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SAVE $400.01: As of Sept. 23, the Bluetti Elite 300 Portable Power Station is on sale at Amazon for $1,098.99. That's down 27% from its original $1,499 list price.

Opens in a new window Credit: Bluetti Bluetti Elite 300 Portable Power Station $1,098.99 at Amazon
$1,499 Save $400.01   Get Deal

If you’ve been eyeing a heavy-duty battery generator for storm season or road trips, this is easily one of the best prices we’ve seen on this unit. Amazon just knocked $400 off the Bluetti Elite 300 portable power station, bringing it down from its usual $1,499 list price to a far more palatable $1,098.99.

Most power stations packing over 3,000 watt-hours of capacity look like miniature refrigerators and weigh a ton. The Elite 300 shrinks that footprint by about 59%, fitting 3,014Wh of juice into a frame that’s closer in size to standard 2kWh units. It’s built around long-lasting LiFePO4 battery tech and delivers 2,400 watts of continuous output, with headroom for up to 4,800-watt power surges.

SEE ALSO: Prime Day deals on power stations are already live: Shop the best deals on Jackery, Anker, Bluetti, and more

If you’re taking it on the road, it’s RV-ready right out of the box. Instead of making you mess with clunky adapters, it features a built-in TT-30 RV plug and a heavy-duty 12V/30A DC outlet. That lets you run your camper's 12V fridge, water pump, and diesel heater directly off the generator while you're off-grid.

You don't have to sit around all day waiting for it to charge, either. It plugs into a standard wall outlet, solar panels, or your car, and can charge up to 80% in just 78 minutes. You can also track your battery life, toggle outputs, and change settings right from your phone via the Bluetti app over WiFi or Bluetooth. And if the power grid goes down, it switches over to battery backup in 10 milliseconds. That’s fast enough that your WiFi router, laptop, or CPAP machine won't even reboot when the lights flicker.

If you want a portable generator that can run essential home appliances through a multi-day power outage without taking up your entire trunk, this is a steal. Grab the Bluetti Elite 300 for $1,098.99 on Amazon before this deal disappears.

TL;DR: Get 20TB of end-to-end encrypted Scramble Cloud storage for $349.95, with lifetime access, private sharing, WebDAV, and CLI support.

Opens in a new window Credit: Scramble Cloud Scramble Cloud Storage Lifetime Subscription (20TB) $349.95
$1,440 Save $1,090.05   Get Deal

The best cloud storage might be the kind you barely have to think about. Scramble Cloud gives you 20TB of storage for life for $349.95 (reg. $1,440), so you can give a seriously large collection of photos, videos, backups, and work files a long-term home.

And 20TB is a lot of breathing room. Scramble is designed for people with serious storage needs, whether you’re backing up family memories, keeping a growing video collection, or simply someone who believes deleting files is a problem for Future You. You can use it on desktop or mobile device.

Your files are protected with end-to-end encryption and encrypted before leaving your device. Its zero-knowledge architecture keeps you in control of access, while encrypted private links let you share selected files with other people.

Scramble also gives you several ways to reach all that storage. Use the web app from virtually any device, mount Scramble Drive in your operating system’s file explorer with WebDAV, or manage files using its command-line tool. You can preview files, stream encrypted videos, and view Word and Excel files from your browser.

For collaboration, you can create encrypted groups with permissions or use Team Link to share files with internal or external partners without requiring registration.

There are two limits worth considering before committing 20TB worth of your digital life: individual files can’t exceed 5GB, and uploads are capped at 70GB per day. Those restrictions make this better suited to steadily building a large archive than dumping massive files into the cloud all at once.

Get 20TB of Scramble Cloud without another recurring storage bill to remember for just $349.95 (reg. $1,440).

StackSocial prices subject to change.

TL;DR: Learn new things in your spare time with this five-year subscription to Nibble All-Around Knowledge App, on sale for just $49.99 (reg. $449.95).

Opens in a new window Credit: Nibble Nibble All-Around Knowledge App (5-Year Subscription) $49.99
$449.95 Save $399.96   Get Deal

Your phone doesn’t have to be a black hole of time-wasting. If you’ve got the right apps, you can turn your spare time into something way more productive. The Nibble All-Around Knowledge App serves up bite-sized lessons that help you learn something new during your morning commute, on your lunch break, or in line at the grocery store.

Right now, you can snag a five-year subscription to Nibble All-Around Knowledge App for just $49.99.

Make your phone time more productive

If you think you don’t have time to learn something new, think again. The Nibble All-Around Knowledge app was designed for today’s busy schedules, offering bite-sized lessons that teach you new things in just ten minutes.

Work on your self-improvement on the go with these handy audio episodes you can listen to anytime. The app is filled with lessons on over 20 topics, from art and AI to history and personal finance, so you can pick something you’ve been meaning to dive into.

Nibble’s flexible learning paths let you choose between a guided learning journey or hopping around depending on your mood. After you listen to lessons, explore the topic further with interactive AI experiences, such as chatting with historical figures. There are also learning games to see how much you’ve retained.

Nibble offers app and web access, and your account tracks your progress so you can access it easily across devices. This five-year subscription gives you unlimited library access, and you’ll never run out of lessons thanks to new content being added every month.

Snag a five-year subscription to Nibble All-Around Knowledge App for just $49.99.

StackSocial prices subject to change.

Microsoft is giving its compact Surface devices a subtle refresh. Today at Qualcomm's Snapdragon Summit in Hawaii, the U.S. tech giant announced the Surface Laptop 13-inch (2nd edition) and Surface Pro 12-inch (2nd edition) with the Snapdragon X2 Plus chip. The latter will support a new AI-powered drawing and annotating tool called Microsoft Ink Canvas.

Externally, both new Surface devices gain 25 percent brighter touchscreen displays and new black color options. They're otherwise identical to their predecessors from spring 2025.

The updated Surface Laptop 13-inch and Surface Pro 12-inch will hit the market on Oct. 13, starting at $1,199.99 and $1,149.99, respectively. (Preorders are now live at Best Buy, B&H Photo, and the Microsoft Store.) They'll be joined by a redesigned Surface Mouse with built-in haptic feedback and a customizable action button, which will start at $79.99.

Microsoft Surface Laptop, 13-inch (Snapdragon X2 Plus, 16GB RAM, 256GB UFS) $1,199.99 at Best Buy
  Pre-order Here at Best Buy Pre-order Here at B&H Photo Video Pre-order Here at Microsoft Store US Microsoft Surface Pro, 12-inch (Snapdragon X2 Plus, 16GB RAM, 256GB UFS) $1,149.99 at Best Buy
  Pre-order Here at Best Buy Pre-order Here at B&H Photo Video Pre-order Here at Microsoft Store US

Notably, both new Surface devices start with 16GB of RAM. This summer, Microsoft downgraded the base configurations of their first-gen counterparts to 8GB of RAM to lower their prices under $1,000 amid the global memory shortage.

SEE ALSO: Memory wars: Microsoft announces big price increases for Surface laptops

When asked by Mashable whether the company will continue to sell those older models as budget options, a Microsoft rep declined to comment on the record. They were no longer available for purchase through the Microsoft Store at the time of writing, but third-party retailers like Amazon and Best Buy still had them in stock.

The Surface Laptop 13-inch and Surface Pro 12-inch are smaller, lighter, and more affordable versions of Microsoft's flagship Surface devices. In June, the company introduced the Surface Laptop 8 and Surface Pro 12 with Snapdragon X2 Plus and X2 Elite chips.

Same look, new chip The Surface Pro 12-inch (2nd edition) will come pre-loaded with Microsoft's new "Ink Canvas" AI feature. Credit: Microsoft

The X2 Plus is a mid-range processor that will give the new compact Surface devices "18 percent more efficient battery performance, over 60 percent faster graphics, and 95 percent faster on-device AI" than their predecessors, said Brett Ostrum, corporate vice president of Surface devices, in a blog post. For reference, last year's inaugural Surface Laptop 13-inch and Surface Pro 12-inch ran on the original Snapdragon X Plus chip from 2024.

The X2 Plus will also power Ink Canvas on the Surface Pro 12-inch. Users will be able to handwrite prompts for Windows 11's Copilot assistant directly on the device's touchscreen with a Surface Slim Pen (sold separately for $129.99). Ostrum described Ink Canvas as "a pen-first experience for sketching, annotating, generating images, and summarizing text."

Ink Canvas will come pre-installed on the new Surface Pro 12-inch and be available for download on other compatible Windows devices starting Oct. 13.

Microsoft Surface Laptop, 13-inch (2nd edition) specs Credit: Microsoft

• CPU: Qualcomm Snapdragon X2 Plus

• GPU: Qualcomm Adreno

• Battery life: Up to 22.5 hours of video playback

• Memory: 16GB or 24GB RAM

• Storage: 256GB or 512GB UFS

• Screen size and tech: 13-inch touchscreen display with 1,920 x 1,280 resolution, 500 nits of brightness, and 60Hz refresh rate

• Webcam: 1080p

• Ports: Two USB-C ports, one USB-A port, and a headphone jack

• Wireless connectivity: WiFi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4

• Dimensions: 11.25 x 8.43 x 0.61 inches

• Weight: 2.7 pounds

• Chassis material: Aluminum

• Colors: Violet, platinum, and black

• Full-sized backlit keyboard and Precision touchpad

Microsoft Surface Pro, 12-inch (2nd edition) specs Credit: Microsoft

• CPU: Qualcomm Snapdragon X2 Plus

• GPU: Qualcomm Adreno

• Battery life: Up to 15.5 hours of video playback

• Memory: 16GB or 24GB RAM

• Storage: 256GB or 512GB UFS

• Screen size and tech: 12-inch touchscreen display with 2,196 x 1,464 resolution, 500 nits of brightness, and 90Hz refresh rate

• Cameras: 1080p front camera and 10MP rear camera

• Ports: Two USB-C ports and Surface Pro 12-inch Keyboard connector port

• Wireless connectivity: WiFi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4

• Dimensions: 10.8 x 7.47 x 0.3 inches

• Weight: 1.5 pounds

• Chassis material: Aluminum

• Colors: Violet, platinum, and black

• Stylus and keyboard sold separately; has built-in storage for Surface Slim Pen

Microsoft Surface Mouse specs Credit: Microsoft

• Inputs: Left, right, and middle click support with customizable action button and mechanical scroll wheel

• Wireless connectivity: Bluetooth 6.0; up to three devices

• Wireless range: 32.8 feet in open area and 16.4 feet in office setting

• Sensor: 1,000dpi (400dpi to 2,400dpi adjustable)

• Exterior material: Silicone

• Colors: Platinum and black

UPDATE: Sep. 23, 2026, 5:24 p.m. EDT This story was updated with a response from Microsoft and links to the new Surface devices' preorder listings.

The nightlife minutiae of a small town in Massachusetts may not seem like traditional fodder for a 24-hour news cycle. But turn that drama into a more-than-1,500-word Boston Globe article, sprinkled with apéritifs for online discourse? Well, that's a recipe for virality.

That's what happened when the Globe reported on a recent public skirmish between community members and the owners of Last Ditch Bar and Arts Venue, a lesbian bar and event space in Greenfield, a town of just 17,000 people.

SEE ALSO: YouTube's microdrama boom is getting bigger

The Last Ditch is one of just 36 lesbian bars in the U.S., as chronicled by the Lesbian Bar Project. It's a nightlife outlier amid a post-COVID bar and club scene that has had to reckon with a decline in public socialization — let alone one that has addressed the alarming decline of number of lesbian bars across the country long before the global pandemic.

But the bar's reputation as a gathering place for Greenfield's sapphic community is now marred by a dramatic series of events that started with a single Instagram post.

The Aug. 31 alert to customers began as an explanation of the venue's updated mask policy. Where the space used to require KN-95 masks at all times, Last Ditch was moving towards more mask-less events — specifically opening up Saturday nights to maskless customers. The response from commenters online was a no-holds-barred flurry of irate messages, accusations of ableism and racism, and even calls for violence from former customers who said their previously safe space had been compromised.

View this post on Instagram

From there, the situation spun out of control, chronicled by the Globe as a series of apologies, retractions, public meetings, and online debates that set a group of COVID-conscious collectives against a fractured bar leadership.

The quotes and comments referenced in the article were sure to get attention: Some Last Ditch patrons referred to the Saturday night change as a "mass disabling event" and a "eugenicist" attack. "People like you kill disabled people in the name of your own leisure and convenience," wrote another commenter.

The internet responds to the Last Ditch effort

Like the rabid commenters and enraged community the feature profiles, the internet couldn't be normal about the story's increasingly bizarre anecdotes and comments from the Last Ditch's opposition.

Users called it possibly the best reporting of the year, some of their lives. Screenshots of users' favorite enraged comments — like "one had enrolled in clown school" (a Last Ditch owner is currently enrolled in clown school) and "I hope your venue gets firebombed" — have proliferated online.

Within 24 hours, the story had become 2026's "Cat Person" or "Bad Art Friend."

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But percolating throughout the humor-filled posts is unabashed, homophobic commentary on queer and disabled communities. Quotes of the Globe's reporting included images of staff and customers ripped from the bar's social media pages, posted alongside unwarranted commentary on their appearances. Some took the opportunity to attack liberal and leftist ideologies at large, with one user calling the Last Ditch's initial Instagram post — not the response it engendered — an example of "intergalactic woke batcrapitude."

It's not the first time a lesbian space has been turned into fodder for a bored internet intent on turning LGBTQ people into the butt of the joke or a vessel for a larger social reckoning. In 2024, for example, the saga of a TikTok influencer and New York City's Cubbyhole ignited a widespread debate about the sanctity of queer spaces.

Regardless, the Globe has benefited from its viral tale, allegedly gaining more than 1,000 subscribers after it went live. The Last Ditch may also capture some new customers thanks to its newfound notoriety.

"We started this project as a small group of friends with a burning desire to keep unapologetically queer spaces alive in Western Mass," wrote Last Ditch leadership in an Instagram plea from April 20. "Not to make money, not to garner notoriety. Just to maintain, expand, and serve our queer community."

As Xi Jinping visits President Trump in Washington, his country lags behind the United States on A.I. development in key areas — but Beijing has advantages elsewhere.

People around the world are largely optimistic about artificial intelligence, according to a new Gallup poll. At the same time, a majority of respondents reported they've never actually used the new technology.

The Gallup-Microsoft AI survey, published Sept. 23 as part of the polling company's ongoing research with Microsoft, found that positive feelings about AI outweigh negative ones in 34 of the first 37 countries to complete fieldwork this year. The United States, Egypt, and Palestine were the only exceptions. Gallup says the study will eventually cover 140 countries.

SEE ALSO: Grieving people prefer AI bots that speak as dead loved ones, study suggests

Across the 37 countries, 72 percent of AI-aware adults reported at least one positive emotion toward the technology, compared with 41 percent who reported at least one negative emotion. Curiosity was the most common response, with a median of 64 percent saying AI makes them feel curious. Worry was the most common negative emotion, at a median of 32 percent.

Views on AI's broader impact were also mostly positive. In 29 countries, more people said AI would mostly help their country than harm it. The contrast between the United States and China was particularly revealing: 93 percent of Chinese respondents said AI will help their country. The United States ranked near the bottom, at 36 percent, just above Egypt and Bangladesh.

Gallup noted that optimism doesn't always track with usage. In Nigeria, for example, 68 percent of AI-aware adults expect AI to help the country, although only 20 percent have used it.

In the United States, a Pew Research Center AI survey published in September 2025 found that 62 percent of Americans interact with AI several times a week, including 31 percent who do so several times a day or "almost constantly."

Gallup's poll also found low trust in AI accuracy, and as Mashable has reported, AI hallucinations and inaccuracies remain a stubborn problem. A median of 36 percent of respondents said they trust AI completely or a lot to provide accurate information, with majorities expressing that level of trust in only four countries: Israel, Vietnam, China, and Nigeria. Trust tended to rise with use. In the U.S., 45 percent of daily users trust AI's accuracy, compared with 8 percent of people who have never used it. However, Gallup cautioned that the survey can't determine whether trust drives use or vice versa.

Wealthy Western countries stood out for their worry over AI. Gallup found that 74 percent of AI-aware Americans say AI makes them feel worried, the highest share in any country surveyed, followed by the Netherlands and Canada. But within those countries, daily users were generally less worried than people who use AI less often or not at all.

This year's Made on YouTube event wasn't just about video viewers and video creators. 

On Wednesday, YouTube announced new features for Ask Music in the YouTube Music app. The feature is currently mainly used to create personalized stations and find music based on your mood.

Now, however, YouTube Music users will be able to discover new music based on the songs they're listening to. Users can ask Ask Music for information about songs and albums that inspired a particular track.

If they really like a song, they can even use Ask Music to find podcasts and podcast episodes featuring the artist behind it or get more details about the track. During a demo at the Made on YouTube event, YouTuber Derrick Gee showcased how users could ask Ask Music who played bass on a track and then find other songs featuring that musician. Ask Music can also help listeners find songs that sampled a particular track.

Podcasts are also a big part of YouTube Music and that's where the new Your Podcast Lineup feature comes in.

With Your Podcast Lineup, users can create an AI-generated podcast about other podcasts recommended by YouTube Music based on their interests.

While YouTube's main video-focused platform was the highlight of Made on YouTube, the company made it clear that YouTube Music isn't just a side project.

Long live Mavis Beacon. 

If you're unfamiliar with the name, she was the not-entirely-real icon behind classroom software that taught generations of students touch typing. Beacon was a celebrity of early digital literacy, with generations of learners collectively misremembering her as a real-life elite typer — not just a made-up name attached to the likeness of model Renée L'Esperance. 

Still, Beacon became an avatar for the digital dreams of the pre-Y2K generation. The software, full name "Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing," was an entry point to the world of technology for thousands of children who would later grow into a computer-skilled workforce. Before entering the rat race, though, these students would be required to attend "Computer Lab," where they would visit typing.com to compete for the highest WPM ("words per minute"). 

Now, most kids don't go to a computer lab. They boot up their personal Chromebooks at their desks, log onto their school's assignment portal, complete their tasks with help from AI, and go back to their phones or iPads. 

Concern about technology's impact on student learning has reached a critical level. A recent longitudinal study of students aged 7 to 16 found that early adoption of social media negatively impacted kids' learning outcomes. Child development researchers and safety advocates have called for an end to screen time in classrooms as literacy rates decline. Generative AI is sending everyone spinning. 

But the kids are still learning. They're just not learning the same things their parents did — especially about computers.

WPM? More like words per hour

Mavis Beacon's memory may live on, but touch typing — or being able to type using just sightless motor memory — has turned into a dying art. A 2024 EdWeek Research Center survey found that just 69 percent of districts teach "keyboarding" in a formal capacity, whether that's directly in curriculum or as a separate, elective course. 

The more affluent the school system, the earlier they introduce keyboarding skills, the survey found.

What those classes are actually teaching is even more of a mystery. Other than surveys, there is little publicly available data on typing proficiency across the country. Directed touch-type curriculum seems to be rare. 

The basic skill is often relegated to app-based tools built into classroom devices. Tech-focused lesson plans available online devote less time to basics and more to mastering advanced computer skills and personalized tools like AI assistants. 

A problem as old as computers 

The shift from basics is not necessarily a new trend. Proper typing became a commonly used benchmark in schools as early as the late '90s, but by 2004, typing classes were already on their way out, according to a 2004 Department of Education study quoted by the Christian Science Monitor.

Search "touch typing op-eds," and you will find dozens of complaints that students don't know how to put hands to keys. 

In a 2011 MIT Technology Review article, for example, Oberlin College professor Annie Trubek criticized a rise in "idiosyncratic, personalized hunt-and-peck" typing among younger generations. "Ironically, in our era of keyboard ubiquity, typing has fallen out of the curriculum," wrote Trubek. "Since most students come to school familiar with keyboards, including cell phone keypads, educators are letting the ad hoc habits of six-year old computer gamers stand." 

A 2015 Wall Street Journal article reported a rising demand for keyboarding classes as digital testing became prevalent under new Common Core State Standards — and teachers realized many kids didn't know how to type. 

On the whole, Americans' digital literacy skills are declining.  States tiptoe around typing

As newer, faster, more complex technologies enter the world of education, more teachers are calling on their districts to institute basic computer skill requirements like keyboarding long before they have to engage with something like machine learning. 

As of 2025, Utah was one of just a few states that still listed motor typing skills — like proper hand placement — as part of their state standard curriculum. When the state's Board of Education implemented such specific K-5 keyboarding proficiency standards, they deemed them a "critical literacy skill." 

But Utah could be changing things soon. In a statement to Mashable, state education officials declined to comment on the implementation of keyboarding standards, citing recent legislation. In March, the state passed an amendment to its digital skills curriculum mandating a "modernization" of the standards, including an emphasis on news and media literacy.

While California includes keyboard proficiency in its Common Core standards, a Department of Education spokesperson told Mashable that the state does not "test or measure" the skill at a state level. Schools do not receive a curriculum framework or additional instructional materials beyond what is included in the 2015 Computer Science Standards, the spokesperson explained. 

And similar to Utah, California is set to revamp its tech standards soon, aligned with Governor Gavin Newsom's new executive order on AI in schools. A department spokesperson explained the state's current standards. Where there was once basic computer science, there is now "AI literacy."  

Hitting Ctrl X on Ctrl C 

The keyboard may prove to be a key (pun intended) learning gap for many students whose tech skills are borne from touchscreen devices, like smartphones and iPads.

Complaints about students not knowing basic shortcuts — including classic short keys such as "Ctrl C" for copy and "Ctrl V" for paste — abound on online forums and subreddits r/Teachers and r/AskTeachers. 

"One student was completely blown away when I 'magically' got his suddenly missing work back by pushing ctrl-z a couple times, and a simple copy-paste final part to a project was so confusing to them," wrote one first-year high school teacher in a 2020 Reddit post criticizing the "digital native" myth. "All that said, I love every single one of my ridiculous computer-illiterate stinkers. I just wish their prior schools had given them the tools they needed."

But like many other assumed tech skills, it's hard to put exact numbers on the problem. Most reporting on the subject cites a 2023 survey of 500 university students in Japan that found that only a third knew the shortcut for undoing a keyboard action. The most familiar shortcut among students was for copying text, with just 62 percent reporting they knew what the combination of keys did. And 20 percent said they didn't know any short keys at all. 

Parents and teachers have opined about other hardware deficiencies among their young learners. For example, anecdotes describe computer mouses, obsolete in an era of trackpads, as a specific speed bump in the road to greater device efficiency. 

Now we're trying to throw AI literacy on top of those gaps and it's a recipe for disaster. - Jodie Carreon, Schools Beyond Screens Computer, put it in the cloud  

Personal devices — tablets, phones — as well as sandboxed or app-based learning devices like Chromebooks have created other deficits, too. 

"To add insult to injury, they don't even know how file directories work! The idea there [sic] are different places in computer storage a file can end up is a totally foreign concept," wrote a frustrated college TA in a Reddit post from 2025. 

The streamlined functioning of these tools, built with limited capabilities or reliant on Cloud-based storage, have negated the need for complex file organization and directories that used to be core to learning computer navigation. 

In fact, many devices no longer even give you an obvious option to save your files elsewhere. Instead, media is saved right to your camera roll or sent off to cloud storage to live in the ether until you use your digital assistant to recall it on your behalf. Many devices hide file directions to decrease visual clutter. 

If you use Google's suite of word processors and spreadsheet makers — which most students do — everything is saved and shared instantly with teachers and peers to review. No need to even attach a file and send an email these days. 

Take the stories from this 2021 Verge article, which cite a cohort of professors who started documenting a decline in file directory knowledge around 2017. "In an age where every conceivable user interface includes a search function, young people have never needed folders or directories for the tasks they do," the publication wrote. 

According to anecdotal stories from IT pros flocking to Reddit to air complaints, nested hierarchies — or organizing documents into a main folder with subfolders — are often too difficult for the average user to figure out, let alone a child still learning their multiplication tables. 

Bringing back computer basics

On the whole, Americans' digital literacy skills are declining. 

The 2023 International Computer and Information Literacy Study — a global assessment of students' ability "to use computers to investigate, create, and communicate in order to participate effectively at home, at school, in the workplace, and in society" — reported a sharp decline in digital literacy among American eighth graders. 

“The results highlight the need for further inquiry and concentrated efforts to address the computer and informational literacy skills of our students," said Peggy G. Carr, former commissioner of National Center for Education Statistics, at the time. "These skills are as fundamental as the 3 R’s [reading, writing, and arithmetic]." 

Advocates for AI and screentime bans in schools have likened the competing decline of basic tech skills versus the rise in advanced technologies to "building a plane while it is flying."

"We are no longer teaching [digital literacy] in a dedicated and explicit way," said Jodie Carreon, national director of Schools Beyond Screens, the group that spearheaded recent screen time and AI limits at the Los Angeles Unified School District. "The way it's operated in the past decade is to shoehorn it into disciplines where it doesn't belong, with the idea that students would learn through osmosis."

It's just as important that students learn how to type with automaticity as it is that they know how to write fluently, explains researcher and assistant professor of English Education at Stanford Sarah Levine. Writing, including the process of typing, is a mode of thinking, she says. "You have to know your keyboard pretty well, and then you're off and running."

Carreon says there is growing concern that students are graduating high school without necessary tech skills — she's not referring to the competitive coding or AI skills emphasized by Big Tech and corporate leaders, but basic knowledge of computers, computer science, and the way technology itself works. 

"We haven't done a great job of teaching basic digital skills or critical digital literacy. Now we're trying to throw AI literacy on top of those gaps and it's a recipe for disaster," Carreon says. Schools have to go back to the basics. "We need to be much more intentional about teaching some of those prerequisites, those fundamentals, before we put increasingly powerful AI systems in students' hands."

The head of the company hoping to become the first to conduct commercial deep-sea mining said mines on land had a much larger environmental footprint.

Along with the new features for YouTube viewers unveiled at the company's big Made on YouTube event on Wednesday, YouTube announced a whole suite of features for content creators, too.

For the most part, creators have used their YouTube channels to distribute content. Over the years, YouTube has rolled out features to help users create content, too. But with these latest announcements, YouTube is taking its biggest step yet into the content creation process.

SEE ALSO: YouTube is giving livestream communities more ways to play, pay, and participate

One of the event's biggest announcements for creators is the conversational editing assistant coming to YouTube Shorts and YouTube Create in early 2027.

The conversational editing assistant will help creators edit their footage into videos and short-form clips, using only natural-language conversation, as they would with a chatbot. The editor can pick the best takes, edit clips together with transitions, add text, and more. 

Credit: YouTube

Of course, AI plays a role here, but YouTube was adamant that its AI tools are meant to assist YouTubers in creating content themselves, not do it for them. 

In addition to the editing assistant, YouTube unveiled several new Insight tools for creators seeking guidance on what their viewers want to see.

There's a new feature coming to the Insights section of YouTube Studio's Analytics called Research, which will show creators the top videos in their niche that their own viewers have been watching.

YouTube Insight Research Credit: YouTube

In addition, YouTube Studio can now provide video feedback on new video content that hasn't been published yet. Previously, YouTubers could get insights into their videos to see what worked and what didn't. Now, creators can upload videos directly just to use this feature and make changes based on YouTube's recommendations before a video goes live.

Thumbnails are also getting a big upgrade on YouTube. Creators can generate customizable thumbnails on YouTube and, if they're unsure which thumbnail to use, use multiple thumbnails with the new Dynamic Thumbnails feature.

YouTube Dynamic Thumbnails Credit: YouTube

Dynamic Thumbnails will show viewers thumbnails that YouTube's algorithm believes will most resonate with that particular user.

A/B testing for thumbnails has been a feature in YouTube Studio for some time. Now, YouTube is rolling out A/B testing for an entire video. Creators can upload multiple Shorts or long-form video edits and then select the main cut based on what users like best based on viewer retention data.

Video A/B testing Credit: YouTube

Ask Studio, which YouTube announced is also coming to mobile, can now parse a creator's back catalog of videos and optimize previous content with new thumbnails and A/B test features.

Netflix has used artificial intelligence to (in a sense) resurrect a beloved star of stage and screen.

As of Wednesday, several episodes of the new Netflix reality competition show Wonka's Golden Ticket are now available on the popular streaming service. This show has been a source of some controversy ever since its announcement over the summer, as its "host" is an AI-generated Gene Wilder who exists in voice form. Reviews of the series from outlets like Variety and NME have criticized the practice, with Variety calling it "ghoulish."

You can get a feel for how it works in the trailer, but the essential fact is this: Wilder's AI voice is used to host the game show. Its challenges and general aesthetic are loosely based on the 1971 Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory film, rather than the original Roald Dahl book or any of the later Hollywood adaptations. Crucially, this AI-generated Wilder is never seen, only heard, with NME calling this version of the deceased actor "blatantly cruel."

It's worth mentioning that Wilder's estate gave permission for Netflix to do this, but that hasn't stopped people online from reacting to it in a not-entirely-positive manner. We've seen similar controversies play out in other cases where deceased entertainers have been resurrected with AI (with the permission of their estate).

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Hopefully, nobody gets stuck inside a TV or turned into a giant blueberry if they lose on the game show.

SEE ALSO: It's time to add AI protections to your will

SAVE $549.01: As of Sep. 23, get the Anker Solix S2000 Portable Power Station for $649.99 at Amazon. That's down from its usual price of $1,199.

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$1,199 Save $549.01   Get Deal

Fall's cooler temperatures may be blowing in, but don't discount the power of an autumn thunderstorm.

Whether you live in an area that's prone to blackouts during the season or you just want to make sure you've got what you need to stay on the grid, a portable power station is always a good investment. And if you're fast, you can snag one for an excellent price right now thanks to this Amazon lightning deal.

As of Sep. 23, get the Anker Solix S2000 Portable Power Station for $649.99 at Amazon, down from its usual price of $1,199. That's $549.01 off for a limited time.

SEE ALSO: The 6 best power stations for camping keep you both online and off-grid

The Anker Solix S2000 is a great option if you're looking for a reliable power station to provide electricity if yours goes out. It's perfect for use at home, with AC ports on both the front and back to power a variety of devices.

It offers 2,010Wh of capacity, and Anker claims it can keep even large appliances like your refrigerator running for up to 35 hours, so your food doesn't have to spoil just because you don't have electricity.

Its low power draw of 6W makes it a convenient pick for keeping all your devices powered up, as does its under-10ms uninterrupted power supply —- which means that should your power go out, your Solix power station can handle the load in less than that time.

Nathan Fielder first teased his Elizabeth Holmes documentary, You Can See Everything, earlier in Sept. with a tense minute-long exchange between the two.

Now, Fielder (The Rehearsal) posted A24's official trailer on social media, showing a deeper look into the time he spent with Holmes and her husband, Billy Evans. As Mashable previously reported, You Can See Everything, directed by Fielder and Lance Oppenheim (Primetime), chronicles the weeks before Holmes went to prison to serve her over 11-year sentence for fraud. It then spans a three-year journey "into the abyss," according to the film description on A24's website.

Fielder lived with Holmes, Evans, and their children on their invitation. The trailer shows Fielder questioning both Holmes and Evans — the motives of the former, and whether Evans trusts his wife. Holmes, who founded the bunk health tech company Theranos, insists she has nothing to hide, while her husband insists he's never been suspicious that she's lied to him.

The trailer ends with Holmes admitting it's taken her a long time to be OK with anyone seeing her cry.

You Can See Everything hits theatres on Oct. 16.

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SAVE $48: As of Sept. 23, the Samsung 55-Inch M70H Series Mini LED 4K Smart TV is on sale at Amazon for $299.99. That's down 14% from its $347.99 list price.

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$347.99 Save $48   Get Deal

If you've been waiting for Mini LED tech to drop down to budget-tier prices, this is your green light. Amazon just shaved 14% off the 2026 55-inch Samsung M70H Series Mini LED 4K Smart TV, bringing it down to $299.99.

Old-school budget TVs rely on a handful of large LEDs pushing light through the screen, which usually leaves you with washed-out blacks and terrible glare. The M70H fixes that by packing thousands of tiny LEDs behind the glass. The setup delivers three times brighter highlights and twice as deep contrast as standard 4K panels, meaning sunlight won't ruin afternoon sports, and dark movie scenes won't look muddy.

SEE ALSO: Early October Prime Day TV deals are live: We found rare deals on TCL, LG, Hisense, and more

It also comes packed with features designed to keep your setup simple and responsive. The native panel runs at 60Hz for regular TV, but switches to a 120Hz Dual Line Gate mode when you launch games, keeping fast-paced action buttery smooth and lag-free. If you're big on live sports, the Soccer Mode setting bumps up motion clarity by 40% so you can follow fast passes, while boosting turf colors by 30% for a vivid, stadium-like look.

With the M70H, you can access cloud gaming platforms like Xbox Cloud Gaming and GeForce Now directly from the TV without needing a console plugged in. As an added bonus, Samsung TV Plus comes pre-installed, giving you instant access to news, movies, and live sports without paying any monthly subscription fees.

Grab the Samsung M70H Series Mini LED 4K Smart TV while it’s sitting under the $300 mark. 

Taylor Swift has emerged from post-wedding bliss to grant us new music. The Life of a Showgirl: The Encore is out Friday and will feature four new songs: "Patient Zero," "Cleveland!," "Pink Clouding," and "Babylon." The first was announced yesterday after Swift teased her audience with her signature Easter Eggs.

"About a year ago, you guys did a truly unfathomable thing. Something that completely blew my mind… You gave The Life of a Showgirl the biggest first week for an album in history," Swift posted to social media, including X. "I took a trip to Sweden to celebrate with Max and Shellback, my two collaborators on this album. Really we just wanted to reflect and take in how grateful we were for the moment we were in, but there was a studio there and we did what we do when we feel anything at all: We wrote more songs."

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"I hope you love them, because they were born out of pure gratitude for your exuberance for and celebration of the album we made," Swift wrote.

SEE ALSO: Taylor Swift crashes Mariska Hargitay's 'Law & Order SVU' sketch at the Emmys

Unsurprisingly, the internet had a lot to say (or emote, through gifs) about this:

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The greige photos attached to "Patient Zero" also drummed up some response, as fans (and antis) wondered if they were edited, even with AI:

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AI or not, the shot of her leaning against the wall as giving "senior portraits," the internet opined:

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But this is Taylor Swift, after all, so Swifties were ready to come out in full force to support her:

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The U.S. is a big country, and we don't all experience the seasons in the same way, but for a lot of us, fall is definitely here. The weather is cooler, football is happening, new iPhones have arrived, and all of that means it's almost time to move the clocks back to close out Daylight Saving Time 2026.

Since you're reading this, you're probably wondering exactly when that's supposed to happen. After all, it can get confusing as to whether or not we're even in DST at any given point in time, and the beginning and end of it always sneak up on us every year. Fret not, though, because we have an answer: DST ends this year on Nov. 1, with clocks moving back from 2 a.m. to 1 a.m. overnight.

Yes, that means you get an extra hour of sleep.

SEE ALSO: New cat species identified for first time in 100 years

This, of course, does not apply to municipalities that don't observe DST, such as Hawaii and most of Arizona. But for the rest of us, we're going to have to manually adjust some of our clocks to reflect the change...after that extra long night of sleep, of course. It's also worth noting that any device you own that's connected to the internet, such as a smartphone or laptop, will most likely change its own time automatically.

But if you have an older car or you rely on the clock on your stove, make a note to move it back an hour on Nov. 1.

Microdramas aren't so micro anymore, at least when it comes to their audience.

Microdrama content on YouTube surpassed 6.5 billion views globally in the first half of 2026, according to new data YouTube shared Wednesday at its annual Made on YouTube event in New York City. Watch time for the bite-sized, serialized shows grew more than 50 percent year over year during the same period.

And despite a format practically engineered for the vertical smartphone screen, people aren't only watching on their phones. YouTube says views of microdrama content on TVs increased by more than 90 percent year over year during the first half of 2026.

YouTube is now giving creators more tools to capitalize on that appetite for short-form, episodic storytelling. The company announced Shorts Series, a new feature that lets creators organize individual Shorts into structured series, complete with custom thumbnails and sequential playback.

SEE ALSO: MeganPlays has been on YouTube for 13 years. Here's what she's learned.

The idea is to make Shorts behave a little more like episodes of a show. Instead of viewers encountering one video in isolation and having to hunt for the next installment, creators can package them together so audiences can discover a series and keep watching in order.

That could be particularly useful for microdramas, which depend on viewers following a story across multiple short episodes. And with audiences increasingly watching those stories on their TVs, the distinction between scrolling through Shorts and sitting down to watch a show is starting to look a little less clear.

Shorts Series is available globally in YouTube Studio for creators and across web, mobile, and TV for viewers.

Featured Video For You "How Online Are You" ft. Taryn Delanie Smith & Kay Poyer Everyone wants a piece of the microdrama boom

If you've suddenly started hearing a lot about microdramas, there's a reason. There's a lot of money in them.

Omdia estimates the global microdrama industry generated $11 billion in revenue in 2025 and will grow to $14 billion by the end of 2026, with the U.S. expected to account for roughly $1.5 billion of that this year.

The format also appears particularly good at holding viewers' attention on the devices where they're already spending much of their time. According to Omdia's analysis of mobile usage data from late 2025, U.S. ReelShort users spent an average of 35.7 minutes per day in the app, more daily mobile viewing time than users spent with Netflix, Prime Video, or Disney+.

Microdramas are relatively cheap and fast to produce, designed around constant hooks and cliffhangers, and built for the way audiences already scroll through short-form video.

It helps that microdramas borrow some of the most addictive mechanics of social video. Episodes typically run only a few minutes, move quickly, and end on cliffhangers designed to send viewers straight into the next one. They're also relatively cheap and fast to produce compared with traditional television, allowing studios to test lots of stories and quickly double down on what audiences actually watch.

And traditional entertainment companies want in. NBCUniversal's Peacock launched its first original vertical microdramas this summer, including Campus Confidential: Miami, built around the company's existing Bravo fandoms. WEBTOON followed with Short Dramas, a slate of six live-action vertical series adapted from popular romance webcomics, including Maybe Meant to Be, Love Bites, and I'll Marry Your Brother. Even late-night franchises like The Daily Show and The Tonight Show have gotten in on the format, producing their own satirical vertical soap operas.

YouTube has been experimenting, too. Earlier this year, the company announced a slate of creator-led programming that included HopeScope's I Acted in a Microdrama, a series of 60-second Shorts in which creator Hope Allen tries her hand at the genre.

Part of the appeal is obvious: microdramas are relatively cheap and fast to produce, designed around constant hooks and cliffhangers, and built for the way audiences already scroll through short-form video. But YouTube's new data suggests the format may be stretching beyond its mobile origins.

A 90 percent jump in TV views doesn't mean viewers are abandoning their phones for the couch. But it does suggest that the distinction between "short-form mobile video" and more traditional episodic entertainment is getting blurrier — just as YouTube gives creators more tools to make Shorts behave like television.

From YouTubers and TikTok stars to streamers and podcasters, Mashable talks to creators about how they built their platforms, the gear they swear by, and the trends they see coming next. Read more of our creator coverage, sign up for our Trending Now and Top Stories newsletters or get Mashable push alerts to discover the internet's most exciting voices.

Unlike some other social media platforms, YouTube is actually pretty good at finding relevant content for users. The platform's recommendation algorithm reviews your watch history, channel subscriptions, and other relevant metrics, then serves up more engaging content to keep viewers entertained and watching.

At YouTube's annual Made for YouTube event on Wednesday, the company announced a slew of new features for users that'll make it even easier to find what they want.

One feature, called Custom Feeds, will allow users to customize the type of content they see on their YouTube homepage for the first time. Users will be able to create a Custom Feed, telling YouTube, in natural language, exactly what kind of content they want to see in this feed. 

For example, a user can tell YouTube that it wants a Custom Feed with "long documentaries" or "new DIY creators," and a Custom Feed tab will appear on their YouTube homepage serving up that content.

Setting up a Custom Feed Credit: YouTube

Custom Feeds will live inside tabs at the top of the YouTube homepage, so they'll continue to see the usual YouTube homepage recommendations if they choose to do so. Users will be able to create multiple Custom Feeds with varying content requests, and they will all be accessible in those tabs on the homepage.

Your Custom Feed is ready! Credit: YouTube

According to YouTube, Custom Feeds are rolling out to users in the U.S. soon.

Along with Custom Feeds, YouTube announced new features for "Ask YouTube," which will let users ask YouTube questions about products in review videos. This new feature will give Ask YouTube the capability to provide more information about products and serve up video recommendations to go more in-depth on your product questions.

YouTube also announced a new podcast-related feature that will provide users with a personalized, AI-generated audio guide presenting their podcast lineup and recommending new podcasts and episodes based on their interests.

Posts on YouTube are getting an upgrade, too. Viewers will now be recommended Posts from the Shorts feed. Posts will also be added to YouTube's TV apps soon as well.

Livestream viewers have never been content to just sit back and watch. They chat. They donate. They subscribe. They clip. They make memes. They tell the streamer what to do next. Sometimes, they even feed cats thousands of miles away.

Barbara Macdonald remembers that last one particularly well. Macdonald, YouTube's product manager for Live, has worked on the platform's livestreaming products for more than a decade. Years ago, after YouTube opened an API that let creators connect Super Chats and channel memberships to real-world effects, someone hooked a livestream to a cat-feeding station in Russia. A viewer could send money from their own home and watch as food was dispensed for the cats on screen.

"I would say Live has always been really focused on how audiences are able to participate and control the action," Macdonald told Mashable. "That's what makes live stand out from asynchronous video."

Now, YouTube wants to give creators and their communities a lot more ways to do exactly that.

At its annual Made on YouTube event in New York City on Wednesday, the platform is unveiling more than 30 new products and features for creators and viewers, including a slate of updates aimed specifically at livestreaming. Among them are Live Showdowns, timed competitions between creators in which audience participation can influence who wins; an expansion of Watch With, which lets creators build live commentary around other YouTube content; and a pilot that brings YouTube's Auto-Dubbing technology to live video.

SEE ALSO: The Mashable 101: The creators defining the internet in 2026

The announcements arrive as YouTube makes a bigger push into a live format it has supported since 2011. But the company's bet isn't that livestreaming is suddenly becoming interactive. It always has been. Instead, YouTube is building more of the behaviors that already define livestream communities — collaboration, competition, fan funding, and audience participation — directly into its products.

And with more than 600 million logged-in viewers already watching live content on YouTube every day, the company now wants to give more creators a reason to go live.

YouTube wants more creators to go live It's time for a Live Showdown. Credit: YouTube

Macdonald has watched YouTube Live change dramatically since she first started working on the product. Around 2019, she said, livestreaming began moving away from its more desktop-heavy, high-production roots toward something increasingly mobile and casual.

YouTube has responded by investing more in mobile live creation and discovery. Looking toward 2027, Macdonald said her team's priorities can essentially be reduced to two things: reach and monetization.

"When you go live to an empty room, you're there doing a stream so you can engage with an audience and riff back and forth with them," she said. "We want to get you as many relevant eyeballs as we can."

One way YouTube hopes to do that is by making collaboration easier. An update to Go Live Together will introduce smart matching, allowing creators who are live at the same time to find one another and link up. From there, they can choose to launch a Live Showdown.

Let's Go Live Together, shall we? Credit: YouTube

During a Showdown, activity from each creator's audience contributes to a competition displayed on screen. Free participation counts, meaning viewers don't have to pay to influence the result. But paid interactions — including Super Chats, Super Stickers, gifts, and gifted channel memberships — count more. That's another potential revenue stream for creators. It also raises an obvious question: At what point does participating in a livestream start to feel pay-to-play?

Macdonald, who previously worked on YouTube's fan-funding products, including Super Chat, said it's a tension the company has considered for years.

"We do want to make sure that every viewer, no matter their means, is able to participate in some fashion," she said. Showdowns are designed so everyone can contribute, she added, while viewers who want to financially support a creator can have a larger impact on the outcome.

YouTube is also expanding Watch With, which allows creators to react to and provide commentary around other content on the platform. The idea addresses another problem Macdonald said YouTube frequently hears from creators curious about livestreaming: They simply don't know what they'd do once the camera turns on.

By giving them something to react to, YouTube hopes to make that first stream less intimidating. "We're really hoping it will open up the funnel and allow more people to dabble and to try live," Macdonald said.

Featured Video For You Creators Taryn Delanie Smith and Kay Poyer on the insecurity no one talks about after going viral What happens when viewers become stakeholders?

Creator and conservationist Maya Higa already knows what can happen when a livestream audience is given something to do. Higa began streaming in 2019, the same year she started bringing the wildlife education work she'd previously done in person as a zookeeper online. She quickly realized livestreaming allowed her to reach far more people without transporting animals to schools, birthday parties, and other events.

In 2021, she founded Alveus Sanctuary, a nonprofit wildlife sanctuary and conservation education center that isn't open to the general public. Instead, viewers can visit virtually through cameras livestreaming from its animal enclosures around the clock.

And the community doesn't just watch. Alveus is funded in large part through crowdsourced donations. Higa said her community has helped build the sanctuary from the beginning, creating a relationship she describes differently from a typical creator-fan dynamic.

"Not only are they a part of building it — I mean, they did build it," Higa told Mashable. "That also makes them stakeholders in it in an interesting way."

Sometimes that participation is financial. Alveus auctions paintings made by its animal ambassadors. Viewers can donate to activate an automated feeder that dispenses treats to the sanctuary's cow and herd of emus. Another feature lets them turn on a splash pad for the emus. Fans who send toys or enrichment items to Alveus can later watch the animals encounter them on the sanctuary's livestreams.

"I guess by definition, it is a little bit transactional, but it's never felt that way," Higa said. "It just feels really good and really special. It feels like we're all doing it together."

But money isn't the only way Alveus has figured out how to turn viewers into participants. Higa recently launched a citizen-science project around the sanctuary's pollinator garden. A pan-tilt-zoom camera lets viewers search the garden for insects and other pollinators, submit their observations, collect points and stickers, and compete on a leaderboard.

"It's kind of like playing Pokémon," Higa joked. Except that the Pokémon are real, and the observations could potentially become useful scientific data.

SEE ALSO: Google wants you to listen to coral reefs. It just might help restore them.

The idea came to Higa after attending an invertebrate conference where she heard about a citizen-science project that had collected roughly 400 observations from members of the public. Alveus, she realized, routinely has between 1,000 and 2,000 concurrent viewers watching its live cameras. "We could get 400 observations in half a day," she recalled thinking.

On the viewer's end, it's effectively a game. On Alveus' end, Higa hopes the project can generate information on which pollinators visit which plants at different points in the year and eventually share that data with conservationists.

"Our community is so invested in what we're doing, they always want to do something," she said. "They really want to make an impact, and they want to be involved in any way they can."

Livestreaming is increasingly global, too

YouTube's ambitions for Live don't stop at getting more people to participate. It also wants creators' communities to cross borders more easily.

Macdonald said more than 40 percent of watch time on YouTube Live comes from viewers outside a creator's home region. Now the company is piloting Auto-Dubbing for Live, an extension of the Gemini-powered technology it already uses to translate uploaded videos into other languages. Since launching in 2023, YouTube's existing auto-dubbing system now supports 27 languages.

For live video, translated audio will be made available as a separate audio track that viewers can select in the YouTube player while a broadcast is happening. Doing that in real time presents a much harder technical problem than dubbing a finished video, particularly when livestream conversations move quickly. Macdonald said YouTube's infrastructure team is working to deliver the translated audio with the low-latency live video required.

Higa sees the potential for conservation, a subject whose audience is inherently global, but she's also more cautious about what technology can replicate. Her ideal, she said, would be growing Alveus' education team to include educators from different parts of the world who can speak directly to audiences in their own languages.

"There are things that they understand and things that they could say in a language that I could never convey auto-dubbed," she said.

A viewer, a fan, or something else?

The question at the center of YouTube's new features is one that livestreamers have been navigating for years: How much agency should an audience have? YouTube's answer increasingly seems to be: quite a lot.

Showdowns allow audiences to influence a competition. Watch With turns watching someone else's content into a communal event. Smart matching is designed to put previously separate creator communities in the same room. Fan-funding products allow viewers to financially affect what's happening on screen. Auto-Dubbing could eventually allow those communities to form across languages.

But Higa's experience with Alveus suggests the most meaningful outcome of all that participation might be harder for a platform to quantify.

Since Higa began streaming in 2019, she estimates her platform has generated around $8 million in crowdsourced and other fundraising. She's also watched members of her audience decide to study environmental science or conservation biology and pursue careers dedicated to the planet. That experience has changed how she thinks about the people on the other side of the screen.

"I never say fans," Higa said. "I sometimes say viewers. I almost always say our community."

Some have been watching her since 2019. They've grown up alongside one another. Higa has watched their interests, values, and even career paths change. "It does feel like a movement of these young people that are growing up together," she said.

And that might be the more interesting bet behind YouTube's latest updates to Live. The platform doesn't need to teach viewers how to participate in livestreams. They've been doing that for years. The opportunity is figuring out what creators and their audiences can build once they do.

From YouTubers and TikTok stars to streamers and podcasters, Mashable talks to creators about how they built their platforms, the gear they swear by, and the trends they see coming next. Read more of our creator coverage, sign up for our Trending Now and Top Stories newsletters or get Mashable push alerts to discover the internet's most exciting voices.