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Connections is the latest New York Times word game that's captured the public's attention. The game is all about finding the "common threads between words." And just like Wordle, Connections resets after midnight and each new set of words gets trickier and trickier—so we've served up some hints and tips to get you over the hurdle.

If you just want to be told today's puzzle, you can jump to the end of this article for January 28's Connections solution. But if you'd rather solve it yourself, keep reading for some clues, tips, and strategies to assist you.

What is Connections?

The NYT's latest daily word game has become a social media hit. The Times credits associate puzzle editor Wyna Liu with helping to create the new word game and bringing it to the publications' Games section. Connections can be played on both web browsers and mobile devices and require players to group four words that share something in common.

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Each puzzle features 16 words and each grouping of words is split into four categories. These sets could comprise of anything from book titles, software, country names, etc. Even though multiple words will seem like they fit together, there's only one correct answer. If a player gets all four words in a set correct, those words are removed from the board. Guess wrong and it counts as a mistake—players get up to four mistakes until the game ends.

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Players can also rearrange and shuffle the board to make spotting connections easier. Additionally, each group is color-coded with yellow being the easiest, followed by green, blue, and purple. Like Wordle, you can share the results with your friends on social media.

Here's a hint for today's Connections categories

Want a hit about the categories without being told the categories? Then give these a try:

• Blue - Trophies for a robot, a cat, a mannequin and a young girl

• Green - Babysit

• Yellow - Ow

• Purple - Dubya not talking

Featured Video For You Connections: How to play and how to win Here are today's Connections categories

Need a little extra help? Today's connections fall into the following categories:

• Blue - NOT BIG

• Green - IMPORTANT FOR TEXTING

• Yellow - GOING UP

• Purple - EVERYTHING YOU NEED EXCEPT A DICTIONARY

Looking for Wordle today? Here's the answer to today's Wordle.

Ready for the answers? This is your last chance to turn back and solve today's puzzle before we reveal the solutions.

Drumroll, please!

The solution to Connections #231 is...

What is the answer to Connections today

• Blue - MODIFIERS MEANING "SMALL" - BABY, MINI, POCKET, TOY

• Green - "CAN I GET YOUR ____" (PHONE INFO REQUEST) - CELL, CONTACT, DIGITS, NUMBER

• Yellow - HIGHEST POINT - CREST, PEAK, SUMMIT, VERTEX

• Purple - INSIDE A SCRABBLE BOX - BAG, BOARD, RACKS, TILES

Don't feel down if you didn't manage to guess it this time. There will be new Connections for you to stretch your brain with tomorrow, and we'll be back again to guide you with more helpful hints.

Is this not the Connections game you were looking for? Here are the hints and answers to yesterday's Connections.

Oh hey there! If you're here, it must be time for Wordle. As always, we're serving up our daily hints and tips to help you figure out today's answer.

If you just want to be told today's word, you can jump to the bottom of this article for Jan. 28's Wordle solution revealed. But if you'd rather solve it yourself, keep reading for some clues, tips, and strategies to assist you.

Where did Wordle come from?

Originally created by engineer Josh Wardle as a gift for his partner, Wordle rapidly spread to become an international phenomenon, with thousands of people around the globe playing every day. Alternate Wordle versions created by fans also sprang up, including battle royale Squabble, music identification game Heardle, and variations like Dordle and Quordle that make you guess multiple words at once. 

Wordle eventually became so popular that it was purchased by the New York Times, and TikTok creators even livestream themselves playing.

Not the day you're after? Here's the solution to yesterday's Wordle.

What's the best Wordle starting word?

The best Wordle starting word is the one that speaks to you. But if you prefer to be strategic in your approach, we have a few ideas to help you pick a word that might help you find the solution faster. One tip is to select a word that includes at least two different vowels, plus some common consonants like S, T, R, or N.

What happened to the Wordle archive?

The entire archive of past Wordle puzzles used to be available for anyone to enjoy whenever they felt like it. Unfortunately, it has since been taken down, with the website's creator stating it was done at the request of the New York Times.

Is Wordle getting harder?

It might feel like Wordle is getting harder, but it actually isn't any more difficult than when it first began. You can turn on Wordle's Hard Mode if you're after more of a challenge, though.

Here's a subtle hint for today's Wordle answer:

Burning.

Does today's Wordle answer have a double letter?

The letter E appears twice.

Today's Wordle is a 5-letter word that starts with...

Today's Wordle starts with the letter E.

SEE ALSO: Wordle-obsessed? These are the best word games to play IRL. What's the answer to Wordle today?

Get your last guesses in now, because it's your final chance to solve today's Wordle before we reveal the solution.

Drumroll please!

The solution to Wordle #953 is...

EMBER.

Don't feel down if you didn't manage to guess it this time. There will be a new Wordle for you to stretch your brain with tomorrow, and we'll be back again to guide you with more helpful hints.

Reporting by Caitlin Welsh, Sam Haysom, Amanda Yeo, Shannon Connellan, Cecily Mauran, Mike Pearl, and Adam Rosenberg contributed to this article.

TL;DR: A lifetime subscription to Rosetta Stone (All Languages) is on sale for £148.84, saving you 52% on list price.

The ability to communicate in multiple languages is more than just a skill; it's a valuable asset with far-reaching benefits. And this deal on all-language access to Rosetta Stone for life gives you access to all 25 languages for just £148.84.

Learning a new language comes with benefits like allowing you to communicate with others while travelling and much more. According to Cambridge University Press and Assessment, learning a new language later in life is "a powerful way to exercise your brain," partly because you are "forming new connections in the brain and strengthening nervous system links." 

SEE ALSO: This well-rounded skills learning bundle is on sale for under £100

Rosetta Stone has been a leader in language learning for nearly 30 years and has been used by names like NASA and Calvin Klein. Rosetta helps you develop your understanding of each language through reading, writing, and speaking. It does this through interactive software and TruAccent, its speech-recognition technology, that analyses the words you say to perfect your pronunciation.

You'll start out matching words with images and basic conversational skills about things like shopping, ordering at a restaurant, and more. You can then level up to more complex topics like sharing opinions and discussing pop culture, which could come in handy while travelling abroad.

This software works on various types of devices, including PCs, Macs, tablets, and mobile devices. However, customers can only access one language at a time, but can switch between them at any time. 

This beloved language-learning software can help you build fluency and confidence in your choice of 25 languages. If you've been wanting to learn a new language, this could be a great time to start.

Get a lifetime subscription to Rosetta Stone's 25 languages for £148.84.

Opens in a new window Credit: Rosetta Stone Rosetta Stone: All Languages (Lifetime Subscription) £148.84 at the Mashable Shop Get Deal

Pornographic deepfakes of Taylor Swift went viral on X (formerly Twitter) this week, highlighting the dangers of AI-generated imagery online.

Synthetic or manipulated media that may deceive people isn't allowed on X, according to its policy, and the platform's safety team posted on Friday that it's "actively removing all identified images and taking appropriate actions against the accounts responsible for posting them."

SEE ALSO: The era of the AI-generated internet is already here

By Saturday, users noticed that X attempted to curb the problem by blocking "Taylor Swift" from being searched — but not certain related terms, The Verge reported.

X blocks Taylor Swift's name from Search. Credit: Screenshot: X

Mashable was also able to produce the error page for the terms "Taylor Swift AI" and "Taylor AI." The terms "Swift AI," "Taylor AI Swift," and "Taylor Swift deepfake" are searchable on the platform, though, with manipulated images still displayed on the "Media" tab.

As Mashable culture reporter Meera Navlakha pointed out in an article about the deepfakes of Swift, major social media platforms are struggling to contain AI-generated content. This is due to the speed and access of creating these images, causing social platforms like X to be inundated with them in recent months. Making Swift's name unsearchable suggests that X doesn't know how to handle the array of deepfake imagery and video on its platform.

On Friday, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre called the situation "alarming." She also commented that there should be legislation about it, hinting that the issue of AI image moderation may soon be seen in Congress.

With mainstream artificial intelligence tools on the rise at the cusp of the 2024 U.S. presidential election, AI-generated disinformation isn't just a fear — it's already a reality. On January 22, the New Hampshire Department of Justice released a statement that people received a recorded audio deepfake of Joe Biden, telling them not to vote in the state primary election. The call encouraged voters to "save" their vote, noting falsely that, "your vote makes a difference in November, not this Tuesday."

Days later, AI startup ElevenLabs suspended the creator of the fake Biden audio, Bloomberg reported.

SEE ALSO: Deepfakes of Taylor Swift have gone viral. How does this keep happening?

ElevenLabs is an AI voice generator that is run by a model that, according to its website, can add human-like inflection to a voice based on context. The generator has thousands of pre-made AI voices to choose from, or you can create a custom one. Bloomberg reported that voice-fraud detection company Pindrop Security Inc. found that the AI Biden robocall was made using ElevenLabs.

"We are dedicated to preventing the misuse of audio AI tools and take any incidents of misuse extremely seriously," ElevenLabs told Bloomberg. ElevenLabs' website states that deepfakes of politicians can be used only in certain cases, including caricature, parody, or satire. Once the company was made aware of the Biden deepfake, it investigated and suspended the account responsible, a source told Bloomberg.

In an interview with The Hill, computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University Kathleen Carley said the Biden robocall is "the tip of the iceberg" in terms of attempts to suppress voters. Carley added that it's a harbinger of what could come.

ChatGPT developer OpenAI is already trying to quell misinformation itself, releasing plans to protect the integrity of the election. Soon after, the company suspended a developer who made a bot for a long-shot democratic candidate.

As such, we must be vigilant in what we see — and hear — this election season. As Mashable tech reporter Cecily Mauran warned, "The idea of an internet dominated by AI-generated content is already happening and it doesn't look good."

There is an ongoing national nightmare and not enough people are talking about it. Big Bird is now small. Tiny, even. I repeat: Big Bird is small. The horror.

How did this begin? We do not fully know. But Big Bird, seemingly out of nowhere, posted on X (formerly Twitter) that he was small — as if he woke up that way one day. Suddenly, his 8'2" frame shrunk to insect size. And we're just supposed to go on living our lives? In this changed world?

This was the initial post, from Wednesday.

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From there, the account for Big Bird has posted repeatedly about being small. And being stuck in his new, tiny size.

Big Bird seemed to grapple with his very identity. Frankly, the posts feel like cosmic horror.

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Has his new size rendered him invisible to his loved ones? Has our beloved giant bird been condemned to a life haunting what once was?

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Your screams will fall on deaf ears, bird. There will be no playing any longer.

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OK, so clearly, this is some sort of marketing stunt. To what end is unclear. But it has worked. The internet has been joking about Big Bird's shrunkenness.

This article, for instance, has negated some folks' worries.

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Others joked about how stressed they were.

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I don't know if this makes me a bad person but this joke made me laugh very hard.

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This one, too.

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And all of these.

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As of this writing this dire situation has not been remedied. Big Bird remains small, as far as we know. The horror continues unabated. But perhaps soon he will return to his full size and all will be right with the world.

SAVE $10: The digital version of Wingspan, a beautiful strategy game centered around birds, is on sale for just $9.99 on the Nintendo Store. That's a 50% discount.

Opens in a new window Credit: Wingspan 'Wingspan' $9.99 at Nintendo (save $10) Get Deal

If you love the outdoors and spotting wild animals, but don't love the temperatures outside, we give you full permission to stay inside. And there's a great gaming deal today that lets you get cozy and the couch and learn more about our avian friends.

As of Jan. 27, the digital version of the gorgeous strategy game Wingspan is on sale for just $9.99 on the Nintendo Store, down from $19.99. That's a 50% discount for an engine-building game that will delight the whole family.

SEE ALSO: Get the lastest 'Lego Star Wars' game for cheap, plus more of the best gaming deals this week

Wingspan was originally a board game that won the prestigious Kennerspiel des Jahres board game award back in 2019. Now it's available as a video game that explores the traits of 170 wild birds as you compete as a bird watcher, ornithologist, or collector to attract the best birds to your nature preserves.

Don't worry, you don't have to know a lot about birds to play — their traits are written on cards with lovely illustrations, and as you gather birds you'll gain skills to lay eggs, draw cards, or gather food, just like the real birds you're "collecting." You also get to hear recordings of the birds' songs and calls as you play. Up to five players can enjoy this relaxing game perfect for birdwatchers and nature lovers, or you can play solo.

Elon Musk's X, formerly known as Twitter, is going to begin integrating sports gambling. That doesn't mean you'll be placing bets on the app, though.

X is set to display gambling stats via a partnership with BetMGM, Fortune reported. Details on the deal were scarce, but according to Fortune, X will display betting info via MGM's sports betting division and then provide a link to the gambling platform.

As the sports blog Awful Announcing pointed out, MGM is the third-most-popular sports gambling app — behind DraftKings and FanDuel — and already has big partnerships with platforms like Yahoo and the baseball YouTube show Foul Territory. This potential partnership between X and MGM comes at a time when pretty much every sports media platform is saturated with gambling content amid its widespread legalization. In some ways, it does make sense that X would partner with a gambling platform because fans still use the app to chat about sports.

However, it is curious to see MGM tie itself to X when most brands are decoupling with Musk's site like it's going out of style. Giant corporations like Apple and Disney have ditched X after the new owner shared antisemitic conspiracy theories.

So, while we don't really know how it's going to look or when it's coming, one major brand might soon be a lot more prominent on the site.

It's that time of year again — tax season. File your taxes like a pro with 2024 tax software from Turbotax and H&R Block for up to half off.

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We're just 10 weeks away from Tax Day on April 15 — but who's counting? This year is going to be your year to file stress-free and get your maximum refund because you'll have the advantage of tax software on your side. Make those dreams of filing early finally happen and buy a deal on 2023 tax software today, before prices go up as the months tick on.

We've gathered the best deals on tax software from Turbotax and H&R Block that are meant to shepherd homeowners, investors, the self-employed, and even those who just want something basic to give them a hand. Check out the best deals on tax software as of Jan. 27 below.

Best tax software deal for self-employed people Opens in a new window Credit: Turbotax Our pick: TurboTax Home & Business 2023 Tax Software, Federal & State $75.99 at Amazon (save $44) Get Deal Why we like it

When you're self-employed you wear dozens of hats to keep your business running. Outsource your taxes to this software meant to help out contractors, freelancers, small business owners, and others who are doing it for themselves. The software will help you find write-offs and reductions that are specific to your industry as well as create and e-file W-2s and 1099s for employees & contractors. This deal includes five federal e-files and one state file.

Best tax software deal for homeowners Opens in a new window Credit: Turbotax TurboTax Deluxe 2023 Tax Software, Federal & State $44.99 at Amazon (save $25) Get Deal Why we like it

Taxes can get more complicated when you own a home or have high medical expenses. This software can help you navigate both of those financial situations, as well as reporting charitable donations. It helps you identify more than 350 deductions and credits so you can rest assured you're getting your max refund. This deal includes five federal e-files and one state file.

Best tax software deal for investors Opens in a new window Credit: Turbotax TurboTax Premier 2023 Tax Software, Federal & State $64.99 at Amazon (save $39.99) Get Deal Why we like it

Whether you trade stocks, buy bonds, or even own a rental property, there's a whole lot of tax minutiae that comes along with investments. This tax software will digitally hold your hand as you wade through reporting your stocks, bonds, ESPPs, and any money you may have inherited through a trust (lucky you!). The goal is to keep more of your hard-earned money, and this deal will help you do so. It includes five federal e-files and one state file.

More tax software deals

• H&R Block Tax Software Deluxe + State 2023 with Refund Bonus Offer — $24.99 $49.99 (save $24.99)

The Ingenuity helicopter is too damaged to ever fly again. Yet before its final flight, NASA's historic Mars craft captured a sprawling view of the Martian desert.

In the aftermath of a "rough" landing during its 72nd flight, the small experimental chopper was left with at least one severely broken rotor, a tip potentially snapped off after crashing into the rocky ground. Yet on one of Ingenuity's final flights, flight 70, the NASA craft took in the scene you see below.

It's a vista of sprawling sand dunes. In the distance are rock-strewn ridges and mountains. And in the upper left corner you can spot the end of a helicopter leg.

SEE ALSO: NASA spacecraft keeps on going faster and faster and faster NASA's Ingenuity helicopter flying over smooth terrain in December 2023. Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / ASU / MSSS

Ingenuity snapped this image from some 39 feet (12 meters) above the ground on Dec. 22, 2023. Its final flight would be less than a month later.

It turns out those picturesque, flowing Martian dunes were likely the cause of Ingenuity's demise. The helicopter navigated by using software to track the movement of objects, like rocks, below. But the sandy terrain was largely "featureless," the space agency explained.

"The more featureless the terrain is, the harder it is for Ingenuity to successfully navigate across it," NASA said in a statement. "The team believes that the relatively featureless terrain in this region was likely the root cause of the anomalous landing."

"That remarkable helicopter flew higher and farther than we ever imagined"

Still, the Ingenuity mission vastly overachieved over nearly three years of extraterrestrial flight. It became the first craft to ever make a powered, controlled flight on another planet. NASA engineers initially hoped the demonstration craft, with four-foot-long rotors, might prove flight was possible on Mars, perhaps flying five times. But it flew 72 times.

It was a scout. And a planetary explorer. The future exploration of Mars — and search for past Martian life — will almost certainly involve future aerial craft, and have Ingenuity to thank. After all, this persevering craft proved that flight on Mars, a world with a profoundly thin atmosphere, was possible.

"That remarkable helicopter flew higher and farther than we ever imagined and helped NASA do what we do best — make the impossible, possible," NASA administrator Bill Nelson said when announcing that Ingenuity had taken its final flight.

NASA is headed to Jupiter's fascinating moon Europa this year. Scientists suspect a deep ocean sloshes beneath the icy world's crust.

The looming mission, called Europa Clipper, will launch in October, sending a spacecraft the length of a basketball court to make around 50 flybys by the distant Jovian moon, assessing whether it could harbor conditions suitable for life. It won't, however, land on the ice crust.

Yet the space agency is already preparing an ambitious follow-up mission, aptly named Europa Lander, that will touch down on the moon's surface and dig or drill into the ice. "In this mission concept, a spacecraft would land on Europa and collect and study samples from about 4 inches (10 centimeters) beneath the surface, looking for signs of life," NASA explains.

SEE ALSO: NASA will land daring spacecraft on a world 800 million miles away

The agency recently released images of the mission's unique landing gear, whose legs can absorb a heavy spacecraft's landing. Taken together, the lander's metal appendages make the craft look spider-like. Engineers are preparing to test these legs on a platform that will mimic a landing on Europa.

Below, you can see NASA staff working on this critical landing gear at the agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory — the same lab that designed and built missions like the Jupiter-orbiting Juno probe, the legendary Voyager spacecraft, and the Mars Perseverance rover.

An engineer testing the Europa Lander's landing gear. Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech The Europa Lander testbed at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech NASA engineers working on the craft's landing system. Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech

The craft will need a robust landing system. It will carry instruments that will dig some four inches into Europa's ice. "This is a depth at which the complex chemistry of materials from the ocean below would be protected from the damaging radiation that exists in space around Jupiter," NASA explained. It will also have a "miniature laboratory" aboard, which will look for signs of life, among other instruments.

For now, the Europa Lander technically remains just a "proposal." But engineers are preparing for its reality. First, though, the Europa Clipper will scour the intriguing Europan surface. After traveling hundreds of millions of miles away, the orbiting probe will arrive at the icy destination in 2030.

This isn't a conspiracy theory or future prophecy. The idea of an internet dominated by AI-generated content is already happening and it doesn't look good.

Ever since ChatGPT hit the market, AI-generated content has been steadily seeping into the internet. Artificial intelligence has been around for decades. But the consumer-facing ChatGPT has pushed AI into the mainstream, creating unprecedented accessibility to advanced AI models and demand that businesses are eager to capitalize on.

As a result, companies and users alike are leveraging generative AI to crank out high volumes of content. While the initial concern is the abundance of content containing inaccuracies, gibberish, and misinformation, the long-term effect is complete degradation of web content into useless garbage. 

SEE ALSO: OpenAI's new election rules are already being put to the test Garbage in, garbage out

If you're thinking, the internet already contains a bunch of useless garbage, that's true, but this is different. "There's a lot of garbage out there… but it has an insane amount of variety and diversity," said Nader Henein, a VP analyst for management consulting firm Gartner. As LLMs feed off each other's content, the quality gets worse and more vague, like a photocopy of a photocopy of an image. 

Think about it this way: the first version of ChatGPT was the last model to be trained on entirely human-generated content. Every model since then contains training data that has AI-generated content which is difficult to verify, or even track. This becomes unreliable, or to put it bluntly, garbage, data. When this happens, "​​we lose quality and precision of the content, and we lose diversity," said Henein who researches data protection and artificial intelligence. "Everything starts looking like the same thing."

"Incestuous learning" is what Henein calls it. "LLMs are just one big family, they're just consuming each other's content and cross pollinating, and with every generation you have… increasingly more garbage to the point where the garbage overtakes the good content and things start to deteriorate from there." 

As more AI-generated content is pushed out to the web, and that content is generated by LLMs trained on AI-generated content, we're looking at a future web that is entirely homogenous and totally unreliable. Also, just really boring.

Model collapse, internet collapse 

Most people already sense something is off.

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In some of the more high-profile examples, art is being duplicated by robots. Books are being swallowed whole and replicated by LLMs without the authors' permission. Images and videos that use celebrities' voices and likenesses are made without their consent and compensation. 

But existing copyright and IP laws are already in place to protect such violations. Plus, some are embracing AI collaboration like Grimes who offers revenue-sharing deals with AI music creators and record companies that are exploring licensing deals with AI tech companies. On the policy side, lawmakers have introduced a No Fakes Act to protect public figures from AI replicas. The regulations to fix all these problems aren't in place, but fixing them is at least imaginable. 

The plunge in overall quality of everything online, however, is a more insidious phenomenon, and researchers have demonstrated why it's about to get worse. 

In a study from Johannes Gutenberg University in Germany, researchers found that "this self-consuming training loop initially improves both quality and diversity," which lines up with what's likely to happen next. "However, after a few generations the output inevitably degenerates in diversity. We find that the rate of degeneration depends on the proportion of real and generated data."

Two other academic papers published in 2023 came to the same conclusion about the degradation of AI models when trained on synthetic, aka AI-generated data. According to a study from researchers at Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial College London, University of Toronto, and University of Edinburgh, "use of model-generated content in training causes irreversible defects in the resulting models, where tails of the original content distribution disappear," referring to this as "model collapse." 

Similarly, Stanford and Rice University researchers said, "without enough fresh real data in each generation of an autophagous [self-consuming] loop, future generative models are doomed to have their quality (precision) or diversity (recall) progressively decrease."

Lack of diversity, explains Henein, is the fundamental problem, because if AI models are trying to replace human creativity, it's getting farther and farther away from that. 

The AI-generated internet at a glance

As model collapse looms, the AI-generated internet has already arrived.

Amazon has a new feature that provides AI-generated summaries of product reviews. Tools from Google and Microsoft use AI to help draft emails and documents and Indeed launched a tool in September that lets recruiters create AI-generated job descriptions. Platforms like DALL-E 3 and Midjourney let users create AI-generated images and share them on the web. 

Whether they directly output AI-generated content like Amazon or provide a service for users to put out AI-generated content themselves like Google, Microsoft, Indeed, OpenAI and Midjourney, it's already out there. 

And those are just the tools and features from Big Tech companies that purport to have some kind of oversight. The real perpetrators are click-bait sites that pump out low-quality, high-volume, regurgitated content for high SEO ranking and revenue. 

A recent report from 404 Media, found numerous sites "that rip-off other outlets by using AI to rapidly churn out content." For a sample of this kind of content, which avoids plagiarism at the expense of coherence, look at questionable news site Worldtimetodays.com, where the first line of a 2023 story touching on Gina Carano's firing from Star Wars reads, "It’s been a while since Gina Carano began a tirade against Lucasfilm after he was fired war of starsso for better or worse we were due."

Clearly, this sentence was AI-generated. Credit: Worldtimetodays.com

On Google Scholar, users discovered a cache of academic papers containing the phrase "as an AI language model," meaning portions of papers — or entire papers for all anyone knows — were written by chatbots like ChatGPT. AI-generated research papers — which are supposed to have some kind of academic credibility — can make their way onto news sites and blogs as authoritative references.

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Even Google searches now sometimes surface AI-generated likenesses of celebrities instead of things like press photos or movie stills. When you Google Israel Kamakawiwo'ole, the deceased musician known for his ukulele cover of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow," the top result is an AI-generated prediction of how Kamakawiwo'ole would have looked if he were alive today.

Google Image searches of Keira Knightley result in warped renderings uploaded by users on OpenArt, Playground AI, and Dopamine Girl alongside real photos of the actress

Keira doesn't deserve this. Credit: Mashable

That's not to mention the recent pornographic deepfakes of Taylor Swift, an Instagram ad using Tom Hanks's likeness to sell a dental plan, a photo editing app using Scarlett Johansson's face and voice without her consent, and that fire song by Drake and The Weeknd that was actually an unauthorized audio deepfake that sounded exactly like them.

If our search engine results already can't be trusted, and the models are almost certainly feasting on this junk, we have stepped over the threshold into the web's AI garbage era. For the moment, the web as we once knew it is still somewhat recognizable, but the warnings are no longer abstract.

The internet isn't completely doomed

Assuming products like ChatGPT don't pull off a hail-Mary and start reliably generating vibrant, exciting content that humans actually find pleasurable or useful to consume, what happens next? 

Expect communities and organizations to fight back by protecting their content from the AI models trying to hoover it up. The open, ad-supported, search-based web might be going away, but the internet will evolve. Expect more reputable media sites to put their content behind paywalls, and trusted information coming from subscriber newsletters. 

Expect to see more copyright and licensing battles, like The New York Times' lawsuit against Microsoft and OpenAI. Expect to see more tools like Nightshade, an invisible tool that protects copyrighted images by attempting to corrupt models trained on them. Expect the development of sophisticated new watermarking and verification tools that prevent AI-scraping. 

On the flipside, you can also expect other news publications like Associated Press — and possibly CNN, Fox, and Time — to embrace generative AI and work out licensing agreements with companies like OpenAI. 

As tools like ChatGPT and Google's SGE become substitutes for traditional search, expect revenue models built on SEO to change. 

The silver lining of model collapse, however, is the loss of demand. The proliferation of generative AI is currently dictated by hype, and if models trained on low-quality content are no longer useful, the demand dries up. What (hopefully) remains are us feeble-minded humans with the unquenchable urge to rant, overshare, inform, and otherwise express ourselves online.

Just seven years ago, Americans emptied their homes for a chance to witness a total solar eclipse, an astronomical event hailed as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

Back then, you might have heard this was the first to cut across the United States from coast to coast in a century — and it was. But lately, you might have heard there's another total solar eclipse slicing through North America on April 8, 2024.

So what gives?

Rest assured, skeptics, the 2024 eclipse is not crying wolf. There is another coming — the last major eclipse to cross the continent for 20 years — and the experience will be different from that of 2017, said Jenna Samra, a physicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

The total solar eclipse this April will last longer, could appear darker, and the corona should look even more reminiscent of a pointy crown around the moon. Also, many more people live where it will be safe to remove protective eclipse glasses for the minutes when the sun is completely blocked.

"When people say the eclipse is a once-in-a-lifetime event, of course that's not strictly true. Actually, there's a solar eclipse every couple of years, if you can go anywhere in the world to see it," Samra told Mashable. "What makes them rare is appearing in a certain location on Earth."

SEE ALSO: Here are the 2024 space moments you won't want to miss The path of the total solar eclipse on April 8, 2024. Credit: NASA Science Visualization Studio

A total solar eclipse occurs when the moon comes between the sun and Earth in space. During that brief period when the sun is entirely hidden, the sky will darken to twilight.

When the sun is concealed, people have the unusual chance to observe the sun's corona glowing around the edges of the moon. The corona, the outer layer of the sun's atmosphere, is normally washed out by the much brighter solar surface.

The moon is expected to first cast its shadow on Mexico's Pacific coast at 11:07 a.m. PT, according to NASA. The corridor of the moon's shadow, the so-called "path of totality," will arc from Texas to Maine, entering Canada through Southern Ontario and exiting on the Atlantic coast of Newfoundland at 5:16 p.m. NDT. The rest of the U.S. mainland will experience a partial eclipse, meaning the moon will only obscure a chunk of the sun.

All 48 states on the U.S. mainland will experience at least a partial eclipse on April 8, 2024. Credit: NASA

The sun, moon, and Earth align like this to form a total solar eclipse every one to three years. But the shadow of the moon usually traces a path over oceans and desolate corners of the world, said Kelly Korreck, a heliophysicist and NASA's program manager for the 2024 eclipse.

"In one particular location, to get that solar eclipse (again), it's between 400 and 1,000 years on average," Korreck told Mashable. "So it's once-in-a-lifetime in a specific spot, but it's not necessarily once-in-a-lifetime for the planet."

There are, of course, outliers: Carbondale, Illinois, for example — a city that was in the moon's shadow during the eclipse on Aug. 21, 2017 — will also, coincidentally, be in the path of totality in April.

Tweet may have been deleted The 2024 eclipse will last longer

The moon's shadow on Earth's surface was 71 miles wide during the 2017 eclipse, making the longest duration of total sun coverage two minutes and 41 seconds. But the 2024 eclipse will span 122 miles, Korreck said, providing an eclipse lasting up to four minutes and 27 seconds.

The shadow size changes based on the configuration of the moon's orbit around Earth and Earth's orbit around the sun, both slightly oval. The sun's size appears to change ever so slightly — enough to matter for an eclipse, said Michael Zeiler, an eclipse cartographer and co-founder of GreatAmericanEclipse.com, a resource for solar eclipses around the world.

"It all depends on the geometry," he told Mashable. "If the sun's apparent size to us is relatively small, or about the smallest it gets, and the moon is about the largest that it gets, then you will have the longest possible total solar eclipse, which has a theoretical maximum of about seven minutes and 30 seconds."

Eclipse cartographer Michael Zeiler says the sky could appear darker during the 2024 eclipse than in 2017, due to the wider path of totality. Credit: ROBYN BECK / AFP via Getty Images The 2024 eclipse could appear darker

Setting aside weather conditions, the wider path of totality is also the reason some solar eclipse observers could be treated to a darker sky, Zeiler said, allowing people to see more stars against the backdrop.

If a person stood in the center of the narrower path in 2017, then went to the center of the broader 2024 path this April, the sky could appear darker the second time around. The duration of the eclipse and the level of darkness are related.

"If you're in the center, then you're a farther distance away from sunlight. That's what it boils down to — how far you are from the edge of the shadow," he said.

Tweet may have been deleted The corona will look 'spikier' in 2024

The corona, that hazy white glow that will appear when the moon blocks the sun, means "crown" in Latin. And because of where the sun is in its 11-year solar cycle, eclipse watchers are more likely to see a corona surrounded by pointy peaks, much like the name evokes.

"The shape of the corona that you see on Eclipse Day, it will become seared into your memory," said Zeiler, who has witnessed 11 total solar eclipses around the world. "When you look at a photograph, you'll instantly say, 'Oh yeah, that's the 2024 eclipse.'"

The solar cycle, caused by changes in the sun's magnetic fields, affects activity on the sun's surface. At the beginning and end of the cycle, that activity is at its calmest. But solar activity ramps up, peaking in the middle of the cycle, causing the sun to roil with giant eruptions.

The cycle will have nearly reached its maximum point during the 2024 eclipse. By contrast, the sun was closer to solar minimum in 2017, revealing a more ordered corona.

"The shape of the corona that you see on Eclipse Day, it will become seared into your memory." A solar prominence launches into the corona from the sun's surface. Credit: NASA

"The corona will just look much more, I guess the word I can say is, 'spiky,'" Samra said. "It has to do with the way the magnetic field is. The spikes that we see are actually essentially plasma — hot, ionized gas — and the corona is following the magnetic field lines."

Astronomers and eclipse chasers are excited about the chance to see some wild fireworks in the corona. Those include solar prominences — wispy pink tendrils that extend into the corona. Some prominences resemble bright lakes of fire around the moon's rim.

But the highlight could be witnessing a coronal mass ejection, plasma spewed from the corona, which might look like a bubble or blob. Small CMEs have been reported during totality in recent times, but no major eruptions. Some historians believe the eclipse that crossed Spain in 1860 had a giant one, Zeiler said. Paintings and sketches from that event show a large hook-like feature launching out of the corona.

Nearly three times more people live in the path of totality for the 2024 eclipse compared to the 2017 path. Credit: MARK RALSTON / AFP via Getty Images More people live in the 2024 eclipse's path

Motivated people will travel to the path of totality for an eclipse, but many who observe it will simply be those lucky enough to already live in the track of the moon's shadow. In 2017, that corridor fell over an estimated 12 million residents.

But this time in 2024, the path will arc toward the more densely populated East Coast, casting shade over about 31 million residents — over 2.5 times more people.

Some experts predict that because the eclipse will be in so many citizens' backyards, it will be the most-viewed astronomical event in American history — even if it's not a once-in-a-lifetime moment, per se.

"If you get lucky enough that it's not a-once-in-a-lifetime event, then just seize that," Samra said. "You're not gonna get sick of seeing it — like, no way. You're always going to wish you had longer."

Love it or tolerate it, Valentine’s Day is the ideal time to right the gift-giving wrongs of the holidays. Were you sure your husband would love that faux-vintage turntable, only to find out later that what he really wanted was a weighted blanket? Did you misinterpret his months of hint-dropping about homebrewing, ponying up for the perfect craft beer kit, when he was actually talking about kombucha?

The best Valentine's Day gifts for husbands give you a second chance to get it right.

SEE ALSO: The best gifts for men: Creative ideas for every type of guy

In your defense, nailing the perfect gift for someone as close to you as a spouse is a lot harder than it sounds, especially when you've been together for a while and exhausted your best ideas. Instead of opting for something cliché or overly trendy, spend some time reading between the lines of his interests and hobbies. If he's a movie buff with a Regal Unlimited subscription who uses Letterboxd like his personal journal, for example, grab some cool merch from the A24 Shop. Don't be afraid to get hyper-niche.

With that in mind, we’ve come up with a list of Valentine's Day gift ideas for over a dozen different kinds of husbands. Some are luxe versions of everyday items, while others are special-occasion splurges. A select few are gifts that the both of you can enjoy — because healthy relationships are all about sharing, right?

Whether you just started dating or you’re practically engaged, shopping for the perfect Valentine's Day gift for your boyfriend can be a surprisingly tricky task. How much should you spend? Are you going for a big romantic gesture or keeping it simple? And what about the classic "we’re not doing gifts this year," but you still "surprise" each other with gifts anyway thing?

Seriously, though — what *is* that?

SEE ALSO: Best gift ideas for people in long-distance relationships

If you're stuck in a gift-giving rut, our best advice is to zero in on the items he uses daily and the topics he brings up whenever you hang out — these are easy jumping-off points for V-day gift ideas that'll make him feel seen. (Oh, he just mentioned in passing that his wallet's falling apart? Get him a really nice leather one that he'd never splurge on himself. Stuff like that shows you've been paying attention.)

Below, we've rounded up a list of Valentine's Day gift ideas for boyfriends that say "I love you and I get you" without being totally cliché. Spoiler alert: There will be no mention of whiskey stones or beard oil.

Over the course of my time at Mashable, I've been obsessed with finding a robot vacuum that performs actual magic on carpets and bare floors — but maybe not as (healthily) obsessed as our in-house vacuum aficionado/expert Leah Stodart. I've been particularly intrigued by the elusive robovac category know as "hybrids," which are essentially mop-and-vac combos that take two of the most dreaded household chores off your to-do list.

As often happens in life, products (and people, cough cough) that promise too much end up providing less-than-satisfactory results. This includes hybrid robot vacuums that often end up sacrificing mopping ability for powerful vacuum suction, or vice versa. No future robot vacuum buyer wants to cheat themselves out of spotless floors by investing in an underperforming item, which is why I took it upon myself to test the most expensive and the most intelligent Roborock vacuum you can buy right now. Enter: The Roborock S8 Pro Ultra.

This Roborock has a pretty sleek and minimalistic design, albeit a bulky base. Credit: Stacia Datskovska / Mashable

Roborock, a mainstay brand in the robot vacuum industry, unveiled a new S8 product series back in April 2023. The hype around the S8 Pro Ultra was especially strong, but we take all such internet hype with a fat grain of salt.

That's why, high Amazon rating notwithstanding, I decided to see for myself whether the Roborock S8 Pro Ultra pampered 1,300 square feet of my floor with flawless results or whether it made me retrace all of its steps with a dustpan and broom in hand. Here's what followed (dramatic Morgan Freeman voice).

SEE ALSO: The best robot vacuums unveiled at CES 2024 go where Roombas still haven't In-app features are stunning, but setup was a chore

As with most robovacs, to get the Roborock S8 Pro Ultra up and running you have to connect it to the Roborock app (available on Android and iOS) via a series of intricate, ancient rituals (read: either scanning the QR code on the vac itself or pairing your phone and vac to the same WiFi network). I went with the latter method since, for the life of me, I couldn't find the QR code on my new Roborock.

Attaining a solid WiFi connection was a process that involved a lot of loading and buffering. This is where I docked a few points in the S8 Pro Ultra's user friendliness category. After this speed bump, however, the rest of the setup process was way smoother.

My parents already programmed the vac with their own Roborock app before I even laid my hands on it, which meant that, once I was connected to the item on my app, I saw our full first floor map right in the center of the screen. Roborock seamlessly transfers floor map data between different accounts for the same vacuum — definitely a time-saver worthy of some appreciation.

While we're on the topic of floor maps, it took the Roborock an alarmingly short amount of time to maneuver around 1,300 square feet of my floors for the first time ever and absorb the findings — just 10 minutes. Let me put this metric in perspective. When I tested out the Yeedi Mop Station, I wrote the following about its mapping time: It took the vacuum "more than a day to run its course multiple times around the rooms and get a visual of their full layout. In other words, the vac started this procedure around 4 p.m., got tired, docked, and only finished the job at hand by midday the next day." Yeah, major props to the Roborock for doing it at record-breaking speeds and never once getting fatigued.

The layout of my first floor living area that Roborock successfully (and speedily!) mapped. Credit: Screenshot: Roborock Just one example of how personalizable the vac's in-app settings are. Credit: Screenshot: Roborock

The Roborock app interface itself was sleek and clean compared to other ones I've familiarized myself with in the past. Nonetheless, getting the vacuum to actually start a cleaning job wasn't as simple as I hoped it would be — due to the sheer amount of settings and options offered by Roborock. Did I want to turn on "less collision" mode to foresee walls and furniture in advance? Would a standard cleaning route versus a zig-zag one be better? How frequently did I want the S8 Pro Ultra to wash its mop... or did I wish for it to do so after each room?

Once I was more "fluent" in the functions of this vac, such intricate and intimate features were a godsend, but, in the beginning, it was all a bit too much to take in.

High-tech cleaning options provided not-so-high-tech results

The Roborock S8 Pro Ultra allows you to choose from room by room, zone by zone, all-over clean, or even spot clean options. The latter turned out to be redundant because of how imprecise it is — when I tried to navigate the vac to a particular "trouble area" by tapping my finger on its approximate location in the app, the vacuum missed the spot by a few inches. For the most part, I stuck with the all-over clean option: a really stress-free way of cleaning your entire space, especially since the vac empties itself automatically.

I also attempted to control the vacuum manually (as if in a video game) through the remote control setting, which allows you to move the bot via buttons or a joystick-esque controller. Feeling like the Roborock's puppeteer was slightly disconcerting, and it turned out that this feature is hella undercooked — the vacuum would only move forward and to the right. Backwards and to the left were out of the question. No deal.

Though I didn't fiddle with these settings myself, Roborock also gives the option of creating certain "no-go zones," which are ideal for pet households and maximalists with a ton of furniture. Additionally, you can customize floor surface on the app (choosing from carpet, tile, something called "entrapping threshold," and more).

No other robot vacuum I've tested in the past gave such massive DIY privileges to its users, so I was thoroughly impressed at first blush. I personally chose to set my mop wash frequency to 20 minutes, the washing mode to "balanced" (which the Roborock app said was suitable for medium-sized homes), scrub intensity/water flow to "intense," and suction power to "turbo" (the second highest and thus second loudest suction level). This isn't a strict recipe — the benefit of this Roborock is that it fits the needs of your household.

Despite the plethora of cool cleaning options Roborock serves up on a platter, quantity overshadowed quality in this case. In other words, I didn't see a major difference between cleaning with carpet suction boosting powers on versus off (or else cleaning with “clean along floor direction” on rather than allowing the vac to, literally, go against the grain).

The S8 Pro Ultra has a spot clean option. Credit: Screenshot: Roborock You can even control it via joystick (kinda). Credit: Screenshot: Roborock When it came to vacuuming up messes, the S8 Pro Ultra ate and left crumbs

If you've read any of my past robovac reviews (don't tell me, I don't want to know), you're familiar with the Graham Cracker Test I carry out (patent pending) to test the products' vacuuming capabilities. The test essentially revolves around crushing up graham crackers that are past their s'mores prime and scattering them in key areas of the house: In this case a thick carpet, a thin floor mat, around the leg of a side table, and along the edge of a hardwood floor. The next part is monitoring my dog so that he doesn't gobble up the crackers and also seeing whether the vacuum will pick up all crumbs during its cleaning.

Pictures speak louder than words, or however that saying goes, so take a look at the before/after results for a sense of how the S8 Pro Ultra performed on the test:

Graham Cracker Test (before cleaning). Credit: Stacia Datskovska / Mashable Graham Cracker Test (after cleaning). Credit: Stacia Datskovska / Mashable

Yeah, clearly it didn't do so hot (especially when it came to vacuuming around the leg of the table and the edge of my thin floor mat). Now, was this experiment representative of a real-life scenario? Probably not, as you're unlikely to leave such precise messes and such big crumbs while going about your daily activities. But anything can happen, and the S8 Pro Ultra proved that it's not necessarily ready to handle that "anything" when it comes up.

I'm a tough grader, but I do give credit where credit is due, so I have to applaud the amount of dust particles, hair, debris, and other unsavory molecules that the vacuum did suck up over the course of my time using it. After five days of collecting gunk through once or twice-a-day cleanings, this is what I found in its dustbin:

Pardon the dust. Literally. Credit: Stacia Datskovska / Mashable

Those are tangible (and allergy-inducing) results right there — irrefutable evidence of the fact that the Roborock S8 Pro Ultra doesn't just fake cleanings. It might not swoop up all the crumbs on your floor, but your space is undoubtedly made cleaner thanks to its hard work. Maybe the Roborock's DuoRoller brush is responsible for this achievement. The brand advertises it as a brush that "will spin in opposite directions, which can improve the pick up of hairs on carpet and avoid tangled hairs... with an increased grip strength for carpet cleaning, floors, and any other surfaces."

Though I did have to rescue the brush after parts of a plant got stuck in it (and got damaged as a result, which I will mourn forever), I never had to untangle any yucky hairs as per Roborock's promise. Count your blessings, people.

Spotty mopping was compensated for by self-refilling tank and self-washing/drying mop pads

As I mentioned earlier, it's very rare that a robot vacuum (even one that costs over $1,000!) is able to provide A+ vacuuming and mopping at the same time. One function usually takes a backseat while the other rides shotgun, and it was no different with this Roborock.

When I ran it on vac and mop mode, it didn't do the latter part very well — the areas that it did mop were mopped well, but it also missed a bunch of spots on my bare hardwood floors for no particular reason. I will say that the dynamic lift setting soothed my heart with the knowledge that, when the vacuum detects a carpeted surface, it lifts its mop pads and stops water flow. Soaked rugs are not a vibe, so this was a positive.

Other points to include on Roborock's list of positives: its self-refilling water tank and self-washing/drying mop pads, which actually wash themselves well. After just one full auto/all-over clean, the dirty water tank (the S8 Pro Ultra also has a clean water tank that you're responsible for replenishing) was dirty. We're talking mucky-gray, I-must-empty-this-out-now-before-I-throw-up dirty, which is proof positive that the vac cleans its pads effectively for future mopping rounds.

The vac's base has two tanks, and it self-refills with clean water. Credit: Stacia Datskovska / Mashable The water inside the vac's dirty water tank was sufficiently dirty. Credit: Stacia Datskovska / Mashable

BTW, besides self-refilling, washing, and drying, this vacuum also self-empties after each cleanup — you don't have to worry about replacing its dust bag for up to seven (!!) weeks. This timespan pretty much checks out, given the contents of the dust bag that revealed themselves when I peeked into it after five days. However, after those seven weeks, you do have to buy a new bag from Roborock (six dust bags at the retailer will cost you a whopping $31.99 and the price stays the same when shopping for them via Amazon). Regularly having to invest in accessory replacements is how they get ya, but buying the Roborock S8 Pro Ultra is already a sunk cost. You might as well treat your new helper to the very best.

Battery life is similar to most higher-end robovacs on the market; price is unnecessarily high

To track the S8 Pro Ultra's battery life, I started running it on the vac and mop setting at 1 p.m. (fully charged) and monitored how long it took the vacuum to run out of juice/run back to its home base for a recharge. It ended up doing so at 3:50 p.m., which means it has a battery life of approximately two hours 50 minutes. This checks out with the 180 minute runtime Roborock promises.

For reference, other hybrids that I tested — primarily, the Yeedi Vac Station and Yeedi Mop Station — had runtimes of up to 200 minutes and 144 minutes, respectively. This means that the S8 Pro Ultra is not performing battery miracles, but it's certainly not an outlier based on how frequently it needs recharging, either.

Now that we've thrown potential competition into the mix, it's time to get down to the juicy stuff: How does the Roborock S8 Pro Ultra compare to other vacuums, and is it worth paying an MSRP price of $1,599.99? (Though it's frequently $400 off at Roborock and Amazon.)

My Roborock looking all shiny, new, and overpriced. Credit: Stacia Datskovska / Mashable

The S8 Pro Ultra might be loaded with tons of perks that other robovacs don't even dream of having (like 6,000 pascals of suction power, a PreciSense LiDAR Navigation system that allows it to work at night while you sleep, and more), but its actual performance doesn't justify jolting your savings account like that.

After all, even comparable robovacs from Roborock's S8 series — like the S8+ hybrid, which our reviewer Timothy Beck Werth awarded with a ~Werthy~ Mashable score of 4.4 — cost no more than $999.99. If the only added benefits the S8 Pro Ultra brings are self-washing and self-drying mop pads, then... it's not really worth it. The Yeedi Mop Station Pro, after all, (though not as new and shiny and cool as the Roborock S8 Pro Ultra) has self-washing pads, too, and doesn't charge over $799.99 for all of its features combined.

If you have bucketloads of money to blow, you might want to invest in this high-end robot vacuum. If, however, your New Year's resolution is saving some dinero, the Roborock S8 Pro Ultra is just not worth the splurge.

A factory reset on a MacBook wipes the device of all personal data and reinstalls a clean, unimpeded version of macOS.

Thankfully, completing a factory reset on a MacBook is painless. Apple has generally kept the process fairly streamlined. However, there are a few differences in the procedure depending on whether you have a MacBook with Apple silicon or if it’s a MacBook with the Apple T2 Security chip. Whether you’re running macOS Monterey or later will also impact the step, albeit slightly.

First, check to see if your MacBook has the ‘Erase All Content and Settings feature’. If so, follow these steps depending on the OS.

SEE ALSO: MacBook Air vs. MacBook Pro: All the 2023 MacBooks explained For macOS Monterey:

Step 1: Select the Apple menu in the top left-hand corner and hit ‘System Preferences’.

Step 2: Choose ‘Erase all Content and Settings’.

For macOS Ventura or later:

Step 1: Select the Apple menu in the top left-hand corner and hit ‘System Settings’.

Step 2: Navigate to ‘General’ in the sidebar and click ‘Transfer or Reset’.

Step 3: Choose ‘Erase all Content and Settings’.

Once ‘Erase all Content and Settings’ is selected, you’ll have to sign in with your admin credentials, including your password. Apple also provides a notification of everything being erased, including Apple ID, Touch ID, Apple Wallet, and Find My settings.

This is also the chance to initiate a Time Machine backup if you wish. By selecting ‘Open Time Machine’, you can create a backup of your files and information. However, you’ll be required to have an external storage device.

Once you confirm and select ‘Erase all Content and Settings’ again, the factory reset is initiated. The MacBook is then activated and restarted, with a fresh setup process to initiate.

Use Disk Utility

If your MacBook doesn’t offer the ‘Erase All Content and Settings’ feature, you can use the ‘Disk Utility’ tool. Follow these steps to erase all content:

Step 1: With your MacBook powered down, turn it on and immediately press and hold the Command (⌘) and R keys. Do so until the Apple logo appears.

Step 2: Enter the admin password and select ‘Disk Utility’

Step 3. Navigate to ‘Macintosh HD’ in the sidebar and click ‘Erase’. 

Step 4: Type ‘Macintosh HD’ into the “Name” field and select APFS format or Mac OS Extended (Journaled).

Step 5. Select ‘Erase Volume Group’ or ‘Erase’ depending on what appears. If asked, enter your Apple ID to initiate the wipe.

With that, your MacBook is now wiped and ready for a new owner. You can now donate, sell, or gift your MacBook to someone and not worry about lingering data being accessible.

Percy Jackson and the Olympians is a rollicking fantasy adventure, complete with frightening monsters, high-stakes battles, and gods pulled straight from Greek mythology. So it may come as a surprise that one of the show's best — and most talked-about — scenes is a quiet discussion between two parents.

Of course, these aren't normal parents. One is the Greek god Poseidon (Toby Stephens). The other is mortal Sally Jackson (Virginia Kull), who has spent the last 12 years preparing her son Percy (Walker Scobell) for his heroic destiny — and protecting him from the world of the Olympians.

SEE ALSO: How is 'Percy Jackson and the Olympians' different from the books?

Like many stories from ancient legends, Sally and Poseidon's relationship is a tragic romance. Separated by circumstances of literally mythic proportion, unable to raise Percy together because Olympian law dictates that Poseidon shouldn't even have a child, their story has no clear solution. Sally carries the burden of the truth about Percy's parentage, while Poseidon is unable to help without endangering both his son and the woman he loves. It's a tough dynamic to understand solely through Percy's eyes, but in episode 7, "We Find Out the Truth, Sort Of," Percy Jackson and the Olympians offers us a bigger window into Sally and Poseidon's connection, in all its painful messiness and surprising beauty.

Toby Stephens in "Percy Jackson and the Olympians." Credit: Disney / David Bukach

"We Find Out the Truth, Sort Of" marks our first introduction to Poseidon and what his relationship with Sally really looks like. Because of this, our first glimpse of Poseidon in the flesh is not some bombastic display of godly power, but of a man and a woman simply talking in a diner about the difficulties Sally faces in raising Percy alone.

"It was a really clever way to introduce their relationship and introduce Poseidon, because it makes them very human," Stephens said of the scene in a video call with Mashable. "It's a domestic scene between a mother and father, and at the heart of it there's this pain. It's a yearning between two people to be connected who can't be, but Poseidon is also yearning to be connected with his son but can't because he's protecting him."

SEE ALSO: Jay Duplass talks Hades' big introduction to 'Percy Jackson and the Olympians'

The diner scene was the first scene Stephens shot for the series, yet the chemistry and history between Poseidon and Sally were already well within reach for the actors. "I really liked working with Virginia, and she's a really great actress," said Stephens. "We found that very quickly. The scene just had a very intimate feel."

Percy Jackson and the Olympians began creating that sense of intimacy between Sally and Poseidon right from the very first episode, with a scene that sees Sally sitting on her fire escape, taking in the rain.

Kull was incredibly excited to see the fire escape scene when she first read the script. "In television, you typically don't have time for things like quiet, ordinary moments. And this seems like a humdrum moment, but I think it tells such a huge story," Kull said. "It's not just Sally sitting in the rain on the fire escape — she's sitting in the rain communing with the great love of her life and the father of her kid, and this is the way that she feels close to him."

Virginia Kull in "Percy Jackson and the Olympians." Credit: Disney/David Bukach

The diner sequence feels like a natural progression from that fire escape moment. Sally and Poseidon are connecting in both, but there's still a distance between them. On the fire escape, Poseidon isn't actually present. But even when he's next to Sally in the diner, there's a tragic divide between them. They're close, but still far apart.

Director Anders Engström achieved this paradoxical nearness by telling Kull and Stephens to play the whole scene without ever looking at each other. For Kull, that became a key to unlocking the power of the diner scene.

"What that did to us as actors was that all of the feelings of, 'I need to see how this is affecting the person that I'm speaking to, I want to know what he thinks about what I'm saying,' we couldn't act on," Kull explained. "Therefore, the desire to be heard, to be understood, and to connect was so heightened and so charged, it was electric. It meant that any bad impulse to 'perform' went away, and I was just desperately listening to and clinging to what he was saying. Even the silences were powerful."

In these silences, where Sally and Poseidon sit shoulder-to-shoulder yet never look at one another, Percy Jackson and the Olympians builds an entire world of a relationship that, up to this point, we haven't fully understood.

"Because Poseidon has been absent for the whole show, the audience is going, 'What a jerk, this guy is this absentee father.' And then when you meet him, you go, 'Right, I get it. It's much more complicated, and actually he really does care,'" Stephens said. "This scene is not in the book, but I think it's needed in the TV version, because it gives you much more context."

Percy Jackson and the Olympians is now streaming on Disney+.

Wondering how to watch college basketball this season? Here are your best options: Best for affordability Sling TV Blue Plan $20 for the first month, then $40/month (save $20 ) Get Deal BEST FOR SINGLE GAME FuboTV Pro plan 7-day free trial, then $79.99/month Get Deal

The Purdue and Rutgers men’s basketball teams are scheduled to meet in a Big Ten Conference contest at Jersey Mike’s Arena in Piscataway, New Jersey, on Sunday, Jan. 28. The game is scheduled to start at 1 p.m. ET. 

Purdue, ranked No. 2 in The Associated Press poll, enters the matchup 18-2 overall and 7-2 in the Big Ten. Most recently, Purdue defeated Michigan 99-67 on Tuesday. Through the first 20 games, Zach Edey paces Purdue with 22.9 points and 11.4 rebounds per game. 

Rutgers comes into the contest 10-8 overall and 2-5 in the Big Ten. On Jan. 21, Illinois beat Rutgers 86-63. Aundre Hyatt leads Rutgers in scoring with 12.2 points in the first 18 games.

SEE ALSO: How to watch college basketball without cable

Matt Painter is the Purdue men’s basketball head coach. Steve Pikiell is the Rutgers men’s basketball head coach. 

Purdue vs. Rutgers basketball game time and network

The Purdue vs. Rutgers men’s basketball game is scheduled for a 1 p.m. ET start on FOX on Sunday, Jan. 28. The FOX broadcasters are scheduled to be Tim Brando (play-by-play) and LaPhonso Ellis (analyst). 

Without cable or satellite TV, some options to watch the Purdue vs. Rutgers men’s basketball game via online live stream include FuboTV and Sling.

Best streaming services for the Rutgers vs. Purdue basketball game

You need to choose a streaming service to watch college basketball without cable or satellite TV. Here are the best streaming services to consider for the Rutgers vs. Purdue basketball game on FOX.

Most affordable: Sling TV Opens in a new window Credit: Sling Sling Blue Plan $20 for the first month, then $40/month Get Deal

FOX is available on Sling TV in select markets. Those include Atlanta, Austin, Chicago, Dallas/Fort Worth, Detroit, Gainesville, Houston, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, New York, Orlando, Philadelphia, Phoenix, San Francisco, Seattle, Tampa, and Washington, D.C. 

If you’re not in one of those markets, getting Sling TV won’t help you watch the Purdue vs. Rutgers men’s basketball game. 

If you’re in one of those markets, getting Sling TV for Purdue vs. Rutgers basketball would work for you. You’ll need the Blue Plan, which comes at $20 for the first month and $40 for subsequent months.  

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The mysterious allure of stumbling upon some unknown oddity on late-night cable is recreated (and repurposed, to devastating effect) in Jane Schoenbrun's wildly abstract, masterfully accomplished I Saw the TV Glow. The A24 production is a remarkable follow-up and spiritual companion to Schoenbrun's Sundance emo-horror breakout We're All Going to the World's Fair, a hazy, low-budget indie from 2022 told through late-night vlogs and video chats. The latter was their narrative feature debut, and it captured an online obsession with urban myth that the writer/director used as a vessel for a tale of physical discomfort and social unbelonging. It created, through its subtext and aesthetic approach, a mood comprising the constant, oppressive white noise of gender dysphoria.

I Saw the TV Glow picks up that baton and charges headfirst through the screen. It captures the creeping nostalgia of '90s children's and young adult television, as seen through the eyes of two deeply isolated teenagers on arduous, dreamlike journeys of self-discovery. Along the way, the worlds of memory and fiction blur beyond recognition, as the boundary between the characters' distant observations and intimate bodily experiences shatters completely. The result is a new queer and transgender classic. 

SEE ALSO: The 28 best queer horror movies now streaming

While it's likely to be divisive given its esoteric nature, I Saw the TV Glow proves to be an enrapturing experience if you're on its wavelength. It's one of the most overpowering and uniquely despondent works of avant-garde horror to emerge from the American indie scene in several years, making it quite handily the most artistically complete, shatteringly personal movie to play at Sundance this year.

What is I Saw the TV Glow about?

Told initially through childhood memories (and eventually, via first-person recollections delivered to the camera, which hop and skip through time), I Saw the TV Glow provides no temporal anchor for its protagonist, Owen (Justice Smith), a quiet, soft-spoken suburban boy with a doting mother (Danielle Deadwyler) and stern-but-silent father (Limp Bizkit's Fred Durst). Played as a seventh grader by Ian Foreman, Owen stumbles across the quiet, lonely, self-professed lesbian Maddy (Brigette Lundy-Paine) as she reads the episode guide for her favorite TV show on the floor of their school gymnasium, on the night of 1996 U.S. Presidential election.The Pink Opaque (named for an album by shoegaze pioneers Cocteau Twins) is a low-budget YA action-fantasy that soon becomes Owen's obsession too.

Each physical space during this introduction — and during the film's apparent framing device, which is comprised of an older Owen reminiscing about this encounter by campfire — comes wrapped in an eerie hum, accompanied by lights that always seem to flicker. Even when old CRT television sets aren't part of the mise-en-scène, they're made to feel ever-present, as though each darkened space were illuminated by the specter of TV, or perhaps its memory.

Maddy, who wears oversized, boyish clothes and has visible hints of peach fuzz on her upper lip, seems initially closed off to Owen's friendly advances, though she eventually reciprocates upon noticing his interest in the series. The Pink Opaque is the only thing that makes her eyes light up, and over the following years in high school, she leaves Owen taped episodes with hand-written descriptions (his parents won't let him stay up past the show's 10:30 p.m. air time). 

The atmospheric Buffy-esque series centers on a pair of teenage crime fighters, the carefree Isabel (Helena Howard, Madeline's Madeline) and the tomboyish Tara (Lindsey Jordan, aka indie rocker Snail Mail), who communicate with each other psychically. Together, they battle the show's lunar-themed, pointedly named villain Mr. Melancholy. As the years go by, strange, surreal happenings lead to questions about the nature of this series, whether it's fictional at all, and what mystifying connection Owen and Maddy have to it, since it seems to hypnotize them every time they watch it.

However, these broad strokes are a mere sliver of the bigger picture, a phantasmagorical tapestry laced with static and sadness for which the plot is merely an amoebic, shapeless vessel. It's a film that lives and breathes through its images and sounds, which come crashing together to create an ethereal collage of feeling cut off from the world, and dissociated from one's own self — physically, mentally, spiritually — en route to some of the most rousing and disturbing emotional crescendos in recent memory.

I Saw the TV Glow is a major audio-visual triumph. Credit: A24

Schoenbrun, through their commanding use of framing and movement, creates a winding, melodic tunnel for Owen to traverse, and for us to follow him down. There is perhaps no scene more exemplary of this than a lengthy, unbroken shot following Owen down a high school hallway as Maddy's show notes appear on screen in shiny, pink cursive, while an enveloping electronic track — one of many originals Schoenbrun commissioned for the film — consumes the entire soundscape, echoing endlessly. Owen's solitude is, in this way, immediately contrasted with Maddy's intimate, welcoming messages, as though she were sharing a part of herself with him from a distance. But the scene also becomes subsumed by oppressive noise, as though Owen were being robbed of even a single moment of peace or clarity.

The film's surreal vignettes pull from wistful millennial-tween nostalgia, from the astonishment of witnessing planetarium projections for the first time, to the awe-inspiring wonder of being encased in the airy dome of rainbow-colored playground parachute. But the more Owen and Maddy become absorbed by the story of The Pink Opaque, the more the show's aesthetic approach begins to blur with real life, and with Owen's recollections. Clips from the show are presented in a narrow, 4:3 aspect ratio, and with all the mauve and magnetic flaws of something recorded on withered VHS tapes. These segments are so true to the appearance of mid-'90s media that you'd be forgiven for thinking The Pink Opaque was a real show that Schoenbrun had dug up in some dusty archive.

The rest of the film has the appearance of modern "prestige horror," with its wide frame, warm tones, and impeccably high contrast that makes the world feel obscured by shadow. However, these respective aesthetic fabrics occasionally switch places, as though The Pink Opaque were reality — or vice versa, as though Owen and Maddy's life had been taped on a VCR. These inversions hint at something amiss and entangled in the ether. As the years go by, they feel betrayed by their childhood memories, until thoughts of escaping — their town, their bodies, their reality — consume their every waking thought.

I Saw the TV Glow isn't so much a transgender allegory as it is a pure expression of transness in early youth, unfolding at a time and place where words fail, and stories become a medium for not just entertainment but projection, reflection and self-identification. It plays, at times, like a hyper-charged (but deeply considered) suburban, transgender translation of Laura Mulvey's "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema," the essay that popularized this multifaceted idea of the cinematic gaze. 

This expression, of television as an object of identification, goes hand-in-hand with the movie's profound sense of loneliness, which invades every carefully composed frame — usually, images of characters at a distance, on their own, hunched up in corners — and every vivacious musical interlude. Some of these are simply live band performances at dingy venues, led by femme and queer musicians trying to express some lurking part of their experience. One impactful scene, intercut with a revelatory conversation between Owen and Maddy, is just a closeup of King Woman's Kristina Esfandiari screaming for minutes at a time during a music performance, as if trying to expel some wordless, formless embodiment of lifelong isolation.

The movie's original music, composed by Alex G, effectively captures its story in microcosm, appearing usually during hazy scenes of entranced characters lit by the TV's pink and purple shimmer. These fleeting moments appear to be the closest Owen will come to understanding something fundamental about himself, at least until he finds a way to break free of his physical, social, and emotional constraints.

Nothing tangible tethers Owen and Maddy to their small town, but demanding tangibility from a film like I Saw the TV Glow is to fundamentally misunderstand not only the kind of movie it is but the intangible nature of the experiences it unearths. It's the kind of film that, if it speaks to you, is likely to keep you on the verge of tears for all of its 100 minutes, gasping anxiously for breath by the end, feeling like something from deep within you is about to burst forth and see the sun for the first time. And while its success is largely attributable to Schoenbrun's daring aesthetic introspections as a nonbinary artist, it equally owes its emotional impact to the way they unearth their characters through performance.

Justice Smith and Brigette Lundy-Paine deliver haunting, pained performances.

As a biracial boy in a mostly white town, and a queer, gender-nonconforming teen who uses she/her pronouns, Owen and Maddy make for a fascinating pair of suburban outsiders. Smith and Lundy-Paige (who is nonbinary) craft two of the most fully formed young characters in recent American cinema — at least since Alana Haim and Cooper Hoffman in Licorice Pizza — and they accomplish this by walking a fine and monumentally difficult line.

They're tasked with not only breaking the fourth wall while maintaining the film's illusory nature, but also with diving deep into specific high school "types" that could so easily tip over into self-parody if they aren't modulated correctly. Smith's anguished conception of Owen — while often perplexed and self-effacing — has a doe-eyed quality that, when coupled with a voice pitched-up nearly to the point of falsetto, pushes its way to the limits of "awkwardness" in the public consciousness. And yet, Smith engenders sympathy through his wayward naïveté. He speaks as though every statement were a question, creating a constant sense of yearning — of searching.

Maddy, on the other hand, seems to know something Owen does not. She appears to hold hints of some sacred knowledge, the details of which she may not be fully certain either, though she's always one step closer than Owen to a sense of full, luminous, and terrifying discovery. Lundy-Paige's darting, unblinking eyes dance with the camera, creating a sense of mystery bordering on intentional caricature (as though they were playing the dark-haired, bad boy character Sternum on Moody's Point, a Dawson's Creek send-up on the late '90s Nickelodeon series The Amanda Show). But the more the film goes on, the more natural this heightened performance begins to feel, because of the way Lundy-Paige unfurls Maddy's fears and insecurities, and the reasons for her sardonic, monotone delivery.

Familiar cultural reference points are unavoidable in I Saw the TV Glow; its own '90s media is tongue-in-cheek, and the film can be wryly funny as it unpacks the method to its madness. But the more Lundy-Paige sticks with their approach, the more they call the very nature of their performance into question. Maddy is "real," in the sense that she has presence and corporeal form, but what "real" even constitutes in a media feedback loop — a world of TV teens based on real teens who find identity in fictional form — can be difficult to pin down.

Schoenbrun creates and simultaneously demolishes teenage television archetypes by having their actors lean into familiar cultural shorthands for "awkwardness" — the anxious, self–loathing nerd, and the mean, performative emo girl — until some hidden element of the characters' reality were unlocked and made wholly unavoidable by the camera's gaze. If one were to boil it down to literal terms, given what the movie's textual presentation and the characters' evolving costume choices, it isn't hard to surmise that Maddy is further along her queer journey of self-discovery, while Owen tags behind. But to put it so literally, using the language of gradients and spectrums, is to reduce the idea of gender to words and numbers. I Saw the TV Glow, on the other hand, reintroduces it to us using an entirely new cinematic lexicon.

Each time the film filters wordless experiences and self-reflections through familiar linguistic or physical contexts, it's like antimatter popping into existence before being obliterated by matter all around it, thanks to Smith and Lundy-Paige's devastating, delicate work. Their performances are both deeply felt and harrowingly embodied. Maddy delivers several lengthy monologues that verge on performance art, as she tries to explain the movie's strange, surreal happenings to Owen, and to the viewer. But the whole time, her attempts to rationalize her attraction to genre and lore feel as though she’s on the verge of self-discovery — as though she were about to break through the screen and tell us some liberating secret she learned about herself.

Owen, meanwhile, grows increasingly oppressed by the world around him — the four walls of his home, his isolation at school and work, his father's stoic, masculine expectations — until The Pink Opaque becomes his portal to feeling something different, or anything at all. But when the series' strange magic begins to infiltrate his surroundings, he's violently yanked away from his TV at one point (by Durst, who's terrifying in his imposing silence), causing Smith to let out a bone-chilling wail, just about comprehensible in words: "THIS IS NOT MY HOME."

Few scenes this year are likely to be as upsetting or impactful, but this is also the very essence of I Saw the TV Glow. It's an attempt to place years of confusing, festering emotions surrounding unbelonging into something that has shape or form — something that makes sense — but emerges as a desperate, primal scream, exploding with color and shadow. The film is the disturbing sum of its lingering sensations that burrow their way beneath your skin, refusing to leave even after you've left the theater, or once you've cried yourself to sleep. But at the same time, its totality — the sheer fact of its existence, as an unbridled, uninhibited expression of the self — is exuberant and overwhelming. 

I Saw the TV Glow was reviewed out of Sundance 2024.