Feed aggregator

GET FREE ROMANCE E-BOOKS: Stuff Your Kindle Day is back with a one day-only romance event. Shop dozens of dark romance titles that are completely free during the event.

Best Dark Romance Deals Best Dark Romance Deal The Thief and the Painter by Candice Clark $0 at Amazon (Save $4.99) Get Deal Best Friends-to-Lovers Deal For Now by Amanda Bentley $0 at Amazon (Save $2.99) Get Deal Best Dark Fantasy Deal Dark Hunter by Logan Fox $0 at Amazon (Save $4.99) Get Deal Shop Kindle Amazon Kindle $109.99 at Amazon Shop Now Shop Kindle Paperwhite Amazon Kindle Paperwhite $159.99 at Amazon Shop Now

Shop Your Kindle Day is the best shopping bash for readers. The author-driven event, organized by Romance Book Lovers, brings hundreds of discounts on e-books so, as the name implies, you can stuff your Kindle library. While the annual event encompasses all genres, Romance Book Lovers is throwing a single day event called Romance Book Blast on October 22. And the best part? All the books featured are totally free.

Normally we see a combination of free and discounted books during Stuff Your Kindle Day, but during Romance Book Blast, every book is totally free. Romance is far more expansive of a genre than you probably realize. You can find sweet, heartwarming reads or something darker and steamier.

One of the highlighted categories during the Romance Book Bash is dark romance. If you're usually into dark, psychological thrillers but want a bit of romance or spice, these books are for you. Here's how to shop the Romance Book Blast event.

SEE ALSO: Yes, Kindles with color are real and coming soon: Pre-order the Kindle Colorsoft Who can take part in Stuff Your Kindle Day?

Short answer: Anyone! You don't need to own a Kindle to enjoy the event. Readers who use their iPad, Kobo, or Nook can also enjoy free and discounted books during the event. However, the Kindle app, which is available on a variety smartphones and tablets, makes it easy to read e-books without owning an e-reader.

And if you don't have an e-reader, this event is a great excuse to get one. Amazon just released a whole new line-up of Kindles, including the first ever color Kindle.

Shop free dark romances

• Blades & Bones by Heather C. Myers and Frankie Cardona

• Bleeding Outside the Lines by Jess Allen — $0 $2.99

• Blindsided by Love by Diane Wiggs — $0 $2.00

• Corrupt Saint by Cora Kent — $0 $0.99

• Dangerous Dreams by Abbie Roads — $0 $4.99

• Dark Hunter by Logan Fox — $0 $4.99

• Dead and Buried by Mel Lane — $0 $3.99

• Double Crossed: The Complete Set by Adora Crooks — $0 $7.99

• For Now by Amanda Bentley — $0 $2.99

• Growing with Her by A.R. Carlson — $0 $3.99

• His Obsession by Emily Klepp — $0 $4.99

• His Angel by HL Packer — $0 $3.99

• Homecoming Chaos by D.W. Brooks — $0 $3.99

• Nick: A Dark Billionaire Romance by Liz Gavin — $0 $4.99

• Ravage by Jessica Ames — $0 $0.99

• Rise To Power by KyAnn Waters — $0 $4.99

• Rook by TK Eldridge — $0 $0.99

• Seeing Double by Lacie Chanel — $0 $4.99

• Their Offering by S. Lynn Smith — $0 $3.99

• The Thief and the Painter by Candice Clark — $0 $4.99

• Uncovering Lily by Rene Webb — $0 $0.99

• Under Their Protection by Emily Klepp — $0 $4.99

• Wilderness by Lynn Burke — $0 $5.99

Humanity has marveled at the vivid star Betelgeuse for many millennia. Over two thousand years ago, this imperious red object in the constellation Orion caught the eye of the Roman poet Horace:

But see, with what a troubled glare Orion's star is setting there!

Today the colossal, easy-to-find star — so large that it would reach to Jupiter in our solar system — continues to intrigue us. And unlike most stars, we can see it changing, in part because it's relatively nearby in our galaxy. Betelgeuse is known for being a type of "variable star," meaning its brightness fluctuates, at times dramatically, as it inches toward an eventual grandiose collapse and stellar explosion, known as a supernova. In recent years, the star has grown noticeably brighter.

"People love Betelgeuse," Heidi Morris, a scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory and the president of Pajarito Astronomers, an astronomy club, told Mashable. "It's been doing these brightness fluctuations for a very long time."

SEE ALSO: Aliens haven't contacted us. Scientists found a compelling reason why.

(What's more, recent research suggests that Betelgeuse may have a small stellar companion, "Betelbuddy," which forces nearby dust out of the way and contributes to pulses in Betelgeuse's brightness.)

Yet lately these fluctuations haven't been normal. Typically, Betelgeuse varies in brightness over 400 day cycles. But since violently blowing off a hunk of its atmosphere in 2019, these oscillating periods have shortened.

Tweet may have been deleted

But don't get too excited. This almost certainly isn't evidence of a bloated star on the literal brink of a supernova.

"People love Betelgeuse."

Still, Betelgeuse is a red supergiant star that has lived hard and will die young. It's just some 10 million years old — while the sun is 5 billion years old. It's a colossal star in the final stages of its fast-paced evolution. When it inevitably runs out of fuel, the core will collapse under the weight of its immense mass, and create an explosion that can outshine galaxies. It will happen. But you, me, and everyone else would like to know when.

When will Betelgeuse explode?

The cold, hard truth is, it's unknown when Betelgeuse, at some 640 light-years away, will collapse into a supernova.

"We don't have a way of predicting when stars will explode," Or Graur, an associate professor of astronomy at the University of Portsmouth who researches supernovae, told Mashable. "We have no idea when Betelgeuse will explode," added Graur, who wrote the book Supernova.

"It really is uncertain," agreed Los Alamos' Morris. "We haven't had a lot of supernovae to study in human history."

After the mass ejection of part of Betelgeuse's atmosphere in 2019, the graph below shows its expected fluctuations in brightness (green line) versus observations (red) showing an increased rate of change. Credit: NASA / ESA / Elizabeth Wheatley (STScI)

There is some evidence that Betelgeuse might not explode for a long, long time. Historical records indicate Betelgeuse has become redder over the past two thousand years, explained Jason Ybarra, the director of the West Virginia University Planetarium and Observatory, who researches stars and the history of astronomy. That would mean Betelgeuse only evolved into a red supergiant relatively recently (in cosmic terms), so it might take quite a while for the star to completely exhaust its fuel.

"To answer the question the best I can, Betelgeuse is probably not going to supernova any time soon," Ybarra told Mashable.

Once a star becomes a red giant, it has a lot of cooking to do. Under the immense pressure in its core, heat fuses helium into carbon. After thousands of years, it then fuses carbon and helium to create oxygen, and the forging process continues, ultimately creating metals like iron. Right now, Betelgeuse is probably at an earlier stage in this cooking process, explained Morris, as the analysis of chemicals in the star's atmosphere suggests it's fusing helium to carbon in its core. (We can't see inside mighty Betelgeuse.)

NASA has recently written that Betelgeuse won't explode for "another 100,000 years." Indeed, this could happen. But that's far from certain. More observations might suggest the star could defy these expectations. Before 1987, for example, astronomers thought only red supergiants could blast into a supernova. But in 1987, a giant blue star in another galaxy exploded.

We clearly still have a lot to learn. We might be surprised. Watching Betelgeuse, and other giant stars, will give us a better answer.

"I would hesitate to say it will do nothing in 10,000 years," said Morris. "We should keep our eye on it and let it inspire us to move forward scientifically."

Betelgeuse's size compared to the sun and planets in our solar system. Credit: ESO / L. Calçada What will we see when Betelgeuse explodes?

When Betelgeuse eventually explodes, it will astonish the world, or whomever is watching.

You'd be able to see the star change with the naked eye. Betelgeuse will get progressively brighter at night. After a few days, it will peak in brightness. This will last for around 100 days.

"It will be the brightest star," explained Graur. "You would even be able to see it by day." Research predicts the Betelgeuse supernova would be 15 to 250 times brighter than Venus, currently the second-brightest object in the night sky. Then it will begin to fade over hundreds of days, until it winks away into the black ether of space (binoculars and telescopes will be able to spy it for longer).

But Betelgeuse isn't the only red supergiant in our galaxy. Others, like Eta Carinae, might erupt in the sky first. In a galaxy the size of the Milky Way, statistically there should be a supernova every 50 or so years, explained Graur. But we haven't seen one actually happen in 400 years, though we've observed remnants of explosions.

"Statistically, we're overdo," Graur noted.

"Statistically, we're overdo."

Any explosive event likely won't be sudden, like detonating a bomb. There could be signals, such as smaller eruptions before the grand finale.

Keep your eyes to the sky. "We don't know where the next supernova will come from," said Graur.

Netflix's trailer for Christmas romcom 'Meet Me Next Christmas' has Christina Milian searching for love and Pentatonix tickets.

Directed by Brady Corbet and starring Adrien Brody, Felicity Jones, and Guy Pierce, "The Brutalist" hits theaters this December.

TL;DR: Live stream Boston Celtics vs. New York Knicks in the NBA for free on Ran.de. Access this free streaming platform from anywhere in the world with ExpressVPN.

The NBA is back, and it's back with a bang. The Boston Celtics are hosting the New York Knicks in an absolutely massive season opener, and you can see how things unfold without spending anything.

The defending champions will be confident of starting strongly behind the support of their fans, but the Knicks have been circling the top teams for a few years now. This could be the year that they make the jump, bolstered by the addition of Karl-Anthony Towns.

If you want to watch Boston Celtics vs. New York Knicks in the NBA for free from anywhere in the world, we have all the information you need.

When is Boston Celtics vs. New York Knicks?

Boston Celtics vs. New York Knicks in the NBA starts at 7:30 p.m. ET on Oct. 22. This game takes place at TD Garden.

How to watch Boston Celtics vs. New York Knicks for free

Boston Celtics vs. New York Knicks is available to live stream for free on Ran.de.

Ran.de is geo-restricted to Germany, but anyone can access this free streaming platform with a VPN. These tools can hide your real IP address (digital location) and connect you to a secure server in Germany, meaning you can unblock free live streams of the NBA from anywhere in the world.

Live stream Boston Celtics vs. New York Knicks for free on Ran.de by following these simple steps:

1. Subscribe to a streaming-friendly VPN (like ExpressVPN)

2. Download the app to your device of choice (the best VPNs have apps for Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, Linux, and more)

3. Open up the app and connect to a server in Germany

4. Visit Ran.de

5. Watch Boston Celtics vs. New York Knicks for free from anywhere in the world

Opens in a new window Credit: ExpressVPN ExpressVPN (1-Year Subscription + 3 Months Free) $99.95 only at ExpressVPN (with money-back guarantee) Get Deal

The best VPNs for streaming are not free, but leading VPNs do tend to offer free-trial periods or money-back guarantees. By leveraging these offers, you can gain access to free live streams of the NBA without actually spending anything. This obviously isn't a long-term solution, but it does give you enough time to live stream Boston Celtics vs. New York Knicks before recovering your investment.

What is the best VPN for the NBA?

ExpressVPN is the best choice for bypassing geo-restrictions to stream live sport, for a number of reasons:

• Servers in 105 countries including Germany

• Easy-to-use app available on all major devices including iPhone, Android, Windows, Mac, and more

• Strict no-logging policy so your data is secure

• Fast connection speeds free from throttling

• Up to eight simultaneous connections

• 30-day money-back guarantee

A one-year subscription to ExpressVPN is on sale for $99.95 and includes an extra three months for free — 49% off for a limited time. This plan includes a year of free unlimited cloud backup and a generous 30-day money-back guarantee.

Live stream Boston Celtics vs. New York Knicks in the NBA for free with ExpressVPN.

Look, I'm not even mad.

Apple's new iPad mini, now in its seventh generation, looks the same as the last one, and while it brings a number of small upgrades across the board, none of them will knock you off your feet.

It's hard to blame Apple for not doing more, though. Even though it launched three years ago, the 6th generation iPad mini was a massive upgrade that brought a completely new design, with a larger display, new Touch ID, and a new camera, among other improvements. The 7th generation iPad mini merely builds on that same design, but brings a new chip, more starting storage, and compatibility with Apple's (yet unreleased) Apple Intelligence features.

Apple iPad mini 7 price

The price for the Apple iPad mini 7 is the same as before, starting at $499 for the Wi-Fi version with 128GB of RAM, and $649 for the Wi-Fi + Cellular variant.

If you want 256GB of storage, you'll have to add $100 to the starting price, and if you want to max it out at 512GB of storage, that'll cost you another $200 compared to the starting price. You can also add the Apple Pencil Pro to the mix for $129, and Apple's Smart Folio cover will cost you an additional $59.

Apple iPad mini 7 design

You'll need a keen eye to notice the differences between the iPad mini 7 and the previous one, but they do exist. The choice of colors is now Space Gray, Blue, Purple (lighter than before), and Starlight. The Pink variant is no longer available. Apple sent me a Starlight-colored unit, so I can't say how the new colors look in person. I did get the Smart Folio in Sage, which to my eyes appeared more like lime, and I liked the color a lot.

The iPad mini 7 I reviewed was in Apple's old Starlight color, but I really digged the Smart Folio's Sage color. Credit: Stan Schroeder / Mashable

There's another minor difference here: The previous version had an "iPad" inscription on the back, whereas the one on the new one says "iPad mini." Nice if you, like me, are a fan of the iPad mini.

Other than these details, no one will be able to tell that you have the brand new iPad mini. Sorry.

Apple iPad mini 7 specs

The new iPad mini is powered by Apple's A17 Pro chip (the same one that powers the iPhone 15 Pro), which gives it some gaming-related features like hardware-accelerated ray tracing, and enables (upcoming) AI features. Starting storage is 128GB, and you can now get the iPad mini with 512GB of storage, which wasn't available until now. There are also indications that the new iPad mini has 8GB of RAM, which doubles the previous model's 4GB of RAM.

Other tidbits include faster USB-C data transfer, Bluetooth 5.3 support, and Wi-FI 6E connectivity — all meaningful upgrades, though most users probably won't notice much of a difference. The cameras — a 12-megapixel shooter on the back, and a 12-megapixel ultra-wide camera on the front — are mostly the same as before, with the most notable upgrades being Smart HDR 4 support.

The camera is mostly the same, but Apple Pencil Pro support is new. Credit: Stan Schroeder / Mashable

The big takeaways here are the big RAM increase and 128GB of starting storage, which is a huge upgrade as 64GB (the starting storage on the previous generation) was just cutting it way too close for comfort if you have a couple of games installed.

The new chip is a big improvement over the previous version's A15 Bionic, but it's a pity that the new iPad mini doesn't have Apple's latest mobile processor, the A18 Pro which is found in the new iPhone 16 Pro. The company probably decided to cut costs on this one, but it does make the new iPad mini just a little less future-proof.

I tested my unit with a combination of news apps, Chrome, Books, X, and Blizzard's Hearthstone. Everything felt sufficiently fast but don't expect iPad Pro performance; this is still a phone chip running things, and even a fairly simple game such as Hearthstone will push it pretty hard on high settings.

Apple iPad mini 7 battery life

I didn't have the iPad mini 7 long enough to properly test battery life, but Apple rates it the same as before (19.3 Wh battery, up to 10 hours of surfing on Wi-Fi, and up to nine hours of surfing on cellular), and I didn't notice much of a difference compared to the previous version.

For a day, I used the iPad mini as a secondary display, next to my 16-inch M1 MacBook Pro, and it did struggle to keep up. But in more typical usage — which for me is light reading and a bit of gaming, mostly at home — battery life was never an issue.

Apple iPad mini AI support

Apple made its life incredibly complicated with the belated launch of Apple Intelligence. The company's most important product, the new iPhone 16, launched without it. As for the iPad mini, it will launch at the same time as iOS 18.1 which brings some AI features, but it wasn't available at testing time.

SEE ALSO: 5 most useful features of iOS 18 public beta — and how to use them

To complicate matters further, Apple Intelligence isn't currently available in Europe and China, and it won't be arriving there until 2025 (the UK is the exception here; Apple says AI is arriving there in December). Being in Europe, I have no access to it (unless I go through a number of convoluted steps to enable it), and it would be unfair to test a new device running beta software.

This means that all I can say about AI is that this is the first and currently only iPad mini that supports it, and that it is coming soon (in the U.S.). Features will include Writing Tools, which can rewrite, proofread, and summarize your texts, a smarter Siri, Clean Up tool for photos, Genmoji, and integrated ChatGPT, among other features.

When AI launches, the iPad mini will get some cool writing enhancements. Credit: Stan Schroeder / Mashable Apple iPad mini Pencil Pro support

The iPad mini 7 supports Apple Pencil Pro, with all the bells and whistles such as hover and squeeze. I don't have a need for Apple Pencil, and it seems to me that a heavy user would also prefer a larger canvas to draw on, so an iPad Pro would be a better option. Furthermore, the asking price of $129 for the Pencil Pro is a bit steep when compared to the $499 price of the entry-level iPad mini.

Still, there's absolutely nothing wrong with this feature. I tested the Pencil Pro with the new mini, and it worked as advertised, and it's nice to have the option to use the company's best Pencil together with its smallest tablet.

Is the iPad mini 7 worth getting? It says "iPad mini" on the back now. Nice. Credit: Stan Schroeder / Mashable

Absolutely.

If you're new to the iPad, and you want the most compact one around (or any compact tablet), the new iPad mini 7 is the best choice. If you already rock the iPad mini 5th generation or earlier, it's also a no brainer; the new one looks better and is a lot more powerful. And if you own the previous, 6th generation iPad mini, it could also be worth upgrading, but if it's still fast enough for you and you don't care much about the AI features, you'll be OK if you sit this one out.