Category Archives: Blog

With Black Friday only a week away, Amazon isn’t waiting for the shopping holiday to officially begin. The online retailer is throwing caution to the wind and announcing deals really early, so you can save on great products for the holidays. 

We’ve rounded up the best deals we’re loving right now on Amazon, and are even giving you a sneak peek at what’s going to be on sale before the deals are actually live. So all you have to do is skim through this roundup and pick the products that would make the perfect gift for your friends and family — or for yourself because you totally deserve it. (Hot tip: Add what you’re coveting to your shopping cart now, then once the deals go live just check out!) Read more…

More about Black Friday, Mashable Shopping, Shopping Amazon, Black Friday 2018, and Bf Retailer

Holy moly, has Google just changed the smartphone camera game with the release of the Night Sight mode for its Pixel 3 and 3 XL phones.

Announced at its October Pixel 3 launch event, Google boasted Night Sight as a significant leap forward for taking night photos — useful for exposing colors and details lost in the shadows.

I’ve only just tried Night Sight, currently rolling out to Pixel 3 phones via a software update, and my mind’s still piecing itself back together from being blown apart.

It’s no secret Google has been flexing its computational photography and machine-learning skills to enhance shots taken with its Pixel phones. Read more…

More about Mobile, Google, Android, Photography, and Reviews

PlayStation will not be making an appearance at the next E3.

Sony Interactive Entertainment announced that PlayStation will not be attending the upcoming E3 show in 2019, Game Informer reported Thursday. Not only that, it won’t even host an independent press conference around E3 — something that Electronic Arts has done.

This will be PlayStation’s first absence from E3 since the very first show in 1995.

The Entertainment Software Association announced its upcoming 2019 E3 show Thursday but made no mention of PlayStation in the press release circulated via email. In the press release, the ESA listed “the leading video game companies already committed to participating in E3 2019,” which included Microsoft/Xbox, Nintendo, Activision, Bethesda, Capcom, Ubisoft, and a handful of other heavy-hitters that pretty much always make an appearance. Read more…

More about Playstation, E3 2019, Entertainment, and Gaming

Black Friday is (almost) here, with Cyber Monday right on its heels — and we are pretty pumped about it.

Does “The Cyber Five” ring a bell? It’s what people in the know (hey, that’s us) call the five-day span of madness from Black Friday to Cyber Monday. While Black Friday *used* to be the one big savings day (back in the ancient days when people actually, you know, went to the store to shop), there is now nearly a week of savings: Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, and Cyber Monday. (If you’re wondering what to do on Sunday, check out Shop For Good Sunday.)

And the deals seem to start earlier every year. Read more…

More about Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Mashable Shopping, Shopping Amazon, and Shopping Linkshare

Facebook spent much of Thursday attempting to quell the fire caused by the New York Times’ report about executive inaction and politicking on Facebook’s many crises over the past three years. 

It also chose Thursday to publish its latest note from Mark Zuckerberg about some of the “toughest issues” Facebook is addressing. Thursday’s note, the second in this series, addressed “Content Governance and Enforcement.”

“Just as a free society will always have crime and our expectation of government is not to eliminate all crime but to effectively manage and reduce it, our community will also always face its share of abuse,” Zuckerberg wrote. “Our job is to keep the misuse low, consistently improve over time, and stay ahead of new threats.” Read more…

More about Facebook, Hate Speech, Content Moderation, Tech, and Social Media Companies

The gaming industry has a well-known diversity problem.

However, amid the bustle at PAX Australia, the largest gaming convention in the southern hemisphere, a new exhibit put underrepresented games and developers at the forefront.

Led by Australian curator and Rumu gamerunner Ally McLean, the NEXT exhibit featured six games that shake things up, including one by an all-woman developer team, a creator with autism, and a game that examines life as a transgender teenager.

“I know that diverse teams make awesome games, and I know that there are barriers to diverse teams getting to do things like show their games at PAX. It’s expensive, it can be prohibitive, especially coming all the way to Australia,” McLean told Mashable. Read more…

More about Entertainment, Gaming, Diversity, Pax, and Pax Australia

Does the world really need a new version of Dumbo? Hard to say. What we do know for sure is that it’s awfully hard to say no to that face, which looks somehow even more heart-meltingly adorable in “live-action” (i.e., realistic-looking animation). 

If you’re already invested in his journey, mark the date on your calendar: Dumbo arrives in theaters March 29, 2019. Read more…

More about Disney, Dumbo, Entertainment, and Movies Tv Shows

These days, even your teddy bear might be out to get you. 

As the inevitable creep of “smart” features and products continues to turn everything from your refrigerator to your thermostat into a connected device, it’s worth taking a moment to consider just what you’re giving up in exchange for this wannabe Jetsons future. Thankfully, Mozilla has done a lot of that work for you with a new guide dedicated to just how insecure many smart devices are. 

It’s right in time for the end-of-year shopping season, meaning you have no excuse to buy your parents one of these potentially compromised electronic gadgets as a holiday gift. And, if you send them the guide, they won’t have an excuse for buying you one, either.  Read more…

More about Smart Homes, Iot, Smart Devices, Mozilla, and Tech

Community first, eh?

A New York Times report published Wednesday is full of bombshells about how Facebook has handled (and mishandled) its last two years of turmoil. Amidst allegations of pettiness and tales of public relations coups, the report reveals how hard Facebook tried to remain in the good graces of politicians, even at the expense of the “transparency” and “community” it champions.

Notably, on more than one occasion, Facebook chose to appease and avoid confrontation with Republican politicians, rather than take aggressive action to combat Russian and Trumpian propaganda. 

More about Facebook, Russia, Mark Zuckerberg, Sheryl Sandberg, and Trump

Most internet challenges are bad, but Dog Cheese is good.

Dog Cheese, since you asked, is a fun game where you throw a piece onto your dog and see what happens. There are very few rules: the cheese must land on the dog, certainly, but we understand that what occurs next is outside your control.

Dog Cheese appears to have begun with the following tweet from Matthew Elias, which reads: “Fuck beer pong, we playin dog cheese.” Agreed!

Now, lots of people — and dogs, and the occasional cat — are playing Dog Cheese. Soon it will be more popular than beer pong. Just kidding, but what if it was? Would be cool. Read more…

More about Twitter, Memes, Social Media, Culture, and Web Culture