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SAVE $19.99: As of Oct. 7, the Amazon Fire TV Stick is on sale for $19.99 at Amazon. That's a saving of 50% on list price.

Opens in a new window Credit: Amazon Amazon Fire TV Stick $19.99 at Amazon
$39.99 Save $20.00 Get Deal

Amazon's October Prime Day is not here quite yet, but the deals have already started. You can find discounts already kicking off on a wide range of Amazon's products, including the beloved Fire TV Stick. The Fire TV Stick is a streaming device that plugs into your TV (or laptop) and lets you access platforms including Prime Video, Netflix, Hulu, and more. It comes with a remote with Alexa built-in, helping you turn any TV into a smart TV.

As of Oct. 7, you can find the handy Fire TV Stick on sale for $19.99, a saving of 50% on list price. Not only are we treated to an early deal ahead of Prime Day, but this is the lowest price the Fire Stick has been in nine months.

SEE ALSO: Best Macbooks to buy during October Prime Day 2024

The set-up for these handy remotes is so simple. Really, anyone can do it. Just pop the device into your TV's HDMI port, and that's it. You have instant access to a range of streaming platforms as well as many live channels. And trust us, Alexa voice control is much easier than manually searching for a show.

This is a limited-time deal at Amazon, so act fast before you miss out. Happy streaming!

SAVE $50: As of Oct. 7, the Amazon Echo Show 5 is on sale for $66.98 at Amazon. That's a saving of 42% on list price.

Opens in a new window Credit: Amazon Echo Show 5 (3rd Gen) $66.98
$116.98 Save $50.00 Get Deal

If you love Amazon's smart home devices then Prime Day is your best bet for a great deal. But if you're looking for a new gadget to upgrade your home, you don't need to wait for the official sales to begin — Amazon has treated us to some early deals, including a bargain on the Echo Show 5.

As of Oct. 7, the Echo Show 5 is reduced at Amazon to $66.98, giving you a saving of $50. Not to mention, this is its lowest price for six months. This is the perfect chance to get acquainted with Amazon's range of Echo products for less.

A smart assistant with a screen, the Echo Show is a great, and stylish, way to control your smart home. With built-in Alexa, and the ability to watch shows and video chat, you can't go wrong. The screen is small, coming in at 5.5 inches, making it perfect for smaller rooms where you don't want much clutter.

If you want to upgrade your smart home, don't miss out on this early Prime Day deal.

SAVE $100: As of Oct. 7, the Garmin Forerunner 965 is on sale for $499.99 at Amazon. That's a saving of 17% on list price.

Opens in a new window Credit: Garmin Garmin Forerunner 965 $499.86 at Amazon
$599.99 Save $100.13 Get Deal

If you're looking for a new smartwatch to level up your runs, you'll soon discover the market is pretty saturated in great options at a range of prices. One of the major players in this category is, of course, Garmin's Forerunner range. Designed with runners and athletes in mind, through the different price points you'll find watches with GPS tracking, heart rate monitoring, and a range of performance metrics.

If you're a serious runner looking for a bargain, you'll be glad to hear one of the Forerunner's newest models, the 795, is reduced at Amazon to its lowest-ever price. As of Oct. 7, the Garmin Forerunner 965 is on sale for $499.99 at Amazon. That's a saving of 17% on list price, or $100 off in total. However, it's worth noting that this deal only applies to the yellow and black model.

SEE ALSO: 8 best noise-cancelling headphones to buy on Prime Day

The Forerunner 965 is full of incredible stats and data tracking for the most serious of runners to newbies. The bright AMOLED display is colorful and attractive, but also makes for a very accessible user interface. Standout features of this fitness tracker include: training status, sleep score, training readiness, and built-in maps.

With a battery life that can last up to 23 days, the Forerunner 965 is an ideal choice for long-distance athletes looking to upgrade. Grab yours before the deal ends.

SAVE OVER $50: As of Oct. 7, the PlayStation 5 (Slim) is on sale for $449 at Amazon. That's a saving of 10% on list price.

Opens in a new window Credit: Sony PlayStation 5 (Slim) $449.00 at Amazon
$499.99 Save $50.99 Get Deal

The Prime Big Deal Days event is not here just yet, but that doesn't mean you can't secure a big discount. And by shopping before the event properly drops, you can avoid all that panic that comes with these major shopping events.

The good news is that you can still secure best-ever prices before the thousands of deals drop over Prime Big Deal Days. And that very much includes the most sought-after products, like the PlayStation 5 (Slim). You can shop the PlayStation 5 (Slim) for $449 on Amazon ahead of Prime Day, saving over $50 on list price. This console has never been cheaper on Amazon, so this could be your best chance to finally bag this popular console.

SEE ALSO: I've tested over 20 robot vacuums — here are the top 5 to shop on Prime Day

The deal includes a DualSense Wireless Controller, along with everything you need to start gaming right away. Gamers can experience lightning fast loading with an ultra-high speed SSD, deeper immersion with support for haptic feedback, adaptive triggers, and 3D Audio. And of course, access to an all-new generation of incredible PlayStation games.

Save over $50 on the PlayStation 5 (Slim) before Prime Day.

SAVE $120: As of Oct. 7, the Apple iPad 9th Generation is on sale for $199.99 at Amazon. That's a saving of 39% on list price.

Opens in a new window Credit: Apple Apple iPad 9th Generation $199.99 at Amazon
$329.00 Save $129.01 Get Deal

OK, so you want a new tablet. While you can find a wide range of tablets from various tech brands — and at a range of prices — let’s be honest about the best model on the market. When it comes to visuals, slick features, and overall style, the Apple iPad just can’t be beaten.

The great news is that you can pick up an Apple iPad for a bargain price. As of Oct. 7, the Apple iPad 9th Generation is on sale for $199.99 at Amazon. That's a massive saving of 39% on list price — a total discount of over $129. However, this deal is exclusive to the 64GB, WiFi-only version.

SEE ALSO: Apple Watch Ultra 1 vs. Ultra 2: We'll make this simple

The Apple iPad 9th Generation is one of the best ever models, with a stunning 10.2-inch retina display and all the latest Apple smart features, such as Touch ID. It’s all powered by Apple’s A13 Bionic chip, which makes the iPad lightning fast and delivers incredible graphics performance. Not only that, the iPad is built with 12mp and 8mp cameras, front and back respectively.

As Apple users will already know, the iPad is especially good for creative tasks and syncs with the Apple Pencil for slick, high-performance graphic design work. Get yours before the deal ends.

I try to have an open mind when reviewing anything, but to be honest, I was kinda ready to dismiss the Acer Chromebook Plus 516 GE as a gaming device out of the box.

After all, Chromebooks aren’t for gaming, right? These are cheap(er) laptops largely meant for students or people who don’t need advanced features from their computer. Most PC games aren’t supported by ChromeOS and the internal specs aren’t good enough to run anything intense, anyway.

But remarkably, thanks at least in part to advances in cloud gaming tech (e.g., Nvidia GeForce Now and Xbox Game Pass), the $650 Chromebook Plus 516 GE is actually pretty good at playing video games. It’s also pretty good at just being a laptop, though not without some ChromeOS-flavored hiccups along the way.

This piece kills two birds with one stone. It's a review of the Chromebook Plus 516 GE as well as a deep dive into which cloud gaming services fares better on it: Nvidia GeForce Now or Xbox Game Pass? (Skip to "Cloud Gaming" for this analysis.)

Acer Chromebook Plus 516 GE price and specs This is a great laptop keyboard. Credit: Joe Maldonado/Mashable

For $650, this is what Acer provides in the Chromebook Plus 516 GE:

• Intel Core 5 120U processor

• Intel integrated graphics

• 16-inch display with 2560x1600 resolution, 16:10 aspect ratio, and 120Hz refresh rate

• 256GB SSD storage

• 8GB RAM

The processor and GPU aren’t necessarily anything to write home about, but that’s to be expected from a Chromebook. For the price, this is actually a pretty decent deal. A 256GB SSD is plenty for a device that will mostly rely on Google cloud storage, while 8GB of RAM is enough to ensure that multitasking won't be too problematic.

The display is also great for the price, but we’ll get into that in a second.

Opens in a new window Credit: Joe Maldonado / Mashable Acer Chromebook Plus 516 GE Get Deal Acer Chromebook Plus 516 GE: Design

I’m not enamored with the Chromebook Plus 516 GE’s design, but it’s not horrible, either.

See what I mean? Credit: Joe Maldonado/Mashable

In essence, it just looks like any other big black laptop. The main thing I’m not a fan of is the design on the lid — about 80 percent is shiny black, while the remaining 20 percent is matte black to accommodate the Acer and Chromebook Plus logos. To me, it just looks a bit awkward. Choose shiny or matte, I don’t care, but don’t do both.

Fortunately, laptops are meant to be used, not just looked at. Acer packed some nice physical features into this machine, including a keyboard with nearly ideal key sizes, nice spacing between the keys, and pleasant key travel when pressed. It’s quiet and feels fantastic on your fingertips. The keyboard is also backlit, which is a nice touch.

One small knock I have against the design is that, compared to other Chromebooks I've used in the past, this one's pretty beefy. Specifically, it's 3.8 pounds, making it fairly heavy for a portable work machine.

Acer Chromebook Plus 516 GE: Display

In terms of display tech, Acer’s latest Chromebook Plus has one of the best Chromebook screens I’ve seen. The 16:10 aspect ratio adds an extra little bit of vertical space if you need it, and many high-end video games support that. Its resolution is high and sharp, ensuring that anything you look at will be crystal clear. 

It's a big boy for a Chromebook. Credit: Joe Maldonado / Mashable

I’d also like to shout out the 120Hz refresh rate. For a device that’s marketed as a gaming behemoth, that’s really important. Most PC games are capable of running at higher than 60 frames per second with powerful enough hardware, which is a benefit that’s missing from a large majority of console games. 

There is one major issue, though. As far as I can tell, there’s no way to change the display’s refresh rate in the device settings. A 120Hz refresh rate is great for gaming, but for everyday internet use, it’s not that useful and can drain the laptop’s battery. The ability to turn it down to 90Hz or 60Hz would be lovely, but that’s not available.

If you want to know how the display fared while gaming, check out the "Cloud Gaming" section.

Acer Chromebook Plus 516 GE: Ports

The port selection is a real winner. On the left, there’s a USB-C port, an Ethernet port, and a headphone jack.

The ports on the left side. Credit: Joe Maldonado/Mashable The ports on the right side. Credit: Joe Maldonado/Mashable

On the right, there’s another USB-C port, an HDMI port, and a regular USB port. This should ensure you have plenty of options when connecting accessories and peripherals, and even gives you a way to connect the laptop to a TV via HDMI.

Acer Chromebook Plus 516 GE: Cloud gaming

For testing purposes, I was supplied with an Nvidia GeForce Now Ultimate subscription.

Acer is selling this as a “gaming Chromebook,” so let’s talk about how it actually fares as a gaming device.

Pretty decently, as it turns out! To be clear, I don’t mean as a local gaming device that you install games on. This isn’t a traditional gaming laptop. Instead, the best approach is to use a game-streaming service like Xbox Game Pass or Nvidia GeForce Now. This way, the game is running on much more powerful hardware elsewhere (Nvidia's servers, for example) and beaming a high-quality, high-framerate video to your Chromebook.

'Control' is so cool. Credit: Steam/Remedy

I tested both of those services out on Chromebook Plus 516 GE and came away fairly impressed with what I saw. Let’s start with Game Pass, since it’s much simpler.

Xbox offers a selection of Game Pass games (not every game that’s available via that service, mind you, just some of them) for game streaming through a web browser. Just log into an eligible Game Pass account and you can start playing (some of) your Xbox games right away.

It’s all remarkably quick. My save data synced right away and I was playing an old save of Assassin’s Creed: Origins in HD at 60 frames per second (FPS) on a Chromebook. There wasn’t much visible video buffering or stuttering, either. The same held true for Forza Horizon 4. However, as will always be true of game streaming, there is a bit of input latency. This wasn’t very noticeable in Assassin’s Creed, but rendered Forza nearly unplayable for me.

I was more impressed by GeForce Now, but with the caveat that I was using the Ultimate subscription tier, which runs your games on an RTX 4080 GPU on a server farm somewhere, ensuring high-end performance on just about anything you can play. Framerates can also go up to 240 FPS with Ultimate. The free and cheaper GeForce Now tiers grant access to lesser hardware and a 60 FPS cap.

'Assassin's Creed' works well in a streaming format. Credit: Ubisoft/Steam

I can’t speak to how GeForce Now’s cheaper tiers work on this Chromebook, but Ultimate was fantastic. It’s able to pull in games you own from third-party marketplaces like Steam and Epic, and while plenty of games aren’t supported for legal rights reasons, a decent chunk of my Steam library was available right away. I started a new game in Control, jacked the settings up all the way, turned on ray tracing, and was a little blown away.

The game ran at at least 60 FPS, if not much more. Textures looked crisp, the resolution was sharp, and the ray-traced reflections worked as advertised. Most impressively, the input delay was hardly noticeable, at least during Control’s simple early combat encounters. I could see a world in which the late-game difficulty curve is too much to handle via game streaming, especially because I did notice a few short instances of video stuttering.

As a sidenote, plugging an Xbox Series X controller into the USB port worked instantly. There was no setup needed and it worked with every game I played.

I have to admit, as a lifelong console gamer who also owns a Steam Deck for some limited PC excursions, there isn’t really a world in which I’d ever make a Chromebook my primary gaming device. It just ain’t happening. I’m too much of a purist about video buffering and input delay to deal with these things long-term.

However, not everyone is like me. If the Chromebook Plus 516 GE sounds like it fits your specific gaming needs and tastes, I can at least vouch for its performance. This is an excellent game-streaming laptop, regardless of your thoughts on game streaming.

Acer Chromebook Plus 516 GE: Performance

Its regular everyday performance is fine, too. 

It performs well. Credit: Joe Maldonado/Mashable

I don’t have quite as much to say about this because it’s not as surprising or fascinating as its gaming prowess, but the Chromebook Plus 516 GE will work perfectly well as an everyday work/school machine, as long as your tasks are mostly confined to web browsers. The processor is fast enough to keep up with everyday tasks, while the 8GB of RAM keeps things moving, even when you have a bunch of tabs open. 

I should also note that I never noticed the laptop getting warm, even while gaming. I guess that’s one of the advantages of streaming games rather than running them on local hardware.

If you’re curious, I ran a test using the GeekBench benchmarking software and the Chromebook Plus 516 GE had a multi-score score of 7,660. That’s not really remarkable by laptop standards, but compared to other Chromebooks we’ve tested out this year, it’s great. Those other ones had scores in the 4,000s.

Acer Chromebook Plus 516 GE: Google AI features

You may be wondering what the distinction is between a regular Chromebook and a Chromebook Plus. One of the main ones is that Chromebook Plus laptops have access to Google’s best Gemini artificial intelligence features.

This pretty much manifests in the form of three features that are already, in some form, available on newer Google devices like the Pixel 9. Help Me Write, for example, will — well — help you write. Simply right-click on a text entry field in Gmail, for example, and Gemini will let you type in a text prompt so it can compose the perfect message in your stead, according to your instructions.

You can also right-click on the desktop wallpaper to generate new AI ones, though this is more limited. Rather than free text entry, it’s more like Mad Libs, with you choosing from a bunch of options to fill in a pre-existing prompt. Finally, Magic Editor has made its way over from Google phones to let you quickly and easily edit photos.

All of these things work as advertised, though I will say I’m disappointed by the limitations of the wallpaper generator. Regardless, I’ve made my thoughts clear on Google’s push for AI ubiquity in my Pixel 9 review and elsewhere; I don’t think anyone needs AI to help them write emails or create desktop wallpapers.

Writing a quick message or finding a new wallpaper are not difficult or time-consuming tasks by any means, and I don’t think we gain anything from automating them and potentially stealing from scraped internet content at the same time.

Acer Chromebook Plus 516 GE: Battery life

Last but certainly not least, the Chromebook Plus 516 GE has excellent battery life for a laptop. 

Using our in-house testing method, which involves looping a YouTube video at 50 percent brightness and 1080p resolution until the battery dies, I was able to get 10 hours and 12 minutes out of the Chromebook Plus 516 GE. You should almost certainly be able to get a full work day out of this bad boy on a full charge, in other words. 

That’s just good stuff, folks.

Acer Chromebook Plus 516 GE: Final thoughts

Put one way, the Chromebook Plus 516 GE is an incredible value: You can play high-end PC games at their highest settings and highest frame rates for less than the cost of a PS5 Pro. As a nice bonus, it’s also a fully functional laptop.

This $650 machine is expensive and beefy by Chromebook standards, but it’s still a better value than a gaming laptop as long as you don’t mind game streaming. Quality battery life, a great keyboard, and a solid gaming display seal the deal. 

I might never buy one of these for myself, but there’s definitely someone out there who would get the most out of the Chromebook Plus 516 GE.

Opens in a new window Credit: Joe Maldonado / Mashable Acer Chromebook Plus 516 GE Get Deal

TL;DR: Get the Paintstorm Studio Perpetual Lifetime License for just $19.99 (reg. $49.99) and unlock a powerful set of digital painting tools.

For digital artists looking to create stunning, professional-quality artwork without dipping into savings or taking out the credit card, Paintstorm Studio could be the answer. With its comprehensive brush system, intuitive features, and a one-time fee of just $19.99 (reg. $49.99), this versatile software was made for both professionals and hobbyists alike.

Whether you're creating concept art, comics, manga, or detailed illustrations, Paintstorm Studio has the tools to bring your vision to life. With its extensive brush library, you can customize brushes to fit any artistic style. From real palette mixing to grunge and textured brushes, Paintstorm Studio offers terrific control over your digital art.

A lifetime license costs about the same as lunch out, and you’ll get access to all its professional-grade features without any recurring fees. This makes it an affordable alternative to costly subscription-based software like Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop while still delivering tools to create high-quality digital art.

The software is ideal for those who are already familiar with digital art tools but want to expand their creative toolkit. Customizable brush dynamics allow you to fine-tune brush behavior, textures, and effects. 

Available for both Windows and Mac, Paintstorm Studio offers seamless performance across platforms, ensuring you can work comfortably on the device of your choice. With high-performance rendering powered by a fast GPU engine, you’ll experience smooth and efficient workflows, even with complex projects.

For this one-time fee of $19.99 (reg. $49.99), you can get a Paintstorm Studio Perpetual lifetime license and start creating digital art like a pro—no subscriptions, no hidden costs, just unlimited creative freedom.

StackSocial prices subject to change.

Opens in a new window Credit: Paintstorm Studio Paintstorm Studio: Perpetual Lifetime License $19.99 at the Mashable Shop
$49.99 Save $30.00 Get Deal

TL;DR: Get the refurbished iPad mini 6th-Gen for $429.99 (reg. $649) at the Mashable Shop — it's the ultimate compact device for streaming, sketching, and staying connected on the go.

Opens in a new window Credit: Apple Apple iPad mini 6th Gen 2021, Refurbished (64GB, Wi-Fi & 5G, Space Gray) $429.99 at the Mashable Shop
$649.00 Save $219.01 Get Deal

If you’re tired of lugging around big tablets or squinting at your phone screen, check out this deal on an iPad mini 6th-Gen (2021). It’s the perfect mix of portability and performance, big enough for your Netflix binges but small enough to fit in your jacket pocket. This refurbished gem has all the perks of a new iPad without the hefty price tag, and it's available for $429.99 — a 33% discount.

With its 64GB of storage, you’ve got plenty of space to download movies, apps, and games for your next commute or flight. And with 5G connectivity, you can stream your favorite shows without buffering, even when you’re on the go. Whether you're catching up on your latest binge or editing photos on the fly, this iPad mini has you covered.

Don’t let its compact size fool you — this tablet is equipped with an A15 Bionic chip, giving you smooth, lightning-fast performance for gaming, editing, and multitasking. Plus, with Apple Pencil support, you can sketch, jot notes, or doodle to your heart's content.

And when it’s time to pack up? Slip it into your jacket pocket or toss it in your bag — no bulky laptop or oversized tablet required. It’s lightweight, easy to carry, and versatile enough to handle whatever you throw at it.

Stream, sketch, and stay connected — all from this refurbished 6th-generation Apple iPad mini (2021) for $429.99 (reg. $649).

StackSocial prices subject to change.

There are a thousand ways you can ruminate on grief and loss on-screen. You can weave it through a topical HBO drama. You can hide it in a Netflix comedy. You can make a mollusk convey it. Or you can choose to gently handle such dark and surreal subject matter through the most tactile and whimsical of forms: stop-motion animation.

This is the dismal, strange, and wondrous path trodden by director, writer, and production designer Adam Elliot in his brilliant film Memoir of a Snail. Having long dwelled in narratives that honor the absurdity of loneliness and misfortune, the Mary and Max director's latest work leans into the nature of loss and adversity through unforgettable characters and exquisite design.

SEE ALSO: Director Henry Selick talks 'Wendell and Wild' and the 'charm' of stop-motion animation

Despite appearances, this is not is a kids' movie. A funny, strangely sweet, and macabre tale, Memoir of a Snail embraces the surrealism of life's darker side in a bleak but fascinating world. Amid a dismal Australian landscape, we meet Grace Pudel (voiced with gentle charm and surrender by Succession's Sarah Snook) and her twin brother Gilbert (The Power of the Dog's Kodi Smit-McPhee), whose lives take some seriously awful turns, both together and apart.

And as the title suggests, snails play a major role in this film. Pay attention to the snails.

Memoir of a Snail confronts death with frankness. Credit: BFI London Film Festival

The very first scene of Memoir of a Snail sees the death of Pinky, who issues such a horrifying death rattle that it will be hard to watch (or hear) for anyone who's been present for a similar moment. Voiced by Australian screen legend Jacki Weaver, it's probably one of the most unsettling starts of a film I've seen in an age. We think she's gone, but Pinky suddenly awakens and screams the word "POTATOES!" before leaving us forever. It's at once deeply upsetting and extremely funny, embodying the dual tone of the entire film.

Beginning with Pinky's final wheezes and moving through distressing subject matter, including abandonment, religious extremism, and attempted suicide, Memoir of a Snail is an unrelentingly grim narrative. One of the most harrowing scenes in the film, a brutal conversion therapy sequence, is hard to watch. But the film's best survival tool through it all is Grace herself, with Snook's reserved but frank character declaring herself a glass-half-full type of person, against all odds. The structure of the film follows Grace as she tells her life story to her freed pet snail Sylvia, whose characteristically slow speed means she's in for the whole odyssey, like it or not.

Death, loss, and mischance follow Grace and Gilbert their entire lives, from the untimely deaths of their parents to their separation by child services to either side of the country. These twins ("two souls, one heart") are failed by most everyone in their lives, whether intentionally or not, and seeing them be wrenched apart is heartbreaking. But it's not the end of their misfortune — especially for Gilbert, who is adopted by a family of extreme religious zealots and forced to work in their "Eden" orchard for basically nothing. 

Here, the film unpacks the power of childhood imagination and twin connection to survive hardships, with Grace and Gilbert finding (or forcing) joy in even the most dismal of circumstances. In fact, Memoir of a Snail channels a shared despair with another brilliantly animated meditation on grief. When watching, I found it near impossible not to think of Jenny Slate and Dean Fleischer-Camp's Marcel the Shell with Shoes On. Another cozy, stop-motion consideration on grief centred around an adorable, relatable, deeply lost protagonist, it's a film Mashable entertainment editor Kristy Puchko described as "a mindful, willfully silly exploration of loss that had even this hard-shelled critic cracking up and breaking down." This is the exact experience I had with Memoir of a Snail. 

Grace narrates these chapters of deep despair with submissive acceptance and a glimmer of hope, all scored with sublime melancholy by famed Australian composer Elena Kats-Chernin, the Australian Chamber Orchestra, the Cantillation choir, and soprano Jane Sheldon. But of course, we need to talk about that cast.

Memoir of a Snail features a dynamite Australian cast. Credit: BFI London Film Festival

Our introverted protagonist Grace (Snook in a mode as far away from Shiv Roy as you can get) is a sensitive, closed-off, and intensely lonely person who misses her brother and openly declares she shares personality traits with snails. "Snails hibernate when they need to repair themselves," she says, identifying with this tendency. Grace retreats into her shell at any sign of threat, moving ever so slowly through her life. Snails pepper every scene, from Grace's heaving collection of snail paraphernalia to the pattern on her clothing, not to mention physical snails shifting through various moments. And throughout the film, Grace's need to shed such a shell and practice the art of letting go becomes paramount to her journey. 

Meanwhile, Gilbert is a confident, suppressed young man whose defiance could be his downfall. Smit-McPhee lends Gilbert a melancholy romanticism, and makes him someone for Grace (and us) to easily root for. Grace and Gilbert are initially voiced by young actors Charlotte Belsey and Mason Litsos, whose childlike curiosity and fragility put the film on a wonderful footing.

Magda Szubanski is frankly terrifying as Ruth, Gilbert's foster mother. Paul Capsis is outrageous as Grace's foster parents, Ian and Narelle (he does both voices). Dominique Pinon (the one non-Australian in the case, known for his work with Jean-Pierre Jeunet) is briefly wonderful as Grace and Gilbert's father Percy, a French street artist and alcoholic. Aussie fave Eric Bana even makes an appearance as James the Magistrate (a small but pivotal role).

Notably, ABC journalist Tony Armstrong is downright hilarious as Grace's love interest Ken, described by Grace as a "Canberra Adonis — a Cadonis." Plus, if you're listening closely, you'll hear music legend Nick Cave as an ill-fated postman called Bill. 

Memoir of a Snail is a smorgasbord of detail. Credit: BFI London Film Festival

From its opening frames bursting with piles of cigarettes, cocktail frankfurts, boxes of snail poison, and random garden gnomes, Memoir of a Snail is packed with details both macabre and marvelous. Completely free of CGI, this stop-motion animation film features around 7,000 objects and 200 sets, all meticulously shot by cinematographer Gerald Thompson and sharply edited by Bill Murphy. Through snail-hoarding protagonist Grace, Elliot explores the emotional weight we bestow upon objects, and the false sense of safety they can convey — and it gives the production team so much to work with.

But it's not all sunshine and rainbows being animated in Memoir of a Snail; it's blood, shit, broken bones, and snail ejaculation. Sound designer David Williams has quite the task on his hands — and boy, does he deliver. In one scene, Gilbert shoves a lost tooth back up into his bloody gum, shot uncomfortably, hilariously close by Thompson, with all the glorious foley we won't forget. There are tits a-swingin' as the film cuts to Grace's foster parents' nude cruises, and there's also a scene of public masturbation. (As I mentioned before, a kids' film this is not.)

Grace details each character's personality and quirks in a rundown worthy of Amélie Poulain herself, with the animation team thriving as they capture each person's signature style. For one, Pinky's wondrous sense of interior design and the depiction of her rambunctious life experiences is a triumph of surrealism. 

The film particularly leans on a sense of Australiana in this detail: toast laden with thick smears of Vegemite, rusty old Arnott's Biscuits tins, crisp copies of Women's Weekly, sticky pots of Clag glue, crunchy old Spalding netballs, and a truckload of steaming Chiko rolls. Australians will delight in the porn shops and fireworks shops of Canberra; you'll want to pause each scene just to take it all in.

That this level of delightful detail exists in the grim landscape of Memoir of a Snail is what gets us and its protagonists through its darker moments, and creates the film's signature blend of surrealism, frank realism, and hilarious fucked-upness. At the end of the film, we've really been through it with Grace, and we're better for it, perhaps armed with the courage to shed our own shells — or just keen to go on a nude cruise. 

Memoir of a Snail was reviewed out of the BFI London Film Festival. The film will open in Australia on Oct. 17, and in U.S. cinemas in limited release on Oct. 25, with a wider release in November.

TL;DR: Get a Portable 15W 10-Port Charging Hub for $23.99 and keep all your devices charged on the go — perfect for digital nomads.

If you’re a digital nomad whose suitcase is filled with chargers every time you travel, it’s time to simplify your setup. The Portable 15W 10-Port Charging Hub is your go-to solution for charging all your gadgets, now only $23.99 (reg. $36.99) — no more hunting for outlets or juggling multiple chargers.

Whether you're hopping between co-working spaces, airports, or your favorite café, this hub has enough juice to power up to 10 devices at once.

Need to charge multiple devices fast? This hub offers wireless charging with adjustable power settings (from 2.5W to 15W) for hassle-free power-ups on compatible devices. And if you're still using cables, the hub's USB-C to USB 3.0, three USB 2.0 ports, and two additional USB-C ports have got you covered. Connect your phone, tablet, or laptop, plus peripherals like keyboards and flash drives.

For the storage-savvy nomad, it even comes with standard and micro storage card slots, making data transfer and storage expansion a breeze. And let’s not forget the PD fast charging port, which ensures you’re never left waiting around for your devices to power up. Efficient, versatile, and compact — it's everything you need to stay connected and charged on the go.

Say goodbye to lugging around a mess of cables or fighting for outlets at the airport. With the Portable 15W 10-Port Charging Hub, you’ll always be ready for the next adventure — no matter how many devices you bring along.

At just $23.99, the Portable 15W 10-Port Charging Hub could be the perfect charging companion for your on-the-go lifestyle.

StackSocial prices subject to change.

Opens in a new window Credit: UGR Tech Portable 15W 10-Port Charging Hub $23.99 at the Mashable Shop
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At a time when industries everywhere seem like they're gradually eliminating the concept of an employee and all the pesky rights and obligations that title confers, an increasing number of white collar workers are finding themselves conscripted into a growing army of freelancers. Unfortunately, hunting down honest work for honest pay on freelance job platforms like Upwork, Freelancer, or Toptal is just one challenge the modern freelancer must prepare for.

Like so much of today’s world, these sites are teeming with scammers hoping to profit off of a newcomer’s desperation and/or of unfamiliarity with the space.

SEE ALSO: Scammers are using pictures of your home to amplify sextortion threats

To make navigating these treacherous waters a bit safer, we’ve put together a handful of tips to help you keep your head on a swivel as you hunt for work online.

1. Follow the Rules Tweet may have been deleted

Each platform has its own set of protocols for connecting clients and workers and facilitating payment for work done. Upon signing up for a platform, familiarize yourself with the laws of the land and doggedly adhere to them as you conduct your business. Consider any client or job offer that suggests deviation from the SOP to be a crimson red flag.

2. Yes, It’s Too Good to Be True

Scammers tend to promise freelancers exceptional hourly rates for manageable to middling workloads.

Sure, we’d all love to earn beaucoup bucks for bare-bones effort, but if a posted job’s pay and workload seem wildly out of sync with the rest of the market, it’s worth considering why that might be the case. Are you applying to something real or just taking the bait?

3. Don’t Pay to Work

No, you do not need to spend money to make money. If a client is asking you to pay an application fee, cover “training,” buy and download some proprietary software, or engage in any other sort of preliminary business that requires you to open your wallet, run away. They said they’ll reimburse you later? No, they won’t.

4. Don’t Provide Work Without Pay

There’s nothing wrong with someone asking for a sample of previous work you’ve already done to get a better idea of your skill level, but tasking you with a “trial” assignment that results in the kind of work the job would have you producing should set off alarm bells. With this gambit, scammers coax naive freelancers into handing over the desired fruits of their labor on a silver platter. With what they wanted already secured, the scammer can tell the prospective hire they’ve decided to go with someone else and move on to the next mark.

Relatedly, always make sure the amount you were quoted is the full amount you're getting paid, even if you're promised that the rest will come later.

Tweet may have been deleted 5. Don’t Accept Off-Platform Payments

These platforms require payment from clients up front and hold it in escrow for a reason. If someone offers to send you a check for more than the agreed upon amount, don’t let the prospect of more fool you. That check will bounce and you will have no recourse.

In fact, try not to go off-platform under any circumstance.

Tweet may have been deleted 6. Don’t Accept Payments That Aren’t Money

We’re fairly certain your landlord and pharmacist aren’t accepting exposure or equity to pay for your rent or prescription, so why should you consider a client trying to offer you that for your work?

7. Don’t Assume These Sites Are Looking Out For You

It’s not unreasonable to presume that these companies would actively vet all users and weed out miscreants. Though they all claim to engage in such practices, the persistence of fraud on their platforms calls into question the idea that the scammer problem is something they’re able to solve — or even interested in solving.

Tweet may have been deleted

While there are obviously rules that users who hire on these platforms must follow, and there are avenues for reporting scammers, don't assume security claims are more than vague, non-actionble bromides.

In short, act as if the only one looking out for you is you.

Last November, I was reeling from the sudden back-to-back disintegration of my two most recent employers. My lingering self-respect, along with a glance at the all-time low wages now being offered by the driving and delivery apps that once kept me afloat during the gaps in my freelance writing career, stopped me from revisiting those abusive relationships, but things were getting undeniably grim. 

That’s when I recalled a potential life preserver mentioned by a fellow writer pal: Upwork, a freelancing platform that wisely rebranded from "Elance-oDesk" in 2015 with the subtly fatalistic slogan, "This is How We Work Now." (You may have seen it in their recent commercial blitz.)

Over a catch-up coffee a year earlier, my buddy told me he’d found surprise success on Upwork. He spoke of well-paid, fun-sounding gigs he’d landed ghostwriting wedding speeches and wine mom group chat zingers. A glance at his profile page indicated that having worked a mere 85 hours, his lifetime earnings on the platform were already listed at "$10,000+." That plus symbol was downright decadent. My friend assured me that, once I had a few initial Upwork jobs and their subsequent reviews under my belt to help establish my "Job Success Score" — the metric essential for being shown to potential employers by the site’s algorithm — I too could join him in this digital promised land.

Following that coffee, I created an Upwork account and poked around the site, but, all too familiar with the drawbacks of the gig economy and its inherently exploitative and labor law-skirting business model, I wasn’t going to be lulled into a false sense of security just yet.  

It only took a year before I heard the wolves at my door. Sure, all gig work sucks, but at least this was a platform I could participate in from home. At least that’s what I said to psych myself up. Unfortunately, by the time I’d dusted off my pristine Upwork profile, I had all but forgotten the coda that capped off my buddy’s otherwise ringing endorsement. "But, seriously," he’d said, the sudden absence of levity in his voice demanding my eyes meet his waiting pair. "You’ve really got to watch out for scammers there."

How Upwork works

Landing jobs on Upwork happens through a bidding system. Clients post ads describing one-off projects or short-term work along with the budget they’ve allotted for it, which is paid out in return for time logged working or fixed-price lump sums upon completing the contract or reaching "milestones" reached or a completed contract. With these parameters in mind, applicants propose the hourly rate or flat fee they’d be willing to accept and wait to be selected. 

Upwork invites anyone running low to re-up to the tune of $0.15 per Connect, which may seem like a negligible cost to individual freelancers, but has proven to be...wildly lucrative

A key difference between Upwork and other job boards (and a hint as to why it's publicly traded, but Craigslist isn’t) is the fee structure. The platform takes a 10 percent standard "service fee" from all payments to freelancers. Upwork also collects a flat $4.95 contract initiation fee from the client for each new job as well as an additional 5 percent "client marketplace fee" added on to payments from the platform to freelancers.

Here's an illustration: if a freelancer's contracted for work that pays $1,000, the (theoretically honorable) client must pay a total of $1,054.95 ($1,000 payment + $50 client marketplace fee + $4.95 initiation fee) to Upwork, $1,000 of which is — this is very important for later — set aside in escrow. Once the contract ends, the $1,000 is remitted from escrow to the freelancer, but only after Upwork takes another 10 percent off the top (and an additional "VAT" off the $1,000 in some regions). The client pays $1,054.95, the freelancer makes $900 (or $880), and Upwork pockets $154.95.

This is but one of the systems Upwork uses to harvest revenue from its freelancers — the total number of whom is no longer a figure Upwork makes public, but the topic remains hotly debated in Upwork’s own forums, and those discussions often place the figure around 15-20 million active. 

There’s also Connects, the platform’s proprietary premium currency, which job seekers must spend to even apply for work. Currently all new freelancers are granted 50 Connects upon joining the site and bank an allowance of 10 every month. Taking a cue from dating apps raking it in with similar digital products, Upwork offers freelancers the option to spend Connects to boost their profiles' visibility and/or to pay a monthly $20 for a "Plus" account that multiplies the user's per-billing-cycle Connect ration from 10 to 100. In past years, bids on jobs may have cost the freelancer around two to four Connects. Today, some cost upwards of 16. Few I’ve encountered let you submit for under 10. Upwork says, when determining how many Connects each job’s proposal should cost, they "consider a range of factors, including project size, scope, and market demand."

Naturally, Upwork invites anyone running low to re-up to the tune of $0.15 per Connect.

Upwork shares no data on how many Connects the average freelancer has to spend per job landed, but the Upwork forums again overflow with users complaining about and questioning this ever-increasing cost of doing business that also seems to be yielding fewer results.

Initially, it seemed that setting up and forgetting about my profile the year before had been a stroke of good luck — my account had accrued a tidy Connect stockpile while dormant. I soon relearned how easy it is to blow through a token currency that’s been abstracted from its USD value. My quest for work that would help me be less broke had somehow only made me just as broke in an entirely new economy. 

Finally getting a bite from a client... not knowing you're the fish

On Nov. 29, with my Connect starter pack nearly drained after a few days of job searching and applying, one of my bids yielded a response. 

The post I’d responded to was by someone named "Khuram D." who was seeking a "creative writer for a short story." I would be provided all necessary background information for said short story, which would run about 1,000 words and "cover a person's career/life in a compelling and catchy way." "Essentially," the description continued, this would be a "'featured profile' of a person, written in a short story format." I didn’t know why Khuram hadn’t just called it a profile, but I chalked that up as the reason he was hiring someone else to write for him.

I was not only about to land my first job, but it was shaping up to be a steady income stream.

I pored over Khuram’s linked company profile sidebar before applying (and checked it again after his response to my pitch arrived). This was a site allegedly full of scammers, after all. I assumed his linked company, "KD," to just be his initials. But I saw no reason his seeming self-employment should prevent us from doing business together, especially as a one-man shop myself. Further bolstering the case for Khuram’s legitimacy were the raw figures on that company page, tabulated by Upwork itself. The data showed KD had paid out over $14,000 to 200+ freelancers over 120+ jobs he'd posted on Upwork since 2015. Upwork offered another stamp of assurance on the KD page, stating that my prospective client had a "payment method verified," replete with a little green checkmark badge. Most impressive was that the 153 reviews from past clients left him with a 4.73/5 star rating. I couldn't read those reviews myself, but their aggregated co-sign was enough to convince me this wasn’t some fly-by-night scammer.

Khuram’s opening salvo was to ask for relevant samples of my writing, which I provided. In this intro message, like others to come over the course of our correspondence, Khuram alternated between "I" and "we" when referring to himself. "Before I hire you..." was followed up a couple sentences later with "what we’re looking for." At the time I made little of it. Maybe there were other people who’d be looking at my work, maybe it was someone putting on airs. And while such self-aggrandizement was worthy of my eye rolls, it didn’t reach the heights of "red flag." 

After reviewing my samples, Khuram flattered me, saying "the tone and style of this is very well written." He added, "If we needed you to write these pieces on a regular pieces [sic] (3-5 per week), could you handle such a workload," and inquired about what sort of bulk rate I might offer for the opportunity.

Just as my faith in the platform had begun to waver, I was not only about to land my first job, but it was shaping up to be a steady income stream. Maybe my friend was right about this being the land of milk and honey.

I would later learn that at least half a dozen other writers had already complained on and/or to Upwork about this guy ripping them off — information I was not allowed to see, and that Upwork seemingly had not acted on.

Early warning signs of an Upwork scammer

I suggested I start with the one profile Khuram had initially posted about at my originally proposed hourly rate so I could get a feel for the work’s flow and demands. We could figure out a bulk rate for future writing after that, presuming we wanted to continue working together.

Khuram seconded my idea and said that, since we didn’t yet know how many hours this would take, he’d "place a small deposit, and leave the budget open." I should "just let [him] know the total time spent when [I’m] done."

Khuram’s proposed invoicing process aligned with most of the past hourly writing work I’d done via email. We were keeping everything on platform, and we would be using the escrow system to process payments. Still, we were deviating from Upwork’s SOP of having a job’s entire budget placed in escrow up front, and I hadn’t completely forgotten my friend's words, or the subreddit’s calls for vigilance. On the other hand, neither of us knew what an appropriate budget should look like just yet. And he’d been entirely candid about the meager size of the initial deposit. 

All the same, my gut had its first genuine "off" feeling, and I wasn’t about to ignore it. After Khuram put $5 in the escrow pot and sent over documents about the subject, I asked him to affirm a few things in writing before I started any work.

"Am I correct in my understanding," I asked him via Upwork’s in-house message service, "that your $5 in escrow is merely a 'hold' of sorts and, at the end of this trial assignment, I’ll report my hours to you when I turn it in [sic] the piece, whereafter you’ll honor my current proposed rate, regardless of whether or not we decide to move ahead with a bulk rate deal?”

"Yes, exactly, you described the deal accurately," Khuram confirmed.

As my one business law class from college taught me (and double-checking with an attorney confirmed), our message exchange now constituted a bona fide contract.

But once I uploaded that rewrite on Dec. 12, my once prompt responder adopted a vow of silence.

In the coming days, I wrote a fluffy bio for personal injury attorney "James Specter." The accompanying dossier told the tale of a man who’d had a deep desire to fight for the little guy instilled in him after a hit-and-run driver took out his father’s motorcycle, leaving the man paralyzed from the neck down, and facing a future full of suffering and misery.

That sinking feeling that your Upwork client has ghosted...

As I worked on the piece, I was surprised at the fun I was having writing something so far out of my usual wheelhouse. Throughout the process, Khuram was a paragon of professionalism. After I turned in my initial draft, he offered solid feedback along with a helpful outline for an arrangement of the story that was more to his liking.

I did what I assumed was the necessary due diligence of sending DMs into the void and began building my nest egg of case-making receipts.

But once I uploaded that rewrite on Dec. 12, my once prompt responder adopted a vow of silence. I frantically began looking all over the web for a lawyer named "James Specter" or any attorney matching the story beats that had been fed to me. My searches turned up nothing. Who had I just written about? And to what end? My heart sank as it dawned on me that my client had ghosted.

Still, I’m not one to roll over when wronged. Khuram could close whatever tabs he wanted. Our exchange was all there in writing on Upwork. And since the company had required a government ID when I’d signed up, they presumably had required the same of him.

I did what I assumed was the necessary due diligence of sending DMs into the void and began building my nest egg of case-making receipts. I asked Khuram if further edits were needed, to no reply, before sending my total hours and final invoice on the 18th. I even went so far as to create an additional Upwork milestone that requested the $475 he still owed me. Then, I had little choice but to sit on my hands until the new year. 

On Jan. 1, Upwork sent me an email alert asking if I was "ready to get paid?" Khuram had logged back on to release the $5 from escrow and, now that Upwork had their two quarters, my $4.50 was ready to be transferred to my bank at my convenience. Rather than rush to claim my riches, I sent Khuram one final impotent message on the 3rd stating that he was leaving me no choice but to escalate.

Please, may I have a crumb of recourse?

I assumed a recounting of what had happened, along with the related chat logs, would be enough for Upwork to confirm they had a scammer on their hands and do what it took to resolve matters. Whether I’d be able to get Khuram to pay me outside of Upwork remained unclear, but at least I could ensure nobody else got burned by him. To my surprise, Upwork’s response to my spread of receipts and request for Khuram’s deplatforming was relatively nonchalant.

[Upwork's] message did include another reminder that they weren’t going to be able to help me get that additional $475

After verbally patting my head about the deception and confirming what I already knew — that Upwork wouldn’t be covering what Khuram owed me or telling him to pay it — along with a helpful reminder to make sure everything gets into escrow next time, my first email response from Upwork Support did concede that my client had given me "misleading information." They offered to try and reach out to Khuram on their end, making sure to qualify that this "nudge" did not guarantee a response.

I took them up on that offer. I also asked if, presuming Khuram remained unresponsive, they’d hand over his name and contact info so I could pursue recourse elsewhere. I closed my response looking for assurances that, given the evidence I’d presented, Upwork would be 86ing this obvious ne'er-do-well.

Upwork messaged me next from the Disputes and Mediation department, but there was no update on their attempts to contact Khuram or even an acknowledgment that some kind of effort was afoot. The message did include another reminder that they weren’t going to be able to help me get that additional $475, and, since my case wasn’t eligible for dispute assistance, they were afraid they’d be unable to assist me further.

I again asked for Khuram’s info, and Upwork's acknowledgment that he’d indeed been a bad boy whom they planned on punishing.

Upwork’s next response refused to even dignify my assertion that Khuram violated site policy or that they could and should do something about it, only sharing that the Disputes and Mediation team couldn’t give out users' personal information for (understandable) privacy reasons. But if I told them specifically what I was after, they could pass my request along to the appropriate channel.

I would later learn that at least half a dozen writers had already complained to Upwork about this guy ripping them off — information I was not allowed to see, and that Upwork seemingly had not acted on.

When all else fails, commiserate?

I stepped back from the affair to research which legal avenues I might use to get Khuram to honor our contract. I can only assume this was construed by Upwork as my acquiescence based on the survey email they sent asking for a satisfaction rating about the resolution of my now-closed support ticket.

'Upwork responds well after the scam happened...but it seems to do nothing to vet or prevent them.' - Ruben Miller

During my holding pattern over the holidays, I’d first begun researching Upwork’s scamming issue and the company’s historic response to it. After my frustrating tussle with support, I redoubled my efforts. I was taken aback by the sheer number of those who had been burned like me. All around the web were stories from wronged Upwork users wondering if they should  — and finding out they might actually be able to — sue the company for its role in the harm done to them by scammers or the platform itself. 

I was able to get in touch with a few of them.

Ruben Miller from California has been hiring as a client on Upwork for 15 years and has experienced "everything under the sun" when it comes to the platform’s other cohort of scamming: "Freelancers disappearing, trying to add manual hours, using mouse wiggler apps to fake productivity, getting hired and giving [the work] to freelancers in other countries, faking identity (as far as fake AI video face changer apps on calls), fake accounts, and tons of AI applications without knowing how to do the job."

Like other victims, Miller says that, after he reports an incident, "Upwork responds well after the scam happened...but it seems to do nothing to vet or prevent them." He also laments what he perceives as a degradation of Upwork’s vetting and prevention processes that has resulted in scams "growing exponentially."

"Used to be a few scam proposals per job now it's 90%. It's turning UpWork into a bottom barrel scam platform sadly," he stated over our DM exchange. "Once they fired the majority of staff it got real bad and AI made it worse. It's starting to make me think they make money off scam proposals, as it pushes the job auctions up." He elaborated about his issues with the Connect-based bidding system, stating that "if scammers pay for proposals, that makes [Upwork] money as well. The proposal earnings is just a huge potential conflict of interest with what the site provides. Why root out scammers if you get paid per proposal?"

Raised in Manilla, Ralph Ngo thought he’d won big when he landed a job with Upwork that promised him $5 for every page of a middle school science textbook he converted into a multiple-choice question. The Philippines, like many English-speaking foreign nations where workers can be paid far less than their U.S. counterparts, is a natural fit for a place like Upwork. Philippines-based outsourcing firms advertise the labor on offer — for prices as low as $3.33 per hour — and Upwork’s Western "enterprise" clients get to shop at fire sale prices while Upwork merely hosts the connection.

'Upon job completion, my anxiety was through the roof.' - Ralph Ngo

Ralph told me over email that he spent 2 months converting 1-4 pages a day and "was expecting to get paid around $300-$500 for the massive amount of work that [he’d] put in," a relative fortune for a 20-year-old still living in the Philippines at the time.

Ralph acknowledges he'd been less than vigilant about following the site's terms of service and policing for scams, and agreed to the deal through a verbal agreement the client had offered on Skype after the client had invited him there to discuss the job.

"I had a growing anxiety in the last few weeks where I thought that they had no obligation to pay me as I did not accept any contract in Upwork," lamented Ralph. "Upon job completion, my anxiety was through the roof… I blindly followed every instruction they gave me regarding payment, including to accept an Upwork contract for $5 for my work. When I asked why it was only $5, they said that it will be changed later to reflect my work and it's only there temporarily."

Ralph pleaded with his client for full payment, even making up a sick aunt as a last resort. Twisting the knife, the scammer told him that he’d been planning to offer Ralph a raise but was retracting the offer after such insulting insinuations of impropriety by Ralph.

Like me, Ralph ultimately only got a $5 payout. He says the experience left him "devastated" for two weeks. Unfortunately, his scammer was based in the UK, and the $200 he’d need to file a small claims case there was out of Ralph’s budget. Though he doesn’t hold Upwork entirely responsible for what happened to him, Ralph wonders why they haven’t done more to curb the "big scamming and quality control problem" that "runs rampant" on the site.

"Briefly looking through the front page of jobs, majority of them are unverified payments, low quality descriptions, asking for the impossible while paying 3rd world country wages or worse," says Ralph. "It's common knowledge that Upwork is a race to the bottom. It’s close to being not worth someone’s time."

Like so many other victims, when Ralph complained publicly, a throng of vigilant Upwork loyalists materialized to criticize him. Though the site’s scamming issues are a well-documented blight, characters like Upwork power user Preston can be found in the replies of nearly every help, I’m new and think I’m getting scammed post on the Upwork forums, or on the subreddit, where they chide freelancers for their "user errors" and generally imply that they have no right to hold Upwork accountable for the literal crimes perpetrated against them in said company’s domain.

A scourge in plain sight

Some academic experts, like University of California, Hastings College of the Law, professor Veena Dubal, have gone on record suggesting that Upwork presenting its platform as a secure spot to conduct business could open the company up to some legal responsibilities when fraud occurs there. In a 2020 NBC News report on a previous Upwork scamming imbroglio, Dubal complained about the increasing normalization of contractors being scammed as if it were an assumed job risk.

'[T]here's a sense that the way to not have to deal with any kind of potential liability is just to not interfere at all.' - Veena Dubal

"There should be more of a sense of owing something to these workers," Dubal said. "But instead there's a sense that the way to not have to deal with any kind of potential liability is just to not interfere at all."

Dubal, like many others in and outside of her field, regards the unregulated gig economy as a larger existential threat to freelancer security deserving more urgent attention than the alleged misdeeds of one company within it.

Still, I had a personal interest in Upwork. A company so dependent on user confidence in the security of their platform had to be doing more behind the scenes to proactively identify and ban fraudsters, I thought, digging into Upwork’s shareholder reports for evidence.

In its 2023 Annual Shareholder Report, Upwork cites their "trusted work marketplace" as the primary core aspect of their business that provides them a competitive advantage; they claim only that it’s being monitored by "an industry-leading fraud detection vendor." 

The report does acknowledge that: 

"[Upwork’s] controls relating to customer identity verification, customer authentication, and fraud detection are complex. If such controls are not effective, our work marketplace may be perceived as not being secure, our reputation may be harmed, we may face regulatory action or action by our payment partners, payment networks, or other third parties, and our business may be adversely impacted."

This statement, followed a few lines later by the admission they experienced a "significant increase in provision for transaction losses in the year ended Dec. 31, 2022, due to increased instances of fraud, higher chargeback losses, and bad debt losses related to clients of our Enterprise Solutions offering" — i.e. clients skipping the freelancer bill by initiating credit card chargebacks — indicates that, at least internally, Upwork is sweating the scamming issue. 

'[O]ur performance metrics may not accurately reflect activity on and the performance of our work marketplace.' - Upwork shareholder report

Further into the document, Upwork states that they "may be, and historically have been, held liable for the unauthorized use of credit or debit card details” like those chargebacks and acknowledge, at a certain point, the financial institutions caught in the middle of these shenanigans may someday hit them with fines and fees “or cease doing business with" them altogether. 

In a section about disputes between clients over marketplace payments I found particularly relevant to my own case, Upwork states that “through our terms of service and services agreements for premium offerings, we disclaim responsibility and liability for any disputes between customers… however, we cannot guarantee that these terms will be effective in preventing or limiting our involvement in customer disputes or that these terms will be enforceable or otherwise effectively prevent us from incurring liability.” 

Professor Dubal may be on to something.

The publicly available report even candidly acknowledges all the fraud is having an impact on their data sets, as they do not independently verify the performance metrics they track with internal tools. The report goes on to state that the company is "unable to identify and remove all fake accounts and fraudulent activity from being reflected in the performance metrics that we report. Accordingly, our performance metrics may not accurately reflect activity on and the performance of our work marketplace."

This admission of potentially compromised data sets reminded me of a claim in a blog I came across while researching the company. Whistleblowing blogger Nebojsa "Nesha" Todorovic, who admittedly also did work for Upwork competitor GoLance at the time of the 2020 post, analyzed the sudden emergence of textually similar work posts he believed were from "fake job farms," According to Todorovic, Upwork has a clear incentive for turning a blind eye toward posts tailor-made to attract novice freelancers with bulging Connect wallets.

Ghosting clients are just the tip of the iceberg

Todorovic, a Serbian writer who has blogged about many of Upwork’s changes over the years, elaborated on his case when I reached out to him. To him, those Connects are the lynchpin. He thinks the "beginning of the end" for Upwork was a 2019 earnings call — mere months after the company’s IPO — that reintroduced the lesser-used currency as a cornerstone of Upwork’s vision for the future. Previously, Connects cost $1 each, but as users got 60 free ones a month and job bids cost 1 or 2 (if any), there wasn’t much need for most users to buy extra. The Connects reboot dropped the pricing of them to $0.15 but raised the cost of job bids to a 0-6 Connect range (which has since been raised to upwards of 16).

'[O]bviously, scammers are additional and valuable profit generators because they make freelancers spend connects. The biggest scammer is Upwork itself.' - Nebojsa "Nesha" Todorovic

So when Todorovic noticed the "fake job farms" in 2020, he didn’t just complain about the spam. He started connecting dots.

"There are some accounts, reviews, and jobs that are fake on Upwork," he states in an email. "We can never know for sure what’s the exact percentage or number of these fake ‘elements’ that are the core substance of every freelance platform."

In a follow-up post to the "fake job farm" one, Todorovic shares a screenshot where an Upwork community mod acknowledges the uptick in job post anomalies freelancers like Todorovic had noticed. This moderator goes on to state that "Upwork did review the jobs discussed on this thread and found that they were actually created as part of an outside course by a client teaching other clients how to use Upwork. They were posted as a 'test job.'"

Todorovic remains skeptical to this day that anyone but Upwork was responsible for the phantom jobs, no matter what unnamed company is offered up as explanation.

"Plain and simple, Upwork decides who's a scammer," he begins, "but obviously, scammers are additional and valuable profit generators because they make freelancers spend connects. The biggest scammer is Upwork itself."

When I asked Upwork if they’d like to respond to Todorovic's allegations, this was their reply.

"Please thank Nebojsa for his feedback. We also encourage him to report suspicious behavior directly to us via the platform, as each report is investigated by our team and actioned appropriately. We take the integrity of our platform very seriously and have robust measures in place to detect and address fraudulent activities, and are committed to maintaining a safe and trustworthy environment for our customers."

Despite the company’s statement, the data section in Upworks 2023 shareholder report would seem to indicate that Upwork does share Todrovic’s concerns about the influx of scammers on the platform, albeit for different reasons.

Claims of impropriety aside, Upwork’s 2024 Q1 earnings report suggests they’re hoping to foster a robust Connect-based economy, where users buy and spend more of the currency than ever before. While a cut of the action through percentage fees remains Upwork’s largest revenue stream, the quarterly report states that "revenue from ads & monetization products (i.e. Connects) grew 93% year-over-year, continuing to be Upwork’s fastest-growing revenue stream."

The hunt for my scammer continues

Still certain I had a clear-cut breach of contract case on my hands, I opened a new support ticket requesting my old one be exhumed. I again let Upwork know of my intent to take Khuram to small claims court over the balance.

This time, the Executive Escalation team was at the helm for Upwork’s response. I was again informed that nothing from the suite of fraud-prevention protections and guarantees touted to prospective freelancers applied in my case. Though downgrading Support’s earlier description of Khuram’s messages to a simple "misunderstanding," the representative acknowledged my request for info to aid in outside legal action and told me policy dictated they give Khuram one more ping before releasing anything to me. 

As expected, Khuram held his tongue. Upwork’s legal team signed off on relinquishing the private personal information of one of their users to a demonstrably disgruntled and tenacious second user. Even while crossing this Rubicon, Upwork offered no recognition that Khuram had done anything wrong, let alone a promise that he would be banned, put on probation, or even looked into further. 

[The] conditionality of Upwork’s commitment to its customers finally came into full focus for me. 

The contact email and number support Upwork gave me immediately proved to be dead ends, but that didn’t matter because I had his full name — Khuram Dhanani — a name with SEO-friendliness outmatched only by my own. So I set to poking about and pulling threads on the internet in the ways that only vengeful injured parties (and suspicious significant others) do.

My quarry’s positive ID came quickly, packaged in juicier dirt than I ever could have hoped for. The more I looked into this guy, the deeper and funnier the rabbit hole got, and the focus of my ire shifted from Khuram to the companies that gave him safe habitats to thrive.

But the story of my runaway client is somehow even longer and more mind-bending than everything I learned about Upwork over the course of this odyssey. There’s his Potemkin office park of fictional companies he claims to have founded. There was his "interview" by a text-to-speech British-accented woman’s voice on the only episode of an obscure podcast titled "London Digital." There are his numerous Nathan Fielder-esque Twitter posts about living the good life with photos either taken from outside the trendy restaurants he claimed to have just dined at or borrowed from travel websites when he felt like flexing his hotel arrangement.

Khuram is still ultimately responsible for his actions. And he still owes me $475 that I’d prefer to not take him to small claims court over. (Just DM me, man.) But as interesting as it was to follow  the life journey of an intrepid kid who started out flipping his parents’ brick-and-mortar jewelry shop best sellers on Yahoo Marketplace for bigger profits and telling victimless fibs in the comment section of a SpaghettiMonster.org post about a Burning Man wedding only to turn into a flim-flam man who seemed to have no qualms about stealing directly from individuals like me, he’s ultimately just some guy.

Taking my cue from Professor Dubal, I thought it’d be better to go after the ecosystem that allows him to pull his fast ones.

I did finally encourage a little action from Upwork when I reached out one last time to tell them I was doing this story. While I waited for their rep to get back to me, I noticed that someone had changed the status of my contract with Khuram (which had been unresolved this whole time) to "complete," and text had been inserted into our private message exchange that stated "Khuram D. is currently restricted from this conversation."

After I asked if this was SOP for all completed contracts, someone from customer support confirmed that Upwork had indeed closed my contract and explained "we don't prevent clients from communicating with freelancers after a contract ends unless there is a valid reason to do so, such as having an account hold in place, which limits access to certain features like message rooms."

To say this hint of Khuram’s account only now possibly having a hold on it after so much fuss felt like a hollow victory would be an understatement. The support email concluded with more of the usual links about how I can "report suspicious activity" and "stay safe" while using the platform going forward.

The official company response in my inbox contained more boilerplate assurances about how Upwork "considers the trust and safety of our customers to be of utmost importance" and mentioned their oft-touted-but-never-expounded-upon "trust & safety policies, systems, and a dedicated operations team working 24/7 to detect, prevent, and remove fraudulent platform activity." I was told for the umpteenth time that "it's critical that freelancers adhere to our Terms of Service and follow the best practices we share to stay protected." 

But this time, the draconian conditionality of Upwork’s commitment to its customers finally came into full focus for me. 

If you are part of the 91 percent of consumers who don’t read pages of legal writing every time you sign up for a new app or account, Upwork can and likely will tell you to kick rocks should misfortune happen to befall you while using their platform. Even if you go in with the best of intentions and do your part to protect yourself, if you happen to break any rule—even one you weren’t aware of—while attempting to find work while avoiding the horde of scammers that Upwork acknowledges are prowling the site, recounting your plight will only result in cold comfort from the company and its most fanatical supporters. 

As work on this article was winding down I made a few more attempts to get in touch with Khuram for comment via email and phone, all to no avail. But my last pokes around Khuram's Upwork profile did reveal something that I'd never seen once before over my numerous visits. 

At the bottom of the page for the original job post that got me, beneath the work description and stats about how much engagement the post was earning was a section titled "Client's recent history." According to a post on the Upwork subreddit, this feature was down site-wide from October 2023 through March 2024, when I really needed it.

Khuram's history lists the 50 most recent job posts he hired for, the star rating and comment (if given) by the freelancer hired, and how much he paid them. Of those 50 jobs, dating as far back as May '22, 39 hirees were paid out only $5. A 40th was paid $6. Each of these 40 was hired for writing work, many lured by the same post claiming to be "Looking For Long Term [sic] Article & Blog Writer" advertising a $44.50—$120 hourly rate. There were comments left among the numerous 1-star reviews describing bait-and-switch tales similar to my own, claiming he took off with their samples, or plainly warning others to avoid this "scammer." 

But in June of 2024, well after I — and presumably at least a few of these others — had raised our concerns with Upwork, and their crack security protocols had assessed the threat, Khuram was back hiring for a "photo manipulation" job which, to his credit, he paid $30 for.

Flying was never the most stress-free way to travel, but thanks to never-ending airline delays, unruly passengers, and the incredible shrinking airline seat, it can be a nightmare. If you're ready to upgrade your flying experience, picking up a pair of noise-cancelling headphones can go a long way.

You definitely have options: plenty of headphones, from over-ear headphones to wireless earbuds, offer active noise cancellation. And in 2024, it's not too hard to find ANC headphones that cost under $100. That said, we do recommend spending a little more to enjoy maximum calm at 35,000 feet, and with Prime Big Deal Days around the corner, you'll have more access to headphone deals.

SEE ALSO: October Prime Day is coming and early deals are rolling in on headphones and speakers — but we're holding out for more How much should I spend on noise-cancelling headphones?

If you want to find the best noise-cancelling headphones for flying, you should be prepared to pay $250 to $500. Premium headphones offer improved active noise cancellation, customizable settings, and transparency modes that allow you to hear those all-important gate announcements.

Many cheap headphones claim to offer "noise-cancelling" features, but a random pair of $50 over-ear headphones is more susceptible to letting sounds around you through, struggling to connect easily and switch between devices, or simply wearing more uncomfortably.

But as we mentioned above, investing in a more expensive pair of headphones can feel like less of a splurge during sales like October Prime Day. Typically, Prime Day (and the competing sales) bring deals on the major headphones, so we're expecting several of our below picks to get markdowns.

SEE ALSO: Scope out the best gaming deals ahead of October Prime Day

At the end of the day, going for that good all-around pair is worth it, because on a flight, ANC on its own won't save the day — otherwise, we'd just direct you to our guide to the best noise-cancelling headphones. For long flights, comfort is also key. It won't matter if your headphones block sound if you only want to wear them for two out of five hours of your flight. And because this is a flying-focused roundup, we did give extra points to headphones with thoughtful design that makes storage easy.

If that $250-plus price range feels totally out of the question, we've included a couple of budget earbuds in the under-$100 category, but they come with tradeoffs. If you're okay with a mid-range pick, consider buying wireless earbuds with ANC instead of over-ear headphones.

If the cost of a pair of headphones is off-putting, you can always wait for a sale to start. We see headphones from Bose, Sony, and Apple get marked down year-round — if you don't want to keep your eyes peeled yourself, Mashable's deals coverage is a great place to find any noteworthy headphone deals.

SEE ALSO: Best Buy's fall deals schedule includes major October Prime Day competition What are the best noise-cancelling headphones for flying?

Noise-cancelling headphones are at their most useful on airplanes. It's difficult to find a moment's peace when so much is going on around you. Frequent flyers may prefer to rest or work, and the best way to prepare for either is by using the best ANC headphones to block out the chaos. 

Because shopping for headphones shouldn't be as stressful as heading to the airport, we've done extensive testing to bring you the top options. So, read on to find the best noise-cancelling headphones for airplanes in 2024 — all based on Mashable's hands-on headphones reviews.

SAVE $50: As of Oct. 7, the Oura Ring 3 is on sale for $299.99 at Amazon. That's a saving of 14% on list price.

Opens in a new window Credit: Oura Oura Ring Gen3 Horizon $299.00 at Amazon
$349.00 Save $50.00 Get Deal

Health and fitness trackers have become the norm for most people. From tracking workouts, monitoring sleep, and checking how much water we're drinking — stats and data on how we live our lives are easily accessible through a wide range of watches, heart monitors, and now even rings.

Smart rings are the latest tracking devices that allow us to monitor our health stats, and one of the biggest names in this field is the Oura Ring. A tracker that provides overall well-being and recovery stats, it allows users to access their data via an app. Similar to some of our favorite smartwatches, but hidden away in a sleek, normal-looking ring.

SEE ALSO: Get moving with the best Prime Day fitness tracker deals

Intrigued? Well, as of Oct. 7, the Oura Ring Gen3 Horizon is on sale for $299.99 at Amazon. With this deal you're saving $50, or 14% on list price. This is also the lowest price for the Oura Ring 3 at Amazon, ever. It is worth noting, however, that this deal is only available on the silver model.

The Oura Ring 3 is perfect for sleep tracking, heart monitoring, and checking activity levels. It's even smart enough to record your body temperature and heart rate variability (HRV). The only downside to note of this otherwise amazing tracker is that after a month of free access to an Oura Membership, a subscription fee of $5.99 per month is required.

Save $50 on the Oura Ring Gen3 Horizon before Prime Day.

New Macs are coming sooner than you think. In fact, they might already be here — they just aren't very evenly distributed yet.

According to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, Apple is preparing to announce new Macs and an iPad in late October, followed by a launch on Nov. 1.

More precisely, the company will reportedly launch several variants of the 14-inch MacBook Pro, as well as a new version of 16-inch MacBook Pro, with its new M4 chips that made their debut on the iPad Pro this spring. Apple is also launching a redesigned Mac mini (we've written about it) with an M4 and M4 Pro chip, and a refreshed iMac with an M4 chip. Finally, Gurman writes that Apple is looking to launch a new version of the iPad mini.

There's nothing really unexpected here, though it is a pretty long and interesting lineup of new devices. But something very unexpected did happen this time around: a Russian YouTuber may have gotten hold of the upcoming M4 MacBook Pro.

SEE ALSO: Apple Watch Series 9 vs. SE: I tested both for 13 days

It's not just your typical leak, in which you get a blurry photo from a factory line somewhere. No, this guy has an entire unboxing video, in which he shows, in detail, the 14-inch version of the MacBook Pro. The device is in Space Black (previously reserved for the 16-inch MacBook Pro), has three Thunderbolt 4 ports (instead of two), and starts with 16GB of RAM. And, of course, it sports a 10-core variant of the new M4 chip. The laptop shown in the video also has 512GB of storage, though that's not particularly unusual.

Looks pretty real, but there are some suspicious details. Credit: YouTube / Wylsacom

The unboxing video looks authentic enough, though it is odd that the MacBook shown on the box has the exact same wallpaper as last year's M3 MacBook Pro. You can check out the whole video, partially in Russian, on YouTube.

It's not very often that we get to see an unreleased Apple product several weeks ahead of its (rumored) release date, so we'll take all of this with a grain of salt. In any case, we'll be eagerly awaiting an official announcement from Apple come late October.

Back to Gurman's predictions, which also mentions several new Apple devices coming in the first half of 2025. Namely, Gurman expects Apple to launch new 13-inch and 15-inch MacBook Air, a revamped iPhone SE, a new 11-inch and 13-inch iPad Air model (together with a new Magic Keyboard), and an upgraded AirTag.

Finally, later in the year, Apple is likely to launch new versions of Mac Studio and Mac Pro with more powerful M4 chips.

SAVE $19.99: As of Oct. 7, the Amazon Fire TV Stick is on sale for $19.99 at Amazon. That's a saving of 50% on list price.

Opens in a new window Credit: Amazon Amazon Fire TV Stick $19.99 at Amazon
$39.99 Save $20.00 Get Deal

Amazon's October Prime Day is not here quite yet, but the deals have already started. You can find discounts already kicking off on a wide range of Amazon's products, including the beloved Fire TV Stick. The Fire TV Stick is a streaming device that plugs into your TV (or laptop) and lets you access platforms including Prime Video, Netflix, Hulu, and more. It comes with a remote with Alexa built-in, helping you turn any TV into a smart TV.

As of Oct. 7, you can find the handy Fire TV Stick on sale for $19.99, a saving of 50% on list price. Not only are we treated to an early deal ahead of Prime Day, but this is the lowest price the Fire Stick has been in nine months.

SEE ALSO: Best Macbooks to buy during October Prime Day 2024

The set-up for these handy remotes is so simple. Really, anyone can do it. Just pop the device into your TV's HDMI port, and that's it. You have instant access to a range of streaming platforms as well as many live channels. And trust us, Alexa voice control is much easier than manually searching for a show.

This is a limited-time deal at Amazon, so act fast before you miss out. Happy streaming!

SAVE $50: As of Oct. 7, the Amazon Echo Show 5 is on sale for $66.98 at Amazon. That's a saving of 42% on list price.

Opens in a new window Credit: Amazon Echo Show 5 (3rd Gen) $66.98
$116.98 Save $50.00 Get Deal

If you love Amazon's smart home devices then Prime Day is your best bet for a great deal. But if you're looking for a new gadget to upgrade your home, you don't need to wait for the official sales to begin — Amazon has treated us to some early deals, including a bargain on the Echo Show 5.

As of Oct. 7, the Echo Show 5 is reduced at Amazon to $66.98, giving you a saving of $50. Not to mention, this is its lowest price for six months. This is the perfect chance to get acquainted with Amazon's range of Echo products for less.

A smart assistant with a screen, the Echo Show is a great, and stylish, way to control your smart home. With built-in Alexa, and the ability to watch shows and video chat, you can't go wrong. The screen is small, coming in at 5.5 inches, making it perfect for smaller rooms where you don't want much clutter.

If you want to upgrade your smart home, don't miss out on this early Prime Day deal.

If you like playing daily word games like Wordle, then Hurdle is a great game to add to your routine.

There are five rounds to the game. The first round sees you trying to guess the word, with correct, misplaced, and incorrect letters shown in each guess. If you guess the correct answer, it'll take you to the next hurdle, providing the answer to the last hurdle as your first guess. This can give you several clues or none, depending on the words. For the final hurdle, every correct answer from previous hurdles is shown, with correct and misplaced letters clearly shown.

An important note is that the number of times a letter is highlighted from previous guesses does necessarily indicate the number of times that letter appears in the final hurdle.

If you find yourself stuck at any step of today's Hurdle, don't worry! We have you covered.

SEE ALSO: Hurdle: Everything you need to know to find the answers Hurdle Word 1 hint

This word describes something needed for air travel.

SEE ALSO: Mini crossword answers for October 7 Hurdle Word 1 answer

PLANE

Hurdle Word 2 hint

A delicious meal or an insult.

SEE ALSO: Wordle today: Here's the answer hints for October 7 Hurdle Word 2 Answer

ROAST

Hurdle Word 3 hint

A system of hereditary classes in a society.

SEE ALSO: NYT Connections today: Hints and answers for October 7 Hurdle Word 3 answer

CASTE

Hurdle Word 4 hint

A leafy plant found often on pizza.

SEE ALSO: NYT Strands hints, answers for October 7 Hurdle Word 4 answer

BASIL

Final Hurdle hint

The opposite of attract.

SEE ALSO: Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more: Games available on Mashable Hurdle Word 5 answer

REPEL

If you're looking for more puzzles, Mashable's got games now! Check out our games hub for Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more.

SAVE $100: As of Oct. 7, the Garmin Forerunner 965 is on sale for $499.99 at Amazon. That's a saving of 17% on list price.

Opens in a new window Credit: Garmin Garmin Forerunner 965 $499.86 at Amazon
$599.99 Save $100.13 Get Deal

If you're looking for a new smartwatch to level up your runs, you'll soon discover the market is pretty saturated in great options at a range of prices. One of the major players in this category is, of course, Garmin's Forerunner range. Designed with runners and athletes in mind, through the different price points you'll find watches with GPS tracking, heart rate monitoring, and a range of performance metrics.

If you're a serious runner looking for a bargain, you'll be glad to hear one of the Forerunner's newest models, the 795, is reduced at Amazon to its lowest-ever price. As of Oct. 7, the Garmin Forerunner 965 is on sale for $499.99 at Amazon. That's a saving of 17% on list price, or $100 off in total. However, it's worth noting that this deal only applies to the yellow and black model.

SEE ALSO: 8 best noise-cancelling headphones to buy on Prime Day

The Forerunner 965 is full of incredible stats and data tracking for the most serious of runners to newbies. The bright AMOLED display is colorful and attractive, but also makes for a very accessible user interface. Standout features of this fitness tracker include: training status, sleep score, training readiness, and built-in maps.

With a battery life that can last up to 23 days, the Forerunner 965 is an ideal choice for long-distance athletes looking to upgrade. Grab yours before the deal ends.