deal BEST NOISE-CANCELLING HEADPHONES DEAL Sony WH-CH720N noise-cancelling headphones $119 (save $30.99) Get Deal BEST TABLET DEAL Apple iPad Air, 11-inch (M3, 128GB, WiFi) $549 (save $50) Get Deal

Amazon Prime Day is coming in hot (formally July 8 through 11) and one seasonally appropriate category that's already popping off weeks before the official event is travel deals. Whether you're looking to upgrade your luggage or in-flight entertainment, there are plenty of discounts to help you do so on a budget. Heck, Amazon has even partnered with travel companies like Budget and Expedia to offer Prime Day deals on travel experiences. So you can book a trip and get all of the gear you need to make it successful, all while saving some money.

Mashable's shopping experts are keeping track of all the best travel deals Prime Day has to offer, including luggage, noise-cancelling headphones, Kindles, charging accessories, and more. Don't see what you're looking for? Check back for more as we get closer to the big day(s).

Best Prime Day travel experience deal Opens in a new window Credit: Budget Our pick: Budget car rentals save up to 30% on base rates + get 10% back in an Amazon gift card Get Deal Why we like it

Instead of relying on Uber and Lyft to get around on your next trip, you can rent your own wheels and save. For Prime Day, Amazon customers get exclusive car rental benefits at Budget. Sign in to your Amazon account on Budget's website to unlock up to 30% off base rates on rentals for your next trip. Plus, 10% of the time and mileage charges incurred will be returned to you in the form of an Amazon gift card. You'll receive your gift card at the email associated with your Amazon account about 48 hours after your rental is complete. Head over to the promo page for more details on terms and conditions.

More Prime Day travel experience dealsBest luggage deal Opens in a new window Credit: American Tourister Our pick: American Tourister Stratum 20-inch carry-on $45.89 at Amazon
$89.99 Save $44.10 with on-page coupon Get Deal Why we like it

Traveling is already expensive enough as it is. Opt for a carry-on only and avoid those checked bag fees (compression packing cubes are your best friend). This one from American Tourister will get the job done and won't cost you a fortune, as it's down to just $45.89 (nearly half off) ahead of Prime Day — its best price on record. Just be sure to select the on-page coupon before checking out. The Stratum 2.0 carry-on has all the essentials for a solid suitcase: spinner wheels, a durable hard shell, an ergonomic carbon fiber handle, expandable capacity, and interior pockets. It's nothing fancy, but it's a great value for the cost.

More Prime Day luggage dealsBest travel accessory deal Opens in a new window Credit: Apple Our pick: Apple AirTag (4-pack) $74.99 at Amazon
$99 Save $24.01 Get Deal Why we like it

If you're an iPhone user who travels regularly or tends to lose things, AirTags are a must-have for keeping track of your belongings. Attach them to your luggage, purse, keys, backpack, instrument, etc. and as long as there's an Apple device nearby with FindMy turned off, you'll be able to see precisely where you are in proximity to your stuff. I used them for the first time on my first trip to Europe, and now I swear by them. At $74.99 for a four-pack, you're getting a pretty great deal. However, we have seen them drop about $10 further in the past. It may pay off to wait until Prime Day proper to snag a set.

More Prime Day travel accessory dealsBest charging deal Opens in a new window Credit: Anker Our pick: Anker 633 MagGo portable charger $42.99 at Amazon
$59.99 Save $17 Get Deal Why we like it

Portable power is essential for travel, but you can't trust any old power bank on Amazon. Anker's portable charging gear is some of the best, and you can't go wrong with the 633 MagGo — especially while it's down to just $42.99. It's compact, can attach to your phone via magnets, doubles as a foldable stand, and can juice up your phone quickly, thanks to its 20W USB-C output. Just $3 shy of its best price ever, you can rest assured you'll be getting a great deal if you snag it before Prime Day.

More Prime Day charging dealsBest noise-cancelling headphones deal Opens in a new window Credit: Sony Our pick: Sony WH-CH720N $119 at Amazon
$149.99 Save $30.99 Get Deal Why we like it

Mashable's headphones expert Bethany Allard selected the Sony WH-CH720N as the best early Prime Day headphones deal, noting that they're a more budget-friendly option than the new Sony WH-1000XM6s. They're lightweight and reliable, feature an impressive 35-hour battery life with noise cancellation on, and have multipoint pairing. Our sister site CNET (also owned by publisher Ziff Davis) writes, "The CH-720N offers the appealing combination of a lightweight, comfortable design with respectable performance." We've seen them drop to a lower price before, but at $119, they're still a steal.

More Prime Day noise-cancelling headphones dealsBest tablet deal Opens in a new window Credit: Apple Our pick: Apple iPad Air, 11-inch (M3, 128GB, WiFi) $549 at Amazon
$599 Save $50 Get Deal Why we like it

Read our full review of the 2025 Apple iPad Air (M3).

We fancy the iPad Air as the best Apple tablet for most people. It's more budget-friendly than the iPad Pro, but can still handle tough design jobs, as well as streaming, reading, and other creative projects. You could even use it as a laptop substitute and it'll work swimmingly. It's also lightweight, has impressive battery life at over 14 hours, and features a brilliant 11-inch display.

As our Apple expert writes, "While $50 off isn't the most jaw-dropping deal for this 11-inch Air, it's a decent markdown to kick off Prime Day season. We just hope to see it drop another $50 down to its record-low $499 by the time the official sale start comes around."

More Prime Day tablet and Kindle deals The best early Prime Day deals to shop this week
Categories: IT General, Technology

July Fourth party essentials for the perfect summer shindig

Mashable - Fri, 06/27/2025 - 17:45

Be the host with the most this year with help from our guide of the top party picks. July Fourth is all about the cookout: Being outside, grilling up some burgers and hot dogs, and celebrating all the best of summer in honor of our nation's birthday. Do it up right this year with these decor ideas, gadgets, and more.

Categories: IT General, Technology

Google is changing its emoji layout, again

Mashable - Fri, 06/27/2025 - 17:22

Google has already walked back some of its recent changes to its emoji layout.

We here at Mashable covered significant design changes in Gboard — Google's emoji keyboard — that dropped in a beta about a month ago. At the time, it removed the "All" interface and redesigned the emoji, sticker, and GIF icons to make them more legible.

SEE ALSO: Your emoji choices may look different on Android soon

As a part of that redesign, Google removed the delete icon and instead replaced with a floating action button that would only appear once emoji were selected. 9to5 Google, a Google-focused tech site, spotted that choice has been reversed since it has proven unpopular. So, in short, you'll get your dedicated delete button back.

To be clear, this is still part of Gboard's latest beta — meaning it is still being tested out. In fact, this is exactly what a beta is for: to find and root out issues. Hopefully everything will be just right by the time the changes roll out for everyone.

Categories: IT General, Technology

10 early Prime Day printer and scanner deals you can shop right now

Mashable - Fri, 06/27/2025 - 17:20
Best early Prime Day printer and scanner deals: Best deal overall Epson EcoTank ET-2800 $209.99 (save $70) Get Deal Best runner-up deal HP Smart Tank 5103 $199.99 (save $70) Get Deal Best budget pick Canon TS202 $43.99 (save $10) Get Deal

We’re officially in Prime Day mode — the big (now four-day) event is set to kick off July 8 but, as is typical, the sales are already rolling in. And if you're on the hunt for a new printer or scanner (most printers also function as scanners), you're in luck.

SEE ALSO: How to recycle Amazon packaging from your Prime Day purchases (yes, all of it)

We’re seeing early Prime Day deals on printers and scanners from all the top brands, including HP, Epson, Canon, and Brother. Whether you need a basic inkjet printer for occasional use, a high-performance laser printer for your home office, or an all-in-one scanner for digitizing documents, there are plenty of options to choose from.

And don't miss all the best early Prime Day deals that are already live.

Best printer deal overall Epson EcoTank ET-2800 Wireless Color Printer $209.99 at Amazon
$279.99 Save $70 Get Deal Why we like it

The Epson EcoTank ET-2800 is a great all-in-one that can print, copy, and scan. Its biggest feature is that it uses high-capacity ink bottles instead of cartridges, which are less wasteful and easier to use. According to Epson, this can save you up to 90 percent on ink costs in the long run, and it even comes with up to two years of ink right in the box. It's perfect for printing everything from homework to photos, and the high-res flatbed scanner makes copying and digitizing documents simple.

You can get the Epson EcoTank ET-2800 right now for $209.99, down from $279.99. That’s a 25% discount and a $70 price cut. While this isn’t the lowest price we’ve seen it at (it was around $179 in November 2024), it’s still a great deal.

More printer and scanner deals The best early Prime Day deals to shop this week
Categories: IT General, Technology

Snag a Google Pixel Tablet for $120 off with this pre-Prime Day deal

Mashable - Fri, 06/27/2025 - 17:13

SAVE $120: As of June 27, get the Google Pixel Tablet for $279, $120 off via on-page coupon at Amazon, down from its usual price of $399. That's a discount of 30%.

Opens in a new window Credit: Amazon Google Pixel Tablet $279 at Amazon
$399 Save $120 Clip $120 off on-page coupon. Get Deal

When it comes to tablets, there are plenty of options out there. You don't have to stick solely to an iPad, or even what Samsung has to offer, especially when Google also has some excellent models to choose from. Enter the Google Pixel Tablet, which is on sale right now at Amazon ahead of Prime Day.

As of June 27, get the Google Pixel Tablet for $279, $120 off via on-page coupon at Amazon, down from its usual price of $399. That's $120 off and a discount of 30%. Be sure to clip the coupon before checking out so that the deal will automatically be applied.

SEE ALSO: The best tablets in 2025

The Google Pixel Tablet was named an honorable mention in our list of the best tablets, and we're still excited about it. It has a bright, 11-inch screen with 256GB of storage, a Google Tensor G2 chip, 8GB of RAM, and 8MP cameras in the front and the back. Plus, it has 128GB of storage so you don't have to spend all your time deleting photos and videos to free up more.

Though at this price you won't get it as a free add-on, there is an additional purchase that considerably enhances the tablet: a charging speaker dock. Mashable's Alex Perry praised it as a worthy extra for the tablet, as it adds a charging base with fantastic audio.

If you're ready to lock in a new tablet, now's a great time to do so ahead of Prime Day, where this deal likely won't disappear as soon as you go to add it to your cart.

Best tech deals
Categories: IT General, Technology

Leaked renders reveal Nothing Phone 3 design

Mashable - Fri, 06/27/2025 - 17:00

We're only a few days away from officially seeing the next Nothing phone, but you can unofficially see it right now.

Android Headlines published some leaked renders of the Nothing Phone 3, which is set to make its grand debut on July 1. In case you aren't in the weeds on this stuff, Nothing is a UK-based tech startup that started making sleek and unique-looking flagship-quality phones a few years back. The Phone 3 carries that tradition forward, though whether or not you like the look is entirely subjective.

This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed. SEE ALSO: Foldable iPhone leaks tease new details on camera, specs, display

As you can see, the placement of the rear cameras is the big story here. The three lenses are oddly misaligned instead of being grouped together in a convenient little box like they are on a lot of phones. It's also got a vaguely grid-like, tech-y texture on the back of the phone, though that's roughly in line with previous Nothing phones. These devices are sort of meant to look unique and futuristic.

We don't know a ton about Phone 3 yet, but Nothing has pre-announced that it has a 50MP periscope telephoto lens and a Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 chip under the hood. It also has a 6.7-inch display with a beefy 5,150mAh battery. The rest of the specs will have to wait until next week, but at that point, there may not be much to reveal anymore, if the leaks keep coming.

Categories: IT General, Technology
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