Mashable

In a short-lived will-they-won't-they love story to rival the likes of Heathcliff and Catherine, Apple is reportedly no longer in talks with ChatGPT creator OpenAI for investing in its latest fundraising round.

The Washington Post reported on Friday that a "knowledgeable person" reported that Apple fell out of talks to join this round. It's a surprise because the news came at such a late hour — the talks are scheduled to wrap up this upcoming week — but shouldn't shock anyone too intensely. Apple rarely invests in another Silicon Valley company, and is known for being pretty conservative in the world of direct investments and acquisitions in comparison to other tech giants.

SEE ALSO: Sam Altman steps down as head of OpenAI's safety group

Microsoft and Nvidia are still holding strong in their hopes to invest in OpenAI. According to the Washington Post, Microsoft is expected to invest $1 billion in addition to the $13 billion its already invested into OpenAI, which has helped Microsoft gain access to OpenAI's Large Language Models and boost its own AI productivity tools. Thrive Capital, a venture-capital firm, is expected to put in around $1 billion and Tiger Global Management and MGX are also in talks. Of course, it isn't over until it's over, and we could still see new players over the next few days.

And, lest we forget, this doesn't mean Apple and OpenAI are no longer thick as thieves. Apple announced its partnership with OpenAI at its WWDC event in June, which will integrate ChatGPT features into the iOS 18 update.

Tweet may have been deleted

As Apple Senior VP Craig Federighi said in the announcement, it's "AI for the rest of us."

Lennon Torres was 13 when she received her first iPhone. She raced to download the apps all her friends used: Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat, eager to experience social media alongside her peers. 

But Torres, now 25, wasn't the average 13-year-old. She was also a reality show contestant who later regularly guest starred on the show Dance Moms. As she built her social media profile, fans of the show began showing up. Torres, who is transgender and was out as an openly gay teen prior to her transition, received supportive and appreciative messages from queer youth, as well as death threats from strangers.

Then there were others who appeared to be adult men, who had a different agenda. Torres says they urged her to sign onto gay chat sites in order to "explore" her identity. 

Though Torres' parents embraced her queerness, she still felt disconnected from the broader LGBTQ+ community, which made the idea of joining a gay chat site compelling. All it took for Torres to join was falsely checking a box verifying her age as 18. What happened next forced Lennon to realize what it's like to be sexually exploited as a young queer person. 

SEE ALSO: Teens who talk about their mental health on this app may be taking a big risk

Occasionally she chatted with someone who felt like a friend. But more frequently she encountered adult men who, in one-on-one conversations, showered her with kindness and compliments. Curious about sex education, Torres asked questions about things she wasn't learning in school or discussing with her parents.  

Then the men would start revealing their true intentions, Torres says. Some pressured her to perform sexual acts on camera. When she resisted, they threatened to publish screenshots of her. Lennon often complied with their demands, assuming that doing so was the safest, least harmful path forward.

"I was so close to the tragedy of sextortion," Torres says, remarking on instances of teens taking their own life in the midst of being threatened by a bad actor or sexual predator who has explicit images of them. "Being that close to it sends chills down my spine."

Once she started dating, at around 15, Torres stopped frequenting the chat sites. She's now the campaign and community manager for the Heat Initiative, an organization that challenges technology companies to combat child sexual abuse on their platforms. 

Though Torres' experience may seem unique given her large social media following and high profile, she is no outlier. 

It's now normal for teens to befriend strangers online, share explicit imagery of themselves, and develop a deep bond with someone they've never met in person. This reality may bewilder their parents, who came of age when "stranger danger" cast suspicion on anyone remotely sketchy—online or off. 

But what adults often fail to understand is that in the past few decades, we inadvertently built a complex web of risk that exposes young people to grooming and exploitation at a massive scale. These days, it doesn't take much for your child to get stuck in it and become someone's victim. 

The scale of online youth exploitation

For more than a year, I've been trying to understand how this risk became so pervasive. It began while reporting an investigative series on the dangers of using emotional support platforms, including the popular platform 7 Cups. I was shocked by how frequently teens cultivate deep relationships with strangers online—and stunned by how often their trust is weaponized for abuse.  

First, the data tell a simple, if horrifying, story about online grooming and exploitation. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children began tracking reports of online enticement of children for sexual acts, a broad category of digital exploitation that includes sextortion, in 1998. 

That year, the center's CyberTipline received 707 reports. Clearly, once predators had access to youth online, they were going to take advantage of it. The problem has grown exponentially in recent years, as a result of financial sextortion. In 2023, the tipline yielded 186,819 reports, from individuals and electronic service providers, an increase of more than 300 percent since just 2021. This figure is likely a vast undercounting.

Of course, without social media platforms to facilitate these relationships, they wouldn't exist at the same scale. Take Instagram, for example, where Torres received private messages more than a decade ago urging her to join gay chat sites. It was only last week, after years of pleading from online safety advocates, that Instagram's parent company Meta finally made teen accounts private by default and limited private messaging for those accounts.  

Torres believes tech companies should still be regulated by the government, but acknowledges that Instagram's new policy is a small victory. There remains a vast online network by which predators can easily communicate with and groom children, largely undeterred by weak safety measures.

Teens appear to underestimate this danger—or accept it as part of their online lives. A good portion of teens surveyed in 2023 said they told a virtual contact something they'd never shared with anyone before, according to research conducted by Thorn, a nonprofit organization that builds technology to defend children from sexual abuse. 

Thorn has also found that sharing nudes is now viewed as normal by more than a third of teens. Some give this material to someone they believed to be an adult; many surveyed see online relationships with adults as normal. A new survey of 1,000 teens who disclosed sexual abuse revealed the extent to which social media is used to prey on youth. Of the participants who weren't related to their assailant, 12 percent said that social media facilitated the assault.

Threat of a "social shark attack"

As the internet evolved, the social conditions under which children and teens forged meaningful relationships changed dramatically, too, according to the youth advocates and experts in youth mental health, online safety, and sexual exploitation that I've interviewed. 

Loneliness and anxiety surged, perhaps related to widespread device use. Parents helicoptered and snowplowed their children into an arguably fragile state of existence, depriving them of critical opportunities to make confidence-building choices. Caregivers also appear to vastly overestimate the emotional support their teen receives, according to survey data recently published by the National Center for Health Statistics.  

Meanwhile, with influencers constantly in their ear, marketing just about every lifestyle to them 24/7, some teens grow up feeling like a composite of what they've seen online, rather than their own person with a strong sense of self. 

Some teens know exactly who they are but aren't accepted at home or in their community because of their sexuality or gender identity, and turn to the internet for affirmation. Torres, however, has argued persuasively that this is no salve for LGBTQ+ youth, and can actually lead to more harm.  

Social media also lets teens know when they've been excluded, or how their life seemingly doesn't measure up to their peers'. Sometimes social media is used to bully them, like when they're booted from a Snapchat group or become the subject of a gossip "tea" account. Their social ties can feel delicate, if not more performative than meaningful. After all, who can they really trust? 

Making and sustaining friendships under these circumstances isn't easy. Consider that, just like their parents, teens are also distracted by devices. Eye contact and small talk isn't necessary when everyone in the classroom or cafeteria is on their phone. 

Liz Feld is CEO of the nonprofit organization RADical Hope, which runs a four-week wellness program on college campuses designed to help young adults build resilience and strengthen their connections. Arizona State University, New York University, and Mercer University are among the participants. 

"These young adults, they actually don't know how to communicate." - Liz Feld, CEO of RADical Hope

Students are brought together in small peer-led groups for skill-building activities and discussion. When they peel off for an "active listening exercise" that lasts three minutes, participants commonly remark on how long the exchange feels. 

"These young adults, they actually don't know how to communicate," she says. "They are not used to sitting face-to-face and making eye contact without any distraction." 

The buzzing anxiety may also have to do with what the Stanford psychologist Jamil Zaki describes as fear of "social shark attacks." Gruesome run-ins with sharks are statistically rare, but the imagery is hard to forget, making them more memorable and heightening our perception of risk. 

A "social shark attack" works similarly. Imagine a social interaction that goes terribly wrong. Now replay that in your mind as the natural result of saying hello to a new friend, asking someone out on a date, or seeing an acquaintance for the first time after you shared something vulnerable about yourself. If all you can see is blood in the water, you're likely to take fewer chances. 

Given how so much of their social lives look nothing like what adolescents have traditionally experienced, it's no wonder teens think they might have better luck with relationships online. 

"Young people are taking enormous risks because they feel safe with strangers," says Zaki, author of Hope for Cynics: The Surprising Science of Human Goodness. "They're basically risk averse with people in their lives, and maybe overly risk seeking with people who are anonymous."

The illusion of control

Teens are also in a precarious developmental period of their lives. They're eager to separate from their parents and feel mature, both of which can lead to riskier behavior, says Amy Corbett, a therapist with a private practice in Somerville, Mass. 

Corbett has worked with numerous teen victims of online sexual exploitation. Some of them had past histories of trauma, like child abuse. Others came from supportive, loving households. Many of them felt safer connecting with a stranger online because they could present themselves at their own pace, in ways that felt freeing, even if they weren't being entirely authentic.  

One teen girl experienced significant anxiety and spent considerable time on video game platforms, which led to social connections. At first, it felt empowering for the girl. But then one relationship with an adult male escalated from texting, chatting, and exchanging information into "something really awful," Corbett says. 

"A teenager can think that they're in control of the situation for a lot longer than they actually are." - Carrie Goldberg, lawyer

Carrie Goldberg, a lawyer who has represented victims of child sexual exploitation, says predators often reinforce the idea that a teen they're talking to is very mature, a form of validation they crave. 

As the teen shares more about themselves, which can include secrets as deep as a history of abuse or suicidal ideation, the predator will also divulge their own secrets. This creates a false perception for the teen that the bond the two share is unique and unusual, Goldberg says.   

Taking small leaps of faith 

The sad reality for teens and young adults is that they actually yearn for meaningful in-person relationships with their peers. 

Zaki, director of the Stanford Social Neuroscience Lab, noticed that after students returned to campus following the initial phase of the Covid-19 pandemic, they complained how difficult it was to meet people. He had a hunch about why. 

In 2022, his lab surveyed thousands of students and asked about how much they cared about their peers, enjoyed helping others, and wanted to connect with people. A second set of questions asked about how the students viewed the average Stanford student. 

The self-assessments were overwhelmingly positive. The vast majority of respondents wanted to make new friends and demonstrated empathy toward others. But their perception of the average student was harsh: "unfriendly, judgemental, and callous." 

Zaki suspects that fear of social shark attacks, among other factors, holds young people back. They simply aren't testing their assumptions about what will happen if they reach out to others. As an antidote, he recommends being less risky with strangers on the internet and taking more risks in everyday social life. This doesn't mean telling someone you just met your deepest secrets, but instead taking small leaps of faith and "calculated chances" on other people. 

In many ways, this is what RADical Hope helps to facilitate in its college wellness program, RADical Health. Melissa White, a student-athlete at Middlebury College, volunteered as a student guide last year. She helped facilitate conversations about stress management, self-care, and decision-making. 

Unsurprisingly, students were reluctant to share at first. But White realized that once she made the first vulnerable move, and the group understood the discussions would be confidential, others quickly followed suit. Students were relieved to learn they weren't the only ones who felt anxious, confused, or lost at school. 

The difference between this and cursory online socializing with peers, where people might share their interests or highlights, felt clear to White. 

"It creates this community where people are relating to each other rather than just this interpersonal connection," White said of the RADical Health model. 

There's no easy way to solve the problem of teens going online for fulfilling relationships and paying an unimaginable price for doing so. But it's obvious that they need both aggressive protection from predators online and safe in-person opportunities to connect to their peers. 

"Wait for the better online future that I know is coming, but it's just not here yet." - Lennon Torres, the Heat Initiative

They also need parents who won't punish them if they do become a victim of online exploitation. Regardless of whether they lie about their age, disclose family secrets, or betray trust, every expert I spoke to had a singular message for parents of teens: Talk to them openly and often about online risks; let them know you'll protect them if something bad happens; and never blame them if it one day it does.

Torres recommends that young teens in search of a meaningful relationship or confidant lean on trusted peers and adults instead of going online. She hopes that collective efforts to regulate technology companies and social media platforms will ultimately make the internet a much safer place for youth to connect with each other. 

"Wait for the better online future that I know is coming, but it's just not here yet," Torres says. 

If you are a child being sexually exploited online, or you know a child who is being sexually exploited online, or you witnessed exploitation of a child occur online, you can report it to the CyberTipline, which is operated by the National Center for Missing Exploited & Children.

The M87 galaxy is monstrous.

It contains several trillions of stars, compared to our Milky Way's hundreds of billions. And the supermassive black hole at its center is shooting an outstretched beam of energy into space. The Hubble Space Telescope, operated by NASA and the European Space Agency, has captured a new image of this energetic cosmic event, which produces a beam of superheated gas 3,000 light-years long (a single light-year is nearly 6 trillion miles).

NASA calls this jet "blowtorch-like," and it seems to be triggering many stars near its trajectory to erupt.

"We don't know what's going on, but it's just a very exciting finding," Alec Lessing of Stanford University, who led the research into the finding, said in an agency statement. "This means there's something missing from our understanding of how black hole jets interact with their surroundings."

SEE ALSO: NASA scientist viewed first Voyager images. What he saw gave him chills.

Black holes themselves produce no light. But material can rapidly spin around black holes, forming a vibrant "accretion disk" that radiates light. And, sometimes material falling into a black hole can "become rerouted" into two jets, firing in opposite directions, NASA explained.

In the Hubble telescope image below, the colossal elliptical galaxy M87, which is shaped like a giant egg, looks like "a translucent, fuzzy white cotton ball," ESA explained. The jet, as you can see, is the wavy blue beam blasting out from the galactic core, home to the supermassive black hole (it has the mass of 5.4 billion suns).

A Hubble view of a vibrant jet shooting out from the galaxy M87. Credit: NASA / ESA / STScI / Alec Lessing (Stanford University) / Mike Shara (AMNH) / Acknowledgment: Edward Baltz (Stanford University) // Image Processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI) Tweet may have been deleted

As the jet shoots through the galaxy, astronomers suspect it's triggering a type of stellar explosion called a "nova." These eruptions happen in double-star systems with an aging star — which is bloated and shedding its layers — and a white dwarf star, which is the hot core of a sun-like star that has shed its mass. The swollen star dumps material (hydrogen) on the white dwarf. "When the dwarf has tanked up a mile-deep surface layer of hydrogen that layer explodes like a giant nuclear bomb," the agency explained. And then the gradual process renews.

Compared to the rest of the galaxy, the researchers found twice as many novae happening in the vicinity of that vivid blue jet than elsewhere in M87.

"There's something that the jet is doing to the star systems that wander into the surrounding neighborhood," Lessing said. "Maybe the jet somehow snowplows hydrogen fuel onto the white dwarfs, causing them to erupt more frequently." However, a number of other possibilities could explain it, too.

Astronomers will keep watching this energetic region of space. It's a cosmic mystery, slowly unravelling.

Our descendants will — at some time in the future — almost certainly need to deflect an asteroid.

Though there is no known threat for at least the next century, planetary defense experts are investigating how to divert such a large space rock, and one proposal involves detonating a nuclear device near the menacing object. The ensuing blast of energy would vaporize part of the asteroid's surface, shooting out a plume of material that acts like a temporary rocket engine. While testing this scenario in space is logistically and financially daunting, researchers leveraged an extremely powerful energy generator — the "Z Machine" in New Mexico — to successfully simulate the nuclear diversion.

Wait, wait, wait you might protest. Hasn't NASA already proven, on a real asteroid millions of miles away, that we can nudge such an object away from Earth by slamming a spacecraft into it? Yes, indeed.

But it's possible that in some scenarios a nuclear blast would be necessary. Especially if we have relatively little time to act.

"For the largest asteroid, you need something more powerful to push it out of the way in time," Nathan Moore, a physicist at Sandia National Laboratories, told Mashable.

SEE ALSO: How Oppenheimer built an atomic bomb before the Nazis

The new research, led by Moore, has been published in the peer-reviewed science journal Nature Physics.

Arizona's 4,000-foot-wide (1,200-meter) Meteor Crater, created by an asteroid only some 150 feet (46 meters) across 50,000 years ago. Credit: USGS Nuking an asteroid

To simulate a potent nuclear explosion in space, Moore and his team harnessed the most powerful X-ray generator on Earth.

Nuclear bombs generate a massive amount of X-rays, which would slam into an asteroid (on our planet, these nuclear X-rays heat the air and produce a fireball). Using the federal government's Z machine, scientists produced this effect on a smaller, and achievable, scale. "In outer space we wouldn't have a Z machine, we would have a nuclear device," Moore said. Located in Albuquerque, New Mexico, the Z machine is humanity's most energetic pulsed power machine, meaning it releases vast amounts of stored electricity in just a fraction of a second.

"You wouldn't want to take chances on an asteroid the size of a city."

The researchers created a small mock asteroid and suspended it in the Z machine's chamber using a thin foil, around eight times thinner than a strand of human hair. In a potent burst, the Z machine produced a bubble of X-rays that washed over the nickel-sized rock. Crucially, the pulse of energy also vaporized the foil, so the mock asteroid was briefly free-floating while getting blasted with X-rays — a vital part of the simulation because a real asteroid is untethered in space. The result?

It worked. The science team observed the energy pulse create a small rocket plume on one side of the mock asteroid, pushing the rock away from the direction of the X-rays.

"This is a neat experiment," Cathy Plesko, a scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory who researches asteroid impacts, told Mashable. Plesko was not involved in this experiment but does work with the study's researchers on a larger collaboration that models asteroid impacts. She can now feed the Z machine's results into computer simulations to see how such a detonation would impact a larger-scale asteroid. "It's something I'm excited about," Plesko said.

The Z machine in Albuquerque, New Mexico, which simulated the detonation of a nuclear device near an asteroid. Credit: Randy Montoya / Sandia Labs A graphic showing the simulated nuclear detonation inside the Z machine's chamber. The nuclear explosion, on right, is sending X-rays toward the mock asteroid, which is the vertical yellow object. The horizontal red lines, on left, demonstrate where the researchers measured the mock asteroid's recoil. Credit: Sandia Labs

A spacecraft ferrying a nuclear device isn't under development. The aim here is to understand how to deploy such a blast, should it become necessary. When it comes to the largest class of asteroids, the type that wiped out most dinosaurs and triggered a long, callous winter, we certainly wouldn't want the endeavor to fail.

"You wouldn't want to take chances on an asteroid the size of a city," Moore said.

The likelihood of a major asteroid impact in our lives today remains exceedingly small. Every year, on average, an "automobile-sized asteroid" plummets through our sky and explodes, explains NASA. Impacts by objects around 460 feet (140 meters wide) in diameter occur every 10,000 to 20,000 years — which can cause regional devastation. And a "dinosaur-killing" impact from a rock perhaps a half-mile across or larger happens on 100-million-year timescales.

"With preparation there is no fear."

But now is an excellent time to investigate how to deflect asteroids using different methods. "The pressure is off," Plesko said. "We have time to do our homework very carefully." So when the time comes, we can collectedly choose the right course of action, nuclear or not. In the sage words of her martial arts instructor: "With preparation there is no fear."

The accelerated discovery of near-Earth asteroids of different sizes since 2000. Credit: NASA / CNEOS

Although NASA and its asteroid sleuthing program have found an estimated 90 percent of the largest behemoths — over a half-mile across — that sometimes pass near Earth's orbit around the sun (called near-Earth asteroids), surprises do happen. And they'll almost certainly happen again. An unexpected football-field-sized asteroid swung just 40,000 miles from Earth in 2019. A surprise 56-foot (17-meter) rock exploded over Russia and blew out people's windows in 2013. And some "planet-killer" asteroids are known to lurk around the orbits of Mercury and Venus, largely hidden by the glare of the sun.

But asteroids aren't inherently menacing. They're just ancient objects, formed early in our solar system's history, that inevitably strike planets from time to time. When one veers toward Earth, it's a celestial rock on its own long-lived trajectory.

"There's nothing personal with asteroids," Plesko said.

Shot over a decade ago, guerilla-style in Estonia, the low-budget horror musical Chainsaws Were Singing is a pastiche of genre tropes that its filmmaker spent years completing nearly by himself. Sander Maran stretches the definition of multi-hyphenate in Neil Breen fashion; as the movie's writer, director, composer, cinematographer, sound designer, colorist, and VFX artist, Maran turns in a work that, while often repetitive in its humor, has a fair amount of charm.

While the movie echoes cheap grindhouse pictures and horror B-movies of the '70s, it also functions as an inadvertent throwback to when it was first filmed in 2013. That's due to its outdated, often snarky tone, which feels reminiscent of the era's burgeoning web humor. Its gestation period makes it a fascinating time capsule, but the film is also, in its own way, an homage to low-budget, DIY creativity, even if it often feels like peering in on half-formed in-jokes from afar.

What is Chainsaws Were Singing about?   Credit: © Marani Bros 2024

With its cheap, bright-red blood galore, Chainsaws Were Singing tells you exactly what kind of film it is — and what it's aping — right out the gate. A young woman named Maria (Laura Niils) is having a particularly terrible day, involving the loss of her job, and the death of her family and even her dog in quick succession. She meets a man named Tom (Karl-Joosep Ilves), whose own misfortunes have led him to a suicide attempt. Their eyes lock just as Tom contemplates jumping off a bridge, which sends them into a sweet duet that's quickly interrupted by a chainsaw-wielding maniac (Martin Ruus).

This killer — named "Killer" by his cruel, overbearing mother (Rita Rätsepp), à la Psycho — is perpetually soaked in blood and spends much of the movie cartoonishly spilling the guts, eyeballs, and gonads of anyone he can get his hands on. Maria ends up his prisoner, which sends Tom on a lengthy hunt to find her. Along the way, he enlists the help of an idiosyncratic driver with whom he hitchhikes, Jaan (Janno Puusepp), who seems grating at first but whose loyalty makes him a lovable character. 

Along the way, the unlikely heroes come across all sorts of oddities of the "LOL, random!" variety that truly hammers home the movie's vibe of friends hanging out with a video camera and shooting on weekends. They're kidnapped, at one point, by a jungle tribe who call themselves the Bukkake — a Japanese word for a specific pornographic act — and in rescuing Maria, they have to contend with a pair of incestuous male cousins, whose incest and queerness aren't so much the platform for any other jokes as they are the punchline themselves.

How much music does this horror musical have? Credit: © Marani Bros 2024

Chainsaws Were Singing can't help but feel a tad retrograde and written on the fly, though perhaps the more pressing disappointment is that the movie's "horror musical" promise goes largely unfulfilled. Running nearly two hours — much longer than something with the feel of an extended CollegeHumor sketch ought to — it features few actual musical numbers. However, they're major highlights when they finally do appear.

The hefty, largely silent Killer goes on violent rampages, but the movie also affords him surprisingly tender moments that craft a lengthy, tongue-in-cheek backstory. His tale is reminiscent of villains from well-known horror landmarks, from Psycho's Norman Bates to The Texas Chain Saw Massacre's Leatherface (the latter being a key stylistic reference throughout). Ruus makes for the movie's most, and perhaps only, dearly sincere element — not to mention its most lively, when Killer performs a "chainsaw solo," fiddling with his mechanical murder device as though it were an electric guitar.

The problem inherent to Chainsaws Were Singing — a title that screams "Horror Musical!" at full volume — is that apart from Killer's solo number, the songs are mostly ironic, with a wink and a nudge towards the screen. This insincerity may be typical of genre farce, which the movie most certainly is, but its constant irreverence becomes especially demanding at feature length. There's a reason such parodies were relegated to online shorts in the 2010s, after all. The film emerges from a period of irony proliferation; when it began filming, Deadpool was still a few years away, and the likes of YouTube and Vine had recently granted low-budget creators the opportunity to flex their artistry, but Maran feels too talented to keep insisting that it's all a lark.

Perhaps he would do things differently today. The footage is, after all, a decade old, and its sardonic bent has made it a genre festival favorite; it recently won the Fantastic Fest award for Best Horror Feature. But Maran's work also features sparks of genuine inspiration and deft stylistic imitation, which almost make one wish for a more condensed feature — if not an extended short — which had streamlined his parodic approach.

Chainsaws Were Singing is a mix of too many styles and eras. Credit: © Marani Bros 2024

The movie's affinity for styles and textures of the past is its central comedic bit, and this is wielded awkwardly at times. Its grindhouse throwback element is ever present, thanks to the movie's battered film print look and blown-out highlights, which perfectly imitate withered celluloid. However, what's being presented on screen is distinctly modern despite its many references, as though the film's central nostalgia weren't for The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and exploitation horror but for the act of watching and revisiting such works many years later.

It's effectively tailor-made for the midnight genre audience, but it's often rendered an exercise in nostalgia for nostalgia itself. Its jokes have little to say about the kind of films it's spoofing, especially when it briefly strays into what feels like found-footage territory; there's no self-reflexivity involved, despite the movie constantly breaking its own fiction for the occasional gag.

However, on the rare occasions when the movie is sincere, it also becomes stylistically dialed-in, in a way its other '70s homages are not. When Maria sings a lament from her prison cell, her song may be laced with jokes, but enough of the environment falls into shadow that modern designs are no longer visible. She ends up lit with an ethereal glow reminiscent of films from the era, as though this brief sequence were ripped from a movie made not 10 but 50 years ago. It's wonderful, if fleeting.

Maran's goofy spark is delightful in its own right, even though the humor of repetition eventually becomes repetitive itself. It would all be easier to digest if it didn't feel so endless. Still, as a DIY project shot with practically no budget, the long-gestating parody justifies is own existence as a curio of a simpler time, when new filmmaking tools had imbued micro-independent cinema with a sense of optimism, as though the democracy of digital tech would even the playing field for all. More so than the movie's ironic bent, this is perhaps its most wistful throwback.

Chainsaws Were Singing was reviewed out of its U.S. premiere at Fantastic Fest.

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To understand the range of Spanish filmmaker Nacho Vigalondo, you only need to look at his two most popular feature films: Timecrimes and Colossal. The first, his feature-length directorial debut, is a 2007 sci-fi horror thriller that follows an average man plagued by a scissor-wielding masked stranger. The second is the blistering 2016 Anne Hathaway comedy that had the Oscar–winning movie star playing a human trainwreck who accidentally manifests a dangerous kaiju over Seoul. At first glance, these two films have little in common, aside from being very strange and very satisfying. But at their core is a thrillingly verve, a gnarly plot twist, and a dark sense of humor that shows a profound understanding of the complexity of humanity. 

My appreciation for both of these films is why I approached Vigalondo's latest, Daniela Forever, with giddy anticipation. Written and directed by Vigalondo, this romantic drama centers on a handsome DJ named Nicolás (Crazy Rich Asians' Henry Golding), who is grieving the death of his girlfriend Daniela (Beatrice Grannò). But a scientific trial involving lucid dreaming could open a door to reconnect with her — on some level. 

Though clearly heartfelt, Daniela Forever lacks the energy and spirit of Vigalondo's very best. What he delivers instead is a maudlin slog. 

Daniela Forever wallows in a glum aesthetic.   Henry Golding walks through traffic in "Daniela Forever." Credit: TIFF

To reflect how pale and miserable Nicolás' life feels without Daniela, Vigalondo captures his waking world on grimy-looking 16mm stock. The 4:3 aspect ratio feels claustrophobic, the colors all muddy and muted. It's effective in establishing Nicolás' point of view, but as this dour aesthetic comprises much of Daniela Forever's runtime, it's also spiritually exhausting. Much of the film's expositional dialogue — establishing his friends, the sleep experiment, and who Daniela was — are all caked in this murkiness. It's actually hard to endure this first act, which is ruthlessly steeped in self-loathing and visual muck. 

Notably, the official stills released are from Nicolás' dream world, where colors are vibrant, the aspect ratio is much wider, Daniela is alive, and the hero is basically untouchable, adored by all and swatting off cars like flies. The experimental pills allow him to slip into a state of sleep, where he has control over his dream and over his dream version of Daniela — at least at first. 

Daniela Forever's big twist is pretty obvious.  Henry Golding and Beatrice Grannò look bored in "Daniela Forever." Credit: TIFF

Like the literal dream girls of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Ruby Sparks, Daniela eventually begins to rebel against her conceptual prison. At first, she is a flurry of smiles and twee outfits with nary a whisper of complaint. But this bubbly illustrator begins to feel confused and confined by a world made from her boyfriend's limited imagination. Then, when he's awake, it seems she exists in his absence, beyond the bounds of his expectations. Essentially, even when dead, she has a life of her own. Here's where the plot takes the Vigalondo turn, where the hero becomes a villain by hobbling the memory of this Daniela to suit his own needs. 

This isn't near the mindfucks offered in either Timecrimes or Colossal, because the turn is telegraphed early on by the way he speaks of Daniela. In his dreams, she is less a person than a collection of sunny memories. This leaves Grannò to play a pretty marionette for much of the movie, before being pitched into fits of slippery sadness. Considering how smartly complicated and cruelly funny Vigalondo wrote Colossal's harried heroine for Hathaway, I'd assume Daniela is purposefully written as if dreamed up by a manchild who struggles to understand women's inner lives. Thematically, this makes sense, as part of grieving is an idealization of the dead, glossing over their flaws to focus on the gloriousness that is lost. 

In that, Vigalondo might be grappling with a stage of grief that is distinctly destructive — not just to the mourner but also to the memory of the lost loved one. And that's interesting. It might even explain a frenetic third act that abruptly barrels into a string of twists that I'm still not convinced add up to any sense. But even in the messy messaging, you can feel Vigalondo's earnestness to communicate about the self-destruction inherent in grieving. And even as I can respect that pursuit, I can't connect to the execution here. And a big part of why is Golding. 

Henry Golding is not the leading man Daniela Forever needed. 

Famously, Golding shot to stardom because of an open casting call to find the romantic lead in 2017's Crazy Rich Asians. He was undeniably dashing as that rom-com's big-hearted and handsome heir Nick. He's gone on to play the beguiling husband/boyfriend in the comedic thriller A Simple Favor, the outrageously plotted holiday rom-com Last Christmas, and the Netflix adaptation of Jane Austin's Persuasion. He also served well as a smoldering action figure in Snakes Eyes and The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare. But in Daniela Forever, Golding is in over his head. 

This surreal drama demands moments of internal reflection, odious yearning, outright weeping, and a flurry of conflicting feelings playing out fast and furious as Nicolás struggles with a climactic choice of how this story might end. When Nicolás needs only to be smooth and charming, Golding excels. But overall, his performance lacks nuance, ranging from flat to false. So scenes meant to be devastating feel at best awkward, like watching a child pitch a tantrum in a grocery store aisle.  

I take no pleasure in writing this review. I root for Vigalondo, whose films feel deeply personal, as if you're having a long, thrilling conversation with the man himself. In the past, he's created protagonists who are a exciting blend of "bad" and "good," carving out narratives unique and enthralling. But this one feels lost in thought, as if Vigalondo has forgotten his audience. His intentions might be guessed at, but the vision is unclear. His characters feel like signifiers, not people. And his cast can't shoulder the script convincingly. Ultimately, Daniela Forever seems like the sleep experiment at its center: well intentioned, but more bewildering than illuminating. 

Daniela Forever was reviewed out its World Premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival. The movie has subsequently made its U.S. Premiere at Fantastic Fest. 

Coming to theaters amid the fervor of the U.S. presidential election season, Rumours might seem to be targeting the absurdity within American politics. However, its aim is much broader, skewering global politics as a whole. More remarkable, this scorching satire from co-directors Evan Johnson, Galen Johnson, and Guy Maddin plays like the unholy and hilarious spawn of Luis Buñuel's The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie meets Sam Raimi's Evil Dead 2. 

Penned by Evan Johnson, Rumours wields an ensemble of international stars, including: Cate Blanchett, Charles Dance, Nikki Amuka-Bird, Rolando Ravello, Roy Dupuis, Denis Ménochet, Takehiro Hira, Alicia Vikander, and Triangle of Sadness' Zlatko Burić. Most of these actors appear as the leaders of Democratic nations, brought together for a summit about some crisis or another. The uncertain nature of the crisis is just one of the ways Johnson turns the knife in this cutting comedy, where the world's under attack by some mysterious force our leaders cannot begin to understand, much less ably confront. 

What's going on in Rumours? Credit: Bleecker Street

The G7 event held at a vast and elegant country estate is intended to be a peaceful space where seven world leaders can collaborate on a statement for the world to witness. It's meant to be a statement so powerful and encompassing in its positive message that it will lead to equanimity, hope, and better marital sex — among other things.

However, somewhere between the photo ops involving an unearthed corpse called a "bog person" and an awkward lunch soured by too much wine and shady secrets, the world beyond their quaint lakeside gazebo radically changes. At first, the leaders can't locate another living soul — even to refresh the canapés! But before long, it's clear they are under attack, though how exactly masturbating zombies and a giant glowing brain factor into this peril is sort of beside the point. 

Cate Blanchett leads an outstanding ensemble cast.  Credit: Bleecker Street

Playing earnest Hilda Ortmann, the Chancellor of Germany and host of this summit, Blanchett welcomes not only the other leaders, but us — the unseen audience — into this event. Dropping the snarling intensity of Tár and the swagger cool of Ocean's 8, Blanchett embraces a bouncy, conciliatory tone, which swiftly establishes her Hilda as a people-pleaser who will bend over backwards until she breaks. 

Perhaps it's Hilda's own repressed emotions that draws her to the overwrought Maxime Laplace (a devastatingly dapper Dupuis), the heartbroken Prime Minister of Canada. While the crisply professional Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Cardosa Dewindt (Amuka-Bird), and the bloviating President of France, Sylvain Broulez (Ménochet), aim to crack into this supposedly important public statement, Maxime and Hilda wander off into a forest lit like a moody nightclub for some sexual sympathy under the haze of purple fog. 

Sylvain's self-important gregariousness is well-paired with the smiling but often silent Tatsuro Iwasaki (Hira), the Prime Minister of Japan. But the most dazzling comedy duo here is Rolando Ravello as Antonio Lamorte, the clownish Prime Minister of Italy, and Charles Dance as Edison Wolcott, the President of the United States who speaks resolutely in a British accent. (A cheeky dialogue exchange addresses this detail without actually answering it. But truly, in a movie this devotedly ludicrous, if you're getting hung up on a curious accent, you're already lost.) 

Together, these actors sharply navigate not only the uncertain terrain of Rumour's rural setting, but also the cerebrally silly tone that infuses every bit of dialogue and action. 

Rumours relish in buzz words and blathering.   Credit: Bleecker Street

You know that very irksome thing where you ask someone a direct question — even a yes or no question! — and they devolve into a confounding collection of phrases and words that manage to add up to nothing? Though rampant in political debates, that's not an easy thing to write. And yet Johnson manages it infuriatingly well. 

Whether massaging the language of a delicate topic or conceiving a plan of how to find help in a world swarming with resurrected, wanking cadavers, these laughable leaders talk in extraordinary circles. At first, when they are safely in the refined setting of china plates and posh meals, it's comedic yet low-key annoying to watch them talk around crisis — as if the word itself is a foreign concept because of their, power, wealth, and privilege. But as they come to realize their positions as world leaders mean nothing to the curious creatures of this freaky forest, a delicious schadenfreude sets in. Far from a slasher movie, where the audience might identify with the fleeing human prey, Rumours invites us to cackle at these politicians' peril, dehumanizing them through mocking portrayals just as political rhetoric too often does to the common person. 

Of course, if you're not much for subtext, there's also the pleasure of Johnson's twisted imagination, which unfurls nightmare creatures with curious kinks and confounding powers, leading to scenes of surreal spectacle and humorous violence. Undeniably, there's a thrill watching the absurd mayhem of Rumours play out, even if you're not sure what the hell is going on. 

This surreally strange satire is a terrifically wild ride, fueled by the game performances from a charismatic cast and the deranged creatures into which they collide. Simply put, Rumours is a bonkers blast.

Rumours was reviewed out of its North American Premiere at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival. The movie will next screen at the New York Film Festival. Rumours opens in theaters Oct. 18.

The brains of NASA's Europa Clipper spacecraft are stored in a metal vault.

It's where the large exploration vehicle — the length of a basketball court — safeguards its computers, software, and many electronics. The craft is about to launch to Jupiter's moon Europa, a world planetary scientists suspect harbors an ocean twice the volume of Earth's. With around 50 close swoops by Europa, NASA will be able to confidently answer the question of whether this ocean realm also hosts the ingredients, such as an energy source and telltale materials, to support life.

Yet the radiation environs there are particularly harsh.

"The charged particle environment at Europa's location is immense," Cynthia Phillips, a NASA planetary geologist and project staff scientist for the space agency's Europa Clipper mission, told Mashable.

SEE ALSO: NASA scientist viewed first Voyager images. What he saw gave him chills.

Jupiter, a gas giant planet 317 times more massive than Earth, generates a massive magnetic field shooting out between 600,000 to 2 million miles (1 to 3 million kilometers) toward the sun. It's created by the planet's liquid metal core, which spins and creates electrical currents (moving electric charges make magnetic fields). Crucially, this magnetic field grabs and then accelerates particles from the relentless solar wind — a stream of rapidly traveling charged particles emitted by the sun — which creates potent radiation belts around Jupiter.

"It bombards everything."

Any craft traveling around the planet will almost certainly pass through these hazardous zones and expose instruments to harmful particles, which can damage computer chips and electronics. "It bombards everything," Curt Niebur, Europa Clipper's program scientist, said at a press conference leading up to the mission's launch. Decades ago, during the Voyager mission, NASA's engineers were worried about the craft passing by Jupiter. A person hypothetically riding aboard Voyager as it passed Jupiter would have gotten hit with a radiation dose 1,000 times the lethal level.

A depiction of Jupiter's sprawling magnetic field. If was visible to the naked eye, "it would appear two to three times the size of the sun or moon to viewers on Earth," NASA explained. Credit: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center "The relative intensity of Jupiter's radiation bands is illustrated in this diagram," NASA explains, with darker reds depicting more radiation. Both Europa and Europa Clipper's orbits are depicted in the graphic. Credit: NASA

Hence, the vault. "The vault seriously reduces the harmful radiation these electronics get," Phillips said. (NASA's Juno craft, exploring the greater Jupiter system, also carries a vault.)

Yet there are electronics outside this protective metallic box. And in May NASA received test data that suggested some transistors — which are electrical switches that control how electricity flows around the spacecraft — couldn't withstand the high radiation environs around Europa. Fortunately, intensive follow-up testing showed these switches will work as the craft makes some 50 flybys over three and a half years. "They unequivocally passed that review today," Nicola Fox, who heads NASA's Science Mission Directorate, said following a pivotal September decision to green-light the mission.

But mission engineers will be watching these transistors closely. As the New York Times reported, NASA bolted a late add-on to the craft, a small "canary box" holding the different types of transistors. If any show signs of damage or dysfunction as Europa Clipper swoops through belts of radiation, planners could adapt the mission.

In this graphic, the box illuminated in red shows the Europa Clipper's vault on the center of the spacecraft. Credit: NASA An artist's conception of the ocean, and geothermal energy sources, that could exist beneath Europa's thick ice crust. Credit: NASA

Already, the mission's orbital plan — which is to zip away from damaging regions after making close flybys of the ice-covered moon — minimizes the time the craft is exposed to high radiation zones. During each orbit around Jupiter, the craft will spend under a day in an irradiated zone, before swooping out. It won't return for between two to three weeks.

"You get out of there," Phillips told Mashable.

"You get out of there."

The robotic spacecraft's exposure to radiation, however, comes with rewards. When the probe dips close to Europa between 2031 and 2034, it will have the chance to view, scan, and investigate Europa in unprecedented detail. A ground-penetrating radar will look under the ice, and potentially see areas of liquid water or even where the ice meets the alien ocean. An instrument called the SUrface Dust Analyzer, or SUDA, will literally sample particles of Europa that have been ejected into space by tiny meteorites. And, of course, Europa Clipper will capture a bounty of images.

"The images are going to be spectacular," said Laurie Leshin, director of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the agency center that built the craft.

In sum, with this orbiting laboratory of instruments, NASA will be able to determine if the ocean moon has the right stuff — energy sources, a long-lived stable ocean, organic compounds (like carbon) — for life. If so, the agency plans to return to Europa and land on the icy crust. This time, they won't just be looking to see if it's habitable. They'll drill into the ice, looking to see if it's inhabited.

"We'll be knocking on the door for a second mission," Niebur said.

Wondering how to watch the Ohio State vs. Michigan State football game? Here's how: Exclusive streaming Peacock Premium $7.99/month or $79.99/year (save $17) Get Deal

The Ohio State and Michigan State football teams are scheduled to meet in a Big Ten Conference contest at Spartan Stadium in East Lansing, Michigan, on Saturday, Sept. 28. The game is scheduled to start at 7:30 p.m. ET. 

Ohio State, ranked No. 3 in The Associated Press poll, enters the matchup 3-0 overall. Most recently, the OSU Buckeyes defeated Marshall 49-14 on Sept. 21. Michigan State comes into the contest 3-1 overall. On Sept. 21, Boston College beat Michigan State 23-19. Entering Saturday, Ohio State leads the all-time series 37-15 vs. Michigan State. 

SEE ALSO: How to watch college football without cable

Ryan Day is the Ohio State football head coach. Jonathan Smith is the Michigan State football head coach. 

Ohio State vs. MSU football kickoff time, online live stream

The Ohio State vs. Michigan State college football game is scheduled to start at 7:30 p.m. ET on Saturday, Sept. 28. The game will be available to stream exclusively on NBC’s Peacock streaming service.  

Peacock broadcasters are scheduled to be Andrew Siciliano (play-by-play), Colt McCoy (analyst), and Lewis Johnson (sideline reporter). 

Exclusive streaming: Peacock Opens in a new window Credit: Peacock Peacock Premium Get Deal

Peacock offers two subscription options for its streaming service: the Premium plan at $7.99 per month and the Premium Plus plan at $13.99 per month.

The main draw of Premium Plus is the ad-free experience, but there’s a catch — it doesn’t apply to live sports. On the bright side, Premium Plus gives you 24/7 access to your local NBC channel, which the base plan does not offer.

For those looking to commit, Peacock sweetens the deal with an annual option that gives you two months free. Pay upfront, and it’s $79.99 for Premium and $139.99 for Premium Plus.

College students have their own deal, getting the Premium plan for just $1.99 per month. More details are available at PeacockTV.com/students.

Wondering how to watch the Notre Dame vs. Louisville football game? Here's how: Exclusive streaming Peacock Premium $7.99/month or $79.99/year (save $17) Get Deal

The Notre Dame and Louisville football teams are scheduled to meet in a non-conference contest at Notre Dame Stadium in South Bend, Indiana, on Saturday, Sept. 28. The game is scheduled to start at 3:30 p.m. ET. 

Notre Dame, ranked No. 16 in The Associated Press poll, enters the matchup 3-1 overall. Most recently, Notre Dame defeated Miami (Ohio) 28-3 on Sept. 21. No. 15-ranked Louisville comes into the contest 3-0 overall. On Sept. 21, Louisville beat Georgia Tech 31-19. Entering Saturday, Notre Dame and Louisville are tied 2-2 in their all-time series. 

SEE ALSO: How to watch college football without cable

Marcus Freeman is the Notre Dame Fighting Irish football head coach. Jeff Brohm is the Louisville football head coach.  

Notre Dame vs. Louisville football kickoff time, online live stream

The Notre Dame vs. Louisville college football game is scheduled to start at 3:30 p.m. ET on Saturday, Sept. 28. The game will be available to stream exclusively on NBC’s Peacock streaming service.  

Peacock broadcasters are scheduled to be Paul Burmeister (play-by-play), Jason Garrett (analyst), and Zora Stephenson (sideline reporter). 

Exclusive streaming: Peacock Opens in a new window Credit: Peacock Peacock Premium Get Deal

There are two tiers to NBC’s Peacock streaming service. The Premium plan is $7.99/month, and the Premium Plus at $13.99/month. 

The advantage of the Premium Plus plan is no ads, but that doesn’t apply to live sporting events. Also, the Premium Plus plan provides 24/7 access to your local NBC channel. 

Peacock also offers a full year for the price of 10 months if the full year is paid upfront. Those rates are $79.99 for the Premium plan and $139.99 for the Premium Plus plan. 

College students can get Peacock’s premium plan for $1.99/month. Students can get more information at PeacockTV.com/students.

Wondering how to watch college football this season? Here are your best options: Most affordable Sling TV Blue Plan $20 for the first month, then $40/month (save $20 ) Get Deal BEST FOR SINGLE GAME FuboTV 7-day free trial, then $49.99/month for 1 month (Save $30) Get Deal

The BYU and Baylor football teams are scheduled to meet in a Big 12 Conference contest on Saturday, Sept. 28 at McLane Stadium in Waco, Texas. The game is scheduled to start at 11 a.m. CT. 

BYU, ranked No. 22 in The Associated Press poll, enters the matchup 4-0 overall and 1-0 Big 12. Most recently, BYU beat Kansas State 38-9 on Sept. 21. Baylor comes into the contest 2-2 overall and 0-1 in the Big 12. On Sept. 21, Colorado defeated Baylor 38-31 in overtime. Entering Saturday, Baylor and BYU are tied 2-2 in their all-time series. 

SEE ALSO: How to watch college football without cable

Kalani Sitake is the BYU football head coach. Dave Aranda is the Baylor football head coach.  

BYU vs. Baylor football kickoff time and network

The BYU vs. Baylor college football game is scheduled to be broadcast on FS1 at 11 a.m. CT on Saturday, Sept. 28. FS1 broadcasters are scheduled to be Alex Faust (play-by-play) and Robert Smith (analyst). 

Discover live streaming possibilities with platforms like FuboTV and Sling to enjoy Saturday’s game without cable or satellite TV. 

Best streaming services for Baylor vs. BYU football game

Watching college football is possible without a cable or satellite TV subscription by opting for a streaming service. Ready for Saturday’s college football game between Baylor and BYU? Here's a list of the top streaming platforms you should consider. 

Most affordable: Sling TV Opens in a new window Credit: Sling Sling Blue Plan Get Deal

If the BYU vs. Baylor football game is your reason for choosing Sling TV, the Blue Plan is your go-to option, featuring FS1. Enjoy a discounted rate of $20 for the first month, with a standard charge of $40/month after that. The Sling TV Blue Plan enhances your viewing experience and permits three concurrent streams.

Sling TV’s sports channel offerings include ABC, ACC Network, Big Ten Network, ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN3, ESPNews, ESPNU, Fox, FS1, FS2, NBC, NFL Network, and SEC Network.

Best for single game: FuboTV Opens in a new window Credit: FuboTV FuboTV Get Deal

You can get FuboTV with a seven-day free trial period, providing more than 250 channels of live TV and the convenience of watching 10 screens concurrently. FS1 coverage for games like BYU vs. Baylor football is available through FuboTV’s Pro tier, which has a $49.99 rate for the first month and then a regular rate of $79.99 per month. 

FuboTV’s sports channel offerings include ABC, ACC Network, Big Ten Network, CBS, CBS Sports Network, ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNews, Fox, FS1, FS2, Golf Network, Marquee Sports Network, Monumental Sports, NBC, NFL Network, SEC Network, and The CW. 

Wondering how to watch college football this season? Here are your best options: Most affordable Sling TV Orange Plan $20 for the first month, then $40/month (save $20 ) Get Deal BEST FOR SINGLE GAME FuboTV 7-day free trial, then $49.99/month for 1 month (Save $30) Get Deal

The Georgia Bulldogs and Alabama football teams are scheduled to meet in a Southeastern Conference contest on Saturday, Sept. 28 at Bryant-Denny Stadium in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. The game is scheduled to start at 7:30 p.m. ET / 6:30 p.m. CT. 

Georgia, ranked No. 2 in The Associated Press poll, enters the matchup 3-0 overall and 1-0 SEC. Most recently, the UGA Bulldogs beat Kentucky 13-12 on Sept. 14. No. 4-ranked Alabama comes into the contest 3-0 overall. On Sept. 14, Alabama defeated Wisconsin 42-10. Entering Saturday, Alabama leads the all-time series 43-26-4 vs. Georgia.

SEE ALSO: How to watch college football without cable

Kirby Smart is the Georgia Bulldogs football head coach. Kalen DeBoer is the Alabama football head coach.   

Georgia vs. Alabama football kickoff time and network

The Georiga Bulldogs vs. Alabama football game is scheduled to be broadcast on ABC at 7:30 p.m. ET/6:30 p.m. CT on Saturday, Sept. 28. The ABC broadcasters are scheduled to be Chris Fowler (play-by-play), Kirk Herbstreit (analyst), and Holly Rowe (sideline reporter). 

Catch the excitement of Saturday’s game without cable or satellite TV by choosing an online live streaming option such as FuboTV or Sling. 

Best streaming services for the Alabama vs. Georgia football game

Without cable or satellite TV, you can still enjoy college football by opting for a streaming service. To dive into Saturday’s game between the Alabama and Georgia Bulldogs football teams, consider these streaming options.

Most affordable: Sling TV Opens in a new window Credit: Sling Sling Orange Plan Get Deal

For those looking to catch the action without a cable subscription, Sling TV offers a solid option. Its Orange & Blue Plan, priced at $55 per month, provides access to 48 channels, including ESPN3, which streams ABC’s game coverage. New subscribers can take advantage of an introductory rate, snagging the first month for just $27.50.

If your focus is primarily on the upcoming Georgia vs. Alabama football game, the Orange Plan might be the more budget-friendly choice. It’s available for an introductory rate of $20 for the first month before returning to the regular $40 monthly fee.

Sling TV’s sports channel offerings include ABC, ACC Network, Big Ten Network, ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN3, ESPNews, ESPNU, Fox, FS1, FS2, NBC, NFL Network, and SEC Network.

Best for single game: FuboTV Opens in a new window Credit: FuboTV FuboTV Get Deal

FuboTV offers a complimentary seven-day trial that includes access to more than 250 live TV channels and 10-screen viewing. After the free trial, college football fans can access channels like ABC for the Georgia vs. Alabama football game with FuboTV’s Pro plan at a rate of $49.99 for the first month. The Pro tier’s regular rate is $79.99 per month. 

FuboTV’s sports channel offerings include ABC, ACC Network, Big Ten Network, CBS, CBS Sports Network, ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNews, Fox, FS1, FS2, Golf Network, Marquee Sports Network, Monumental Sports, NBC, NFL Network, and SEC Network.

Wondering how to watch college football this season? Here are your best options: Most affordable Sling TV Orange Plan $20 for the first month, then $40/month (save $20 ) Get Deal BEST FOR SINGLE GAME FuboTV 7-day free trial, then $49.99/month for 1 month (Save $30) Get Deal

The Oklahoma Sooners and Auburn football teams are scheduled to meet in a Southeastern Conference contest on Saturday, Sept. 28 at Jordan-Hare Stadium in Auburn, Alabama. The game is scheduled to start at 2:30 p.m. CT. 

Oklahoma, ranked No. 21 in The Associated Press poll, enters the matchup 3-1 overall and 0-1 in the SEC. Most recently, Tennessee defeated Oklahoma 25-15 on Sept. 21. Auburn comes into the contest 2-2 overall and 0-1 in the SEC. On Sept. 21, Arkansas beat Auburn 24-14. Entering Saturday, Oklahoma leads the all-time series 2-0 vs. Auburn.

SEE ALSO: How to watch college football without cable

Brent Venables is the Oklahoma Sooners football head coach. Hugh Freeze is the Auburn football head coach.  

Oklahoma vs. Auburn football kickoff time and network

The Oklahoma Sooners vs. Auburn football game is scheduled to be broadcast on ABC at 2:30 p.m. CT on Saturday, Sept. 28. The ABC broadcasters are scheduled to be Joe Tessitore (play-by-play), Jordan Rodgers (analyst), and Katie George (sideline reporter). 

Catch the excitement of Saturday’s game without cable or satellite TV by choosing an online live streaming option such as FuboTV or Sling. 

Best streaming services for the Auburn vs. Oklahoma football game

Without cable or satellite TV, you can still enjoy college football by opting for a streaming service. To dive into Saturday’s game between the Auburn and OU Sooners football teams, consider these streaming options. 

Most affordable: Sling TV Opens in a new window Credit: Sling Sling Orange Plan Get Deal

For fans looking to stream games, Sling TV’s Orange & Blue Plan is a solid option. At $55 per month, it provides 48 channels, including ESPN3, which simulcasts ABC games. New subscribers can take advantage of a half-price deal, getting the first month for $27.50.

If you're mainly tuning in for the Oklahoma vs. Auburn football action, the Orange Plan might be a better fit. It starts with a discounted rate of $20 for the first month, then moves to the standard $40/month rate.

Sling TV’s sports channel offerings include ABC, ACC Network, Big Ten Network, ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN3, ESPNews, ESPNU, Fox, FS1, FS2, NBC, NFL Network, and SEC Network.

Best for single game: FuboTV Opens in a new window Credit: FuboTV FuboTV Get Deal

FuboTV offers a complimentary seven-day trial that includes access to more than 250 live TV channels and 10-screen viewing. After the free trial, college football fans can access channels like ABC for the Oklahoma vs. Auburn football game with FuboTV’s Pro plan at a rate of $54.99 per month for two months. The Pro tier’s regular rate is $74.99 per month. 

FuboTV’s sports channel offerings include ABC, ACC Network, Big Ten Network, CBS, CBS Sports Network, ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNews, Fox, FS1, FS2, Golf Network, Marquee Sports Network, Monumental Sports, NBC, NFL Network, and SEC Network.

Wondering how to watch college football this season? Here are your best options: Most affordable Sling TV Orange Plan $20 for the first month, then $40/month (save $20 ) Get Deal BEST FOR SINGLE GAME FuboTV 7-day free trial, then $49.99/month for 1 month (Save $30) Get Deal

The Ole Miss and Kentucky Wildcats football teams are scheduled to meet in a Southeastern Conference contest on Saturday, Sept. 28 at Vaught Hemingway Stadium in Oxford, Mississippi. The game is scheduled to start at noon ET / 11 a.m. CT. 

Ole Miss, ranked No. 6 in The Associated Press poll, enters the matchup 4-0 overall. Most recently, Ole Miss defeated Georgia Southern 52-13 on Sept. 21. The Kentucky Wildcats come into the contest 2-2 overall and 0-2 in the SEC. On Sept. 21, Kentucky beat Ohio 41-6. Entering Saturday, Ole Miss leads the all-time series 29-14-1 vs. Kentucky, according to Ole Miss.

SEE ALSO: How to watch college football without cable

Lane Kiffin is the Ole Miss football head coach. Mark Stoops is the UK Wildcats football head coach.   

Ole Miss vs. Kentucky football kickoff time and network

The Ole Miss vs. Kentucky Wildcats football game is scheduled to be broadcast on ABC at noon ET/11 a.m. CT on Saturday, Sept. 28. The ABC broadcasters are scheduled to be Sean McDonough (play-by-play), Greg McElroy (analyst), and Molly McGrath (sideline reporter). 

Catch the excitement of Saturday’s game without cable or satellite TV by choosing an online live streaming option such as FuboTV or Sling. 

Best streaming services for the Kentucky vs. Ole Miss football game

Without cable or satellite TV, you can still enjoy college football by opting for a streaming service. To dive into Saturday’s game between the Kentucky Wildcats and Ole Miss football teams, consider these streaming options. 

Most affordable: Sling TV Opens in a new window Credit: Sling Sling Orange Plan Get Deal

For $55 per month, Sling TV’s Orange & Blue Plan delivers 48 channels, including ESPN3 that simulcasts ABC games. You can get an introductory offer of $27.50 for the first month of the Orange & Blue Plan. 

If you’re primarily interested in the Ole Miss vs. Kentucky football game then you can go for the Orange Plan, with an introductory offer of $20 for the first month and then a standard charge of $40/month.

Sling TV’s sports channel offerings include ABC, ACC Network, Big Ten Network, ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN3, ESPNews, ESPNU, Fox, FS1, FS2, NBC, NFL Network, and SEC Network.

Best for single game: FuboTV Opens in a new window Credit: FuboTV FuboTV Get Deal

FuboTV offers a complimentary seven-day trial that includes access to more than 250 live TV channels and 10-screen viewing. After the free trial, college football fans can access channels like ABC for the Ole Miss vs. UK Wildcats football game with FuboTV’s Pro plan at a rate of $49.99 for the first month. The Pro tier’s regular rate is $79.99 per month. 

FuboTV’s sports channel offerings include ABC, ACC Network, Big Ten Network, CBS, CBS Sports Network, ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNews, Fox, FS1, FS2, Golf Network, Marquee Sports Network, Monumental Sports, NBC, NFL Network, and SEC Network.

Wondering how to watch college football this season? Here are your best options: Best for affordability Sling TV Blue Plan $20 for the first month, then $40/month (save $20 ) Get Deal BEST FOR SINGLE GAME FuboTV Pro plan 7-day free trial, then $49.99/month for 1 month (Save $30) Get Deal

The Colorado Buffs and UCF football teams are scheduled to meet in a Big 12 Conference contest on Saturday, Sept. 28 at FBC Mortgage Stadium in Orlando, Florida. The game is scheduled to start at 3:30 p.m. ET/1:30 p.m. MT. 

Colorado comes into the matchup 3-1 overall and 1-0 in the Big 12. Most recently, the CU Buffs beat Baylor 38-31 in overtime. UCF enters the contest 3-0 overall and 1-0 in the Big 12. On Sept. 14, UCF defeated TCU 35-34. Saturday’s matchup is the first-ever meeting between the Colorado and UCF football programs.

SEE ALSO: How to watch college football without cable

Deion Sanders is the Colorado Buffs football head coach. Gus Malzahn is the UCF football head coach. 

Colorado vs. UCF football kickoff time and network

The Colorado Buffs vs. UCF football game is scheduled for a 3:30 p.m. ET / 1:30 p.m. MT start on FOX on Saturday, Sept. 28. The FOX broadcasters are scheduled to be Jason Benetti (play-by-play), Brock Huard (analyst), and Alison Williams (sideline reporter). 

Without cable or satellite TV, some options to watch the CU Buffs vs. UCF football game via online live stream include FuboTV and Sling.

Best streaming services for the UCF vs. Colorado football game

You need to choose a streaming service to watch college football without cable or satellite TV. Here are the best streaming services to consider for the UCF vs. Colorado Buffs football game on FOX.  

Most affordable: Sling TV Opens in a new window Credit: Sling Sling Blue Plan Get Deal

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

If you’re not in one of those markets, getting Sling TV won’t help you watch the Colorado vs. UCF football game. 

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

Sling TV’s sports channel offerings include ABC, ACC Network, Big Ten Network, ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN3, ESPNews, ESPNU, FOX, FS1, FS2, NBC, NFL Network, and SEC Network.

Best for single game: FuboTV Opens in a new window Credit: FuboTV FuboTV Pro plan Get Deal

FuboTV offers you more than 250 channels of live TV and the option to watch on 10 screens at once. You can try FuboTV with a seven-day free trial period. 

Visit the FuboTV website to see if your zip code includes the FOX broadcast. If you’re in luck, then you can get FOX with the FuboTV Pro plan, which has a one-month introductory rate of $49.99/month and a regular subscription rate of $79.99 per month. 

FuboTV’s sports channel offerings include ABC, ACC Network, Big Ten Network, CBS, CBS Sports Network, ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNews, FOX, FS1, FS2, Golf Network, Marquee Sports Network, Monumental Sports, NBC, NFL Network, and SEC Network.