Category Archives: Blog

It’s Saturday, rejoice! Whether you’ve got a hectic weekend ahead or 48 hours of doing very little planned, what better way to kick things off than with a spot of Wordle? If you’re having having some difficulties finding the solution, though, we’ve got you covered. All it’ll take is a nudge or two and you’ll be on your way.

The answer to the July 30 Wordle, puzzle #406, can be found at the end of this article, or you can simply read on for a few tips, gentle hints, and strategies to help you every day.

Where did Wordle come from?

Former Reddit engineer Josh Wardle came up with the game in 2021 as a private exercise for him and his word game-loving partner. It eventually became a staple of their family WhatsApp messaging, and that’s when Wardle started to suspect he might have something special enough to merit a wider release.

Thousands of people around the globe now play this game each day, and fans have even created alternatives to Wordle inspired by the original format. This includes music identification game Heardle, Hollywood nerd faves Actorle and Framed, and variations like Dordle and Quordle that make you guess multiple words at once.

Not the day you’re after? You’ll find the Wordle answer for July 29 here.

What’s the best Wordle starting word?

We have some ideas to help you pick the perfect first move. Such tips include choosing a word with at least two different vowels to rule those building blocks in or out, plus a few common consonants such as S, T, R, or N.

Also, even if you’re attached to your mathematically sound starter, once it’s been the answer on any given day it won’t be the answer again for a few years — so if you happen to get the elusive 1/6 result, celebrate by swapping out your starting five.

What happened to the Wordle archive?

While you could once play the entire archive of past puzzles, the archive was taken down at the request of the New York Times, according to the site’s creator.

Is Wordle getting harder?

If you’ve been finding Wordle too easy, there is a Hard Mode you can enable to give yourself more of a challenge. But unless you activate this mode, we can assure you that Wordle isn’t getting harder. 

Why are there two different Wordle answers some days?

The whole point of Wordle is that everyone’s solving the same puzzle, with the same answer, no matter where you are in the world. However, occasionally the puzzle game will accept two different correct solutions on the same day. This aberration is due to changes the New York Times began making after it acquired Wordle earlier this year, excising words form Wardle’s original list that the team considers obscure or potentially offensive.

To make sure you’re always getting the same puzzle as everyone else, refresh your browser before you play — don’t worry, the site will keep your streak.

A subtle hint for the Wordle answer on July 30

Think card games.

Wordle today is a 5-letter word that starts with…

…the letter B!

Does today’s Wordle word have a double letter?

Yep, it sure does.

Wordle today: What’s the answer?

Ready?

It’s time to reveal the solution.

It’s…

BLUFF.

Reporting by Caitlin Welsh, Sam Haysom, Amanda Yeo and Adam Rosenberg contributed to this article.

In the multiverse of comic books, there’s room for just about every imaginable iteration on the classic superheroes we know and love. Between Zombie Dr. Strange, Centaur Superman, and even a Baby Batman, the possibilities for wacky alternate realities seem endless.

But apparently there is one superpower that will forever elude all our most popular heroes across the entirety of their ever-expanding extended universes — and it’s eating pussy. At least that’s what DC explicitly told Justin Halpern, co-creator of HBO Max’s raunchy Harley Quinn animated series.

In an interview with Variety, Halpern revealed that they’d been forced to censor a moment in Season 3 which depicted Batman going down on Catwoman, because DC insisted that “‘heroes don’t do that.'” While Halpern protested the notion that all superheroes were selfish partners, DC appeared far more concerned with Batman’s viability as a consumer product. Unlike the villains who do most of the debauchery on Harley Quinn, superheroes generate lots of profit in the form of kid-friendly toys. So, to sum up Halpern’s recollection of DC’s logic, “‘It’s hard to sell a toy if Batman is also going down on someone.'”

The news of Batman being a canonically ungenerous lover exploded across the internet when the interview first came out last summer (with even Justice League director Zack Snyder contributing his own chaotic tweet to the discourse). But after the first three episodes of Harley Quinn Season 3 dropped on Thursday, July 28, we finally got to see the censorship in action for ourselves.

And, let me tell you, Catwoman isn’t the only one who was left out to dry by DC’s ban on oral sex. In fact, we’ve all lost a lot more than just one joke from an animated series due to the bizarre prudishness that comic books impose on their superheroes’ sexuality.

In the Harley Quinn Season 3, episode 3 opener, the clunkily-reworked joke comes after Poison Ivy ends a call by commiserating with Catwoman about how much better she could do than the guy she’s currently seeing. Catwoman agrees, only to put down the phone to reveal an overly eager Batman on his hands and knees, hunched over her lap, performing…a foot massage.

“Shall I continue?” Batman asks the obviously dissatisfied Catwoman like the latex-clad sub that he is. “No, it’s not worth it,” she sighs.

While the original implications of the scene are hard to miss, the censorship neuters what should’ve been a dynamite opener into a perplexingly limp start. The show’s superb writers recover quickly. But this controversy is only the most recent example of how the MCU and DCEU’s puritanical rules around superheroes is holding the entire genre back.

Critics have been calling out Marvel’s conspicuous sexlessness since 2013. But in the past year, legendary directors like Steven Soderbergh, Pedro Almodóvar, and Paul Verhoeven joined the chorus by pointing to it as their main gripe with the comic book takeover of the entertainment industry.

Erasing the existence of sexual desire from these characters’ lives makes for some pretty dehumanizing storytelling.

The hottest people alive are all virgins who hang out in skin-tight suits together without ever really getting horny for each other.

The total lack of fucking has become one of the most alienating parts of these fantastical cinematic universes, where the hottest people alive are all virgins who hang out in skin-tight suits together without ever really getting horny for each other. Yet while superheroes may not be allowed to express desire or experience pleasure, they’re also still simultaneously required to adhere to today’s strict, hypersexualized body ideals. Like live-action toys themselves, the superhero movie star is sold to audiences as a sex symbol who can only ever be the object rather than a subject of voyeuristic pleasure.

Yeah, this reads like more than just a foot massage to me…
Credit: HBO Max

Tellingly, DC only cares about policing the sexuality of its hero characters. Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn are given total liberty to munch away at each other’s carpets throughout Season 3, as they celebrate their newfound love with an “Eat Bang Kill” tour. (Is pleasuring your partner something only the morally corrupt do?) To make matters worse, Batman’s moral virtue (or rather commercial viability) doesn’t seem at all threatened by the near-sociopathic acts of mass violence he commits later on in the season. We won’t get into specifics to spare you the spoilers, but let’s just say they include but are not limited to terrorizing a traumatized child and almost sacrificing the entirety of Gotham to get what he wants.

At the end of the day, we all know that DC’s insistence that superheroes don’t schtup is a financial rather a moral statement. It’s a damn shame, though. There’s undoubtedly plenty of money to be made from leaning into — rather than shying away from — the sexiness of it all by launching an adult line of superhero-themed toys instead, if you catch our drift.

Until then, though, I guess Catwoman will have to make do with caring for her own pussycat. Anyway, she can keep her sulky, sexless Dark Knight. We’re just happy that we get to join Harley and Ivy on their horny honeymoon.

Harley Quinn Season 3 kicks off with three episodes on HBO Max on July 28. New episodes will air each Thursday through September 15.

These days, smart beauty tech is all the rage. You can convince anybody that your technology is super advanced just by slapping the word “smart” in front of it — so we set out to figure out what it actually means to use smart tech, particularly in the beauty realm.

The T3 Curl ID curling iron is one of these smart beauty devices. It’s a curling iron that uses a unique “HeatID” technology to diagnose your hair’s specific needs when it comes to heat level. Users input personal details like hair texture, color treatment history, and chemical treatment history to help the device determine an optimal heat level from nine options before using the curler to style their hair. Once you input this data, the iron will heat up to a specific heat setting, and then the curling experience should be pretty familiar.

The lit up icons serve as the buttons to input your hair data.
Credit: T3Micro

In trying to find out if smart hair tech is actually useful, we need to zoom out on what smart tech actually is. The term “smart” is a little hard to pin down. Most people think of smart tech as something you can control via voice commands or Bluetooth, like an Amazon Alexa device or a Google Nest thermostat. These are smart devices, but are more specifically smart-connected devices — they’re connected to a network that allows users to communicate with them from a distance.

To be simply “smart,” devices need only to have “some automation and can be easily programmed through an intuitive user interface,” according to Petra’s blog. In the case of the T3 Curl ID, there’s no connectivity. But what makes it smart is the user interface, which includes a mildly intuitive touch button setup that then automates the heat setting used for styling.

So yes, it seems that this curling iron meets the criteria to be smart, and by automating the heat setting, it could potentially make healthier heat styling much more attainable for its users. But does it actually work? Is it hard to figure out? What do your curls actually end up looking like when you use the automated heat settings? Tune in to this episode of Beauty, Hacked to find out as Jennimai tests out the T3 Curl ID and compares it to her regular ol’ curler (that she may or may not have had since middle school.)

Will Smith is finally answering questions about the infamous Oscars “slap heard ‘round the world” in a new YouTube video uploaded to his personal channel on July 29. In a video titled “It’s been a minute…” the Academy Award winner shows immense remorse for the incident that has all but halted his Hollywood career.

During the 2022 Academy Awards ceremony in March, Smith slapped presenter Chris Rock on stage after Rock made a crude joke about Smith’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith. The actor apologized to Rock via Instagram immediately following The Slap, and according to Smith, he’s reached out to the comedian in the months since, but Rock has expressed not being ready to talk to him yet. (That hasn’t stopped Rock from using the incident as fodder for his new material.) In the new video, Smith addresses Rock directly, apologizing for his actions and offering a space to speak whenever Rock is ready.

“So I will say to you, Chris, I apologize to you,” said Smith. “My behavior was unacceptable and I’m here whenever you’re ready to talk.”

Smith also apologized to Rock’s mother and brother, Tony Rock, acknowledging that he didn’t realize how many people were hurt in that moment. He also answers the question that some have been pondering since the altercation: Did Jada Pinkett Smith say anything to her husband after she rolled her eyes at Rock’s “G.I. Jane” joke? The answer was a clear “no” from Smith:

“I made a choice on my own from my own experiences, my history with Chris, and Jada had nothing to do with it,” said Smith. 

He apologized to Jada and his kids for the “heat” that The Slap brought upon them, as well as his fellow Oscar nominees, for tarnishing what should’ve been a special moment. He also took a moment to apologize to his fans and the people he let down through his “unacceptable” actions.

“Disappointing people is my central trauma,” said Smith. “I hate when I let people down, so it hurts me psychologically and emotionally to know I didn’t live up to peoples’ image and impression of me.”

Smith explained that his silence from social media was due to him taking time to reflect on his actions. Since The Slap, Smith has endured the brunt of the fallout, and his Hollywood image as an affable titan has taken a significant hit.

“I promise you that I am deeply devoted and committed to putting light and love and joy into the world,” said Smith. “If you hang on, I promise we’ll be able to be friends again.”

There are literally thousands of different headphones, earphones, and earbuds out there to choose from — all in varying shapes, sizes, styles, and colors. All have the same idea at heart — to provide you with audio without having to play it out loud for everyone to hear. But some achieve this result so much better — and in better style — than others.

You could just search for the cheapest pair, but in our experience, budget earbuds are not typically a great idea since they will most certainly fail you right when you need them most. They’re often lacking many of the functional features and sleek styling that make the best headphones so great. And TBH, they aren’t always the most comfortable to wear, either.

Instead, you’re going to want to get the best headphones for you, and that means you’ll have to think about how you plan on using them after you buy them. Are you planning on listening at home? Taking them on your commute? Is noise cancellation a requirement? Do you want to avoid lousy battery life? Go completely wireless? Do things like weight and color matter to you?

We’ve checked out numerous pairs of headphones and have narrowed them down to our favorites to make your life easier when it comes to choosing the best headphones for your listening needs. Regardless of your budget or requirements, there’s a perfect pair of headphones for you out there.

Earbuds vs. headphones

One of the first things you’ll want to consider when it comes to selecting the best headphones for your unique sitch is whether you prefer earbuds or headphones. Headphones go over or around your ears while earbuds go inside them and have a much smaller profile. Choosing between the two mainly comes down to style, comfort, and sound quality.

Something to keep in mind is that headphones can squeeze your head and give you a headache if you wear them too long, and while earbuds won’t do the same, they can make your ears feel sore after extended wear. It’s all about personal preference as to which fit you like better.

Some benefits of earbuds are that they are easier to transport, and because they’re smaller, you don’t have many restrictions headphone users often face when it comes to wearing them. You can also wear wireless earbuds while also wearing a helmet or hat, which is not so easy or comfortable with a pair of headphones.

That said, on-ear and over-ear headphones do provide a better seal and have larger speakers than earbuds, causing them to be the winners in the sound quality department. There’s some give and take when choosing between wireless earbuds and wireless headphones, depending on how you’ll use them and what sort of sound quality you’re looking for.

Do noise-canceling headphones actually work?

There’s a big difference between outside noise being blocked and music simply being loud. Just like not every pair of expensive glasses protects your eyes from blue light, a pair of pricey headphones doesn’t guarantee they have noise cancellation.

There are also varying degrees of noise-canceling headphones, with active noise-canceling the best. Active noise-canceling headphones can electronically remove the sound coming from your surroundings. They work by using internal microphones that listen to what’s happening in the environment around you, then inverting the noise and sending it into the loudspeaker. The idea is, both the output and the input will cancel out, leaving you with near-silence — or the music you want to listen to. Over-ear headphones are also able to create a tight seal around your ear that adds another layer of sound blocking, so you can focus on what you want to listen to.

In the past, not many earbuds featured active noise cancellation, but now there are plenty of noise-canceling earbuds for those who don’t like the bulkiness of headphones. Earbuds can’t get the same level of seal that headphones can, though, so if you’re a noise cancellation snob, you’re better off sticking with headphones.

What to consider when buying a pair of headphones

The big thing before any purchase — including headphones — is to consider what you’re going to use them for. Are you going to be using them to listen to music quietly at home? Then it doesn’t really matter if they’re wired headphones or not, since you probably aren’t going to be moving around much. If this is the case, then choosing the best headphones for this scenario really boils down to comfort and sound quality.

However, if you’re heading to the gym or going for a run and want to bring your tunes or a favorite podcast along for the ride, then you might want to consider a wireless option (or perhaps some bone conduction headphones.) Going wireless — even if they’re not true wireless earbuds in the sense that they’re wired together — means you won’t have to worry about wires getting tangled up when you’re working on beating your personal best.

Long battery life is great if you’re planning on using your headphones for hours on end, but how many of us really need to worry about that? As long as there’s enough battery power to cover the daily commute or your average sweat sesh, most users will be fine. Many of the best wireless headphones have a fast charge option, which provides an hour or two of use with just a few minutes of charging. 

Similarly, noise-canceling features will depend on your needs. Passive noise-cancellation is fine if you’re not too worried about zoning out at the gym. If you’re keen to avoid all the background noise on the train or subway to work, however, then active noise-cancellation is a must.

Don’t forget to test a few pairs if you can to help determine fit. As an added bonus, many earbud headphones include tips in a few different sizes to help you get the best fit and sound quality, since every person’s ear is different. 

Do you notice every fine nuance in the music you listen to? Or do you just know what you like? The musically minded will hate budget offerings with weak bass, mids, and highs, but plenty of average users will be just fine with these. If you’re keen on music sounding perfect, expect to pay more.

With the above information in mind, here are some of the best headphones and best earbuds for those looking for great sound at home and on the go.

Helium is often heralded as one of the largest success stories in the Web3 space, even landing a coveted article in The New York Times earlier this year. Since 2019, the decentralized wireless network service, which bills itself as a peer-to-peer network for the Internet of Things, has touted rideshare company Lime as one of its marquee clients, claiming the company uses its service to geolocate rentable escooters. There are numerous mentions of this partnership on its website, along with the presence of Lime’s company logo, and in press coverage with various news outlets.

There’s just one problem: That partnership never really existed.

“Beyond an initial test of its product in 2019, Lime has not had, and does not currently have, a relationship with Helium.” Lime senior director for corporate communications Russell Murphy said to Mashable.

According to Murphy, there was a “brief test of [Helium’s] product that didn’t last beyond a month or two” in the summer of 2019. There has been no contact between Helium and Lime since then. Details surrounding what the test actually entailed are unclear, as Helium’s primary contact at Lime left the company more than two and a half years ago. However, Murphy says that, as a condition of the trial, Lime had requested that its name not be used by Helium in promotional material.

Lime is listed as an active client on Helium’s website.
Credit: Mashable Screenshot

On Helium’s website, Lime is featured prominently, alongside Salesforce, as one of the biggest companies that uses Helium’s service, and certainly the biggest in the IoT space. Beyond merely stating its service “is used by” Lime, Helium also boasts that it is “trusted by” Lime on its “Enterprise” webpage. In a post on Twitter from May 2021, Helium mentions how it is “trusted by users” and, again, includes Lime’s logo on a list of its customers — but curiously omits directly tagging Lime’s Twitter account.

Despite the omnipresence of this supposed partnership, executives at Lime, who were aware of this misrepresentation, had declined to take action, legal or otherwise.

“Helium has been making this claim for years and it is a false claim,” Murphy said.

Now, however, Mashable has learned that Lime is preparing to send a cease and desist to Helium over its use of Lime’s name and logo on its website, and in its marketing.

A tweet from 2021 listed Lime as a client of Helium.
Credit: Mashable Screenshot

Founded in 2013 by CEO Amir Harleem and Napster’s Shawn Fanning, Helium has dubbed itself “The People’s Network.” Ostensibly, Helium is hoping to build a network for Internet of Things devices — basically anything that requires connectivity to the internet, such as smart refrigerators or the Ring doorbell — in places with shoddy or non-existent WiFi, or 5G coverage. Helium’s decentralized model calls for it to expand connectivity through multiple independent devices, rather than depend on a centralized infrastructure.

How does Helium do this? By selling hotspot devices, priced as much as $500 each, to budding investors and hopeful entrepreneurs. The hotspots also act as crypto mining hardware and reward the owners of these devices with Helium’s $HNT token, which it introduced in July 2019, when a user accesses Helium’s network via their hotspot device. $HNT is currently valued at approximately $9.

As of mid-2022, Helium’s wireless network appears to have very few actual customers. Instead, the vast majority of Helium’s revenue comes from individuals that purchase the company’s hotspot devices in hopes that they will earn cryptocurrency when corporations, like Lime, utilize the network service. Helium has used Lime’s image to prove the network has major clients. But, Lime does not use the service.

Lime’s scooters are available in nearly 250 cities around the world. And, according to Lime spokesperson Murphy, the company has now logged more than 300 million rides on its scooters.

Helium has been written about extensively by cryptocurrency-centric outlets, like Coindesk, but has also received mentions in mainstream press outlets, such as Axios. Most recently, in February 2022, Helium and its COO Frank Mong were the subject of a glowing profile in The New York Times by tech columnist Kevin Roose titled “Maybe There’s a Use for Crypto After All.”

Lime was the first of two companies named in the Times article as an example of Helium’s biggest clients.

“Anyone can use the Helium network, although most of its users so far are companies like Lime (which has used Helium to keep tabs on its connected scooters),” wrote Roose. “It’s a real product used by real people and companies every day.”

According to Lime, The New York Times did not reach out to the company to confirm the partnership. Mashable attempted to confirm this but the Times said it does not discuss sourcing. Since the article’s publication, Helium has continued to promote it extensively. Helium CEO Amir Haleem has even pinned a Feb. tweet about the piece to the top of his Twitter profile.

These claims about a supposed Lime partnership are made even more interesting by an August 2020 video webinar interview, uploaded to Helium’s YouTube channel, with Lime’s former central operations manager Eddie Li.

In the video, host Oliver Bruce of the Micromobility Podcast asks Li if Lime ever used Helium’s network. 

“Did Lime ever end up adopting it and putting it out in any of their scooters?” asks Bruce.

“I don’t know now, but I think there was just a lot of projects going down,” explains former Lime employee Li. “After testing with Frank [Mong], there was definitely something that could have been there. But there’s just so much going on at that time…there was just a lot of things that did not come to fruition with Helium.”

COO Mong, who was one of the three people featured on the video podcast along with Bruce and Li, then chimes in. Mong recalled how Li had told him in 2019, when Li was still working at Lime, how Helium’s tracking device wouldn’t work on Lime’s scooters.

“Dude that’s too big, we can’t use that on a scooter,” Mong recalled Li saying. Mong said that by the time Helium was able to get a device small enough for the scooter, Helium no longer had a contact at Lime as Li had exited the company.

Helium COO Frank Mong shows just how big Helium’s tracking device was when Eddie Li (pictured: upper left), formerly of Lime, decided to forgo attaching them to Lime’s escooters.
Credit: Mashable Screenshot

“We still hope we can get back in with Lime,” Mong said in the Aug. 5, 2020 video. According to Lime spokesperson Murphy, Li has not worked at Lime for over two years. And, even though the 2019 test fizzled, Lime remains a central part of Helium’s marketing to this day.

“I believe [Li] was the only person who had any meaningful interaction with Helium,” said Murphy.

In November 2019, on Helium’s official subreddit community on Reddit, Mong was questioned about the Lime partnership by another user in the forum. 

“We have worked with Lime’s operations team in SF and we are in discussions to expand,” he replied. “They are a great group of folks! I’m guessing ‘corporate’ doesn’t know about us because a lot of our original sponsors are no longer at the company.”

While Helium was founded in 2013, its wireless network business model floundered until it introduced the crypto-earning aspect into the service. In July 2019, Helium would start minting its $HNT token and roll out its plan to sell hotspots in return for cryptocurrency rewards. One month earlier, in Helium’s official blog, CEO Haleem would first begin mentioning a relationship with Lime. In one post from June 2019, he specifically categorized Lime as a “partner.”

Helium CEO Amir Haleem reminisces about a testing phase “before we started working with Lime” in an Oct. 2020 tweet.
Credit: Mashable Screenshot

More than a year after that short testing phase in 2019, Helium’s CEO would, once again, post about a relationship with Lime, this time on Twitter. In an Oct. 5, 2020 tweet, Haleem shared how Helium “acquired” Lime scooters off the street in Oakland, CA in order to equip them with the company’s GPS trackers.

“before we started working with @limebike we had to get creative,” Haleem tweeted, insinuating that the two companies’ involvement, which never lasted beyond that initial trial, was still in existence more than a year later.

When reached for comment, a spokesperson for Nova Labs, Helium’s parent company, provided Mashable with the following statement:

“Nova Labs worked with Lime operations out of their San Francisco HQ. They trialed Lime scooters with the Helium Network using LoRaWAN tracking devices to find lost or stolen scooters, and were impressed with the accuracy of the sensors and vast coverage. Lime has since restructured and the team members we worked with are no longer employed there.”

Eddie Li, who has exited the tech industry altogether and is now a restaurateur, told Mashable that while he was employed at Lime he was instructed to “help lower depreciation of scooters and [find] a better way of tracking.”

Li was introduced to Helium COO Mong through a mutual friend and colleague. He confirmed that he was involved in the June 2019 testing phase and did walk away thinking Helium’s tracking tech was “unique” and “pretty accurate.” His manager at Lime was aware of the testing, but he believes knowledge of the trial didn’t go beyond his Central Operations department.

After June 2019, Li said he was moved to a new team within Lime and his contact with Helium ceased. He also confirmed that no contracts were signed and no payment was exchanged during the testing. Li said he’s unsure why Helium would’ve put the Lime logo on its website.

On its “Enterprise” webpage, Helium claims it is “trusted by” Lime.
Credit: Mashable Screenshot

In the Web3 space, Helium has been held up as a “unicorn,” a common VC term to describe a startup company with a value of over $1 billion. The Web3 darling has raised more than $364 million to date from venture capital giants such as Andreessen Horowitz and Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX Ventures at an over billion-dollar valuation.

Andreessen Horowitz called Helium the “fastest growing wireless network ever” when it invested in the company last year. Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian through his VC firm, Seven Seven Six, is also an investor. In March, Helium rebranded its company name to “Nova Labs” in order to differentiate itself from the Helium network service that it runs.

While Helium boasts on its homepage about having sold nearly one million hotspot crypto mining devices to budding entrepreneurs, the actual people using “The People’s Network” have yet to materialize. A recent profile from the tech newsletter The Generalist reported that Helium is only making $6,500 a month from data use on its decentralized wireless network.

Tweet may have been deleted
(opens in a new tab)

Earlier this week, Helium was thrust into the spotlight after a Twitter thread criticizing the company’s business model by angel investor and Web3 skeptic, Liron Shapira, went viral. In the thread, Shapira makes the case that its $6,500 a month revenue shows that there is no customer base for Helium’s wireless service. Instead, Shapira argues, the company’s profit model is actually based around selling the hotspots to speculators who are trying to earn cryptocurrency, thus putting Helium’s business much more in line with a multi-level marketing, or pyramid, scheme.

In response to Shapira’s thread, Helium CEO Haleem and Helium investor Kyle Samani, a partner at the firm Multicoin Capital, confirmed the revenue details.

“The @helium network generates around $2M/mo in fees. most of this is in the form of Hotspot onboarding fees,” tweeted Haleem. He proceeded to confirm the $6,500 per month revenue generated by actual data use.

“I don’t dispute the numbers,” Samani replied.

Along with Helium’s issues with getting customers for its wireless network, Helium’s token — the reward for its hotspot owners — has taken a hit over the past few months. $HNT has now dropped roughly 83 percent from its previous high of just under $53 in Nov. 2021. On Helium’s subreddit, hotspot owners have complained about earnings dropping to as low as $0.10 a month.

“My city is just too overloaded with miners. I make about 0.03$ a day,” one user complained.

“I get like .10 a month so I unplugged that piece of crap,” one hotspot owner said.

In order for those investing in the hotspot devices that Helium sells to profit, Helium needs clients to actively use its wireless service. Having a high-profile list of clients would likely entice those looking for a business opportunity to invest in. Though, having a high-profile list of corporate clients regularly using Helium’s service would likely result in data charges amounting to more than $6,500 a month.

The Web3 wireless network once advertised Nestlé on its website as it said the company’s ReadyRefresh water delivery service utilized Helium. However, Nestlé tells Mashable that it sold off the service along with its regional spring water brands last year. Helium has since removed Nestlé’s logo from its website. Salesforce, a corporation currently featured on Helium’s homepage, did not reply to an inquiry from Mashable about its use of Helium.

Helium also prominently features an Oct. 2021 press release about a partnership with DISH on its website homepage. When tech outlet PCMag (owned by Mashable’s publisher, Ziff Davis) reached out to DISH, the company’s representative confirmed a partnership but seemed confused as to what it actually entailed. DISH also did not respond to an email from Mashable about Helium.

However, it appears that it was clear even to many of Helium’s hotspot customers that Lime was promoted as one of its most prominent clients.

“Other than Lime, what other companies use the Network?,” asked one Reddit user, who had just invested in a Helium mining device, in the company’s official subreddit in May 2020.

“We have a bunch of announcements coming,” replied Helium COO Mong. “New customers, new partnerships, and more! Thanks for your patience. Please sign up for our newsletter and follow us on Twitter @helium and @fmong for breaking news.”

However, Mong failed to mention one important detail: Lime wasn’t and still isn’t a client.

UPDATE: Jul. 29, 2022, 2:11 p.m. EDT This article has been updated with a statement from Helium’s parent company, Nova Labs.

UPDATE: Jul. 29, 2022, 6:01 p.m. EDT This article has been updated with comment from Lime’s former central operations manager, Eddie Li.

Additionally, an update was made to clarify language regarding the $6,500 figure from Helium’s data network. It is revenue not profit.

Technology has changed a lot since you were small. Your kids have probably mastered the features on your iPhone better than you have. So it’s fine to admit it: It’d be kinda sweet if they had something of their own so that your phone wasn’t perpetually doused in mystery slime. But too many restrictions or a hard “no” to devices at all could do more harm than good.

Kids’ tablets could be the healthy balance between giving your kids the access to tech that they want without turning them into the kid having a meltdown over Roblox in the grocery store.

What’s going on in the world of screen time recommendations?

Kids’ tablets go far past keeping them occupied during a long car ride or a boring family gathering.

Screen learning and screen time restrictions are increasingly popular points of study. Months and months of being penned up with little to do but stare at a screen hurled the issue to the forefront of parenting conversations. As it becomes clearer that remote learning and working aren’t wearing off, screen time could become a daily hurdle for more parents than it was pre-pandemic.

Parents’ questions often boil down to “how much is too much?” Though this is rarely met with a definitive answer, recent research can at least shine a light on best practices.

In April 2019, the World Health Organization issued much-anticipated guidelines around screen time for preschool-aged kids: One hour a day is the recommended maximum for children under 5. These suggestions are based on the idea that healthy cognitive development of young kids is built through face-to-face interaction. This lines up with recent research done at Vanderbilt University that suggests toddlers probably won’t learn much from a screen, anyway.

But that learning disconnect often fades by age three. Just as they’re mastering talking, kids are also grasping that the character on the screen represents a real person — and that that person is teaching them something. Dr. Carolyn Jaynes, a learning designer at LeapFrog, explains in an Inc.com article: “This content often uses strategies such as repeating an idea, presenting images and sounds that capture attention, and using child rather than adult voices for the characters.”

Kids are grasping that the character on the screen represents a real person — and that that person is teaching them something.

One project by the Joan Ganz Cooney Center (a non-profit run by the people behind Sesame Street) compared literary assessments of kindergarten through third-grade students who had used tablets at school. The students who used tablets saw higher test scores than those who didn’t use tablets, and they were able to recognize 20% more vocabulary words due to an improved ability to recognize sounds and represent sounds as letters. A 2018 meta-analysis published in the Frontiers in Psychology journal found that the touchscreen learning effect was particularly beneficial for STEM through the memorable real-life experiments that physical swiping can mimic.

Can we blame them? Interacting with content makes for a richer and more memorable experience. It just feels more like playing, and it’s not surprising that kids may be more willing to learn when it doesn’t feel forced. Besides, playing and imagination are the building blocks for creativity and empathy — so playing Toca Boca instead of doing multiplication is still building real-world skills.

Dr. Michael Levine, founder of the Cooney Center, put some perspective on the difference between “learning time” and “mindless time:”

“The idea is not to have parents simply hand these devices over to their kids. Instead, the games and ebooks provide examples of hands-on activities that parents can do with their preschoolers in their kitchens and backyards to promote vocabulary and content knowledge in both languages, which helps build a solid foundation for life-long learning. …Instead of pushing screens away, it’s time to put them to use in a thoroughly modern way.

So yes, tablets are a great learning tool as long as they’re not a kid’s main source of learning. Kids will always need to be comfortable reading print books and doing math by hand. No arguing there. But tablets provide some real opportunities for self-sufficient, interactive learning that kids will definitely utilize in the future of education revolving around laptops.

And sorry, kid-less people on Twitter who vow to never give their future kid a tablet — we can’t hear you over the sound of our uninterrupted Zoom meeting.

Rethink the whole “gaming turns kids into zombies” mindset

There is even less official screen time guidance for adolescents. But one prominent area of interest is socialization.

Your kid who constantly wants to FaceTime a friend or squad up on multiplayer Fortnite might be onto something: A 2021 analysis by researchers at The University of Colorado Boulder uncovered some revealing relationships between social screen time and stronger peer relationships for kids between 9 and 10.

The ability to hold hangout sessions virtually became blindingly crucial in the era of social distancing — but with or without the possibility of meeting up in real life, different types of gaming and online hangouts (from the typical console or computer gaming, to live streams on Twitch, to VR) are essentially cemented as part of the modern growing up experience. And when not relied on as the only means of bonding, they can be legitimate socialization tools.

Video games, texting, and social media haven’t shaken the negative side effects that quickly come to mind. But the analysis mentions that these loose correlations aren’t necessarily causal, and that this study’s findings in particular don’t send a red flag that screen time effects are important at a clinical level.

How to choose the right tablet for your kid

Most tablets made specifically for kids will already be equipped with built-in parent accounts, timers, and pre-selected websites or apps that fall under appropriate age groups. Easy enough.

General-purpose tablets aren’t a bad choice at all — many sites name the iPad as one of the best tablets for kids even though it’s technically for everyone. You’ll need to get creative to build a similar guidance net to the built-in parental controls that tablets specifically for kids bank on. Apple and Android have settings that can filter content or prevent purchases, but play-by-play supervision can be better achieved through a legit parental control app for iPads or Android tablets.

Osmo is a neat iPad and Fire Tablet snap-on that can make the family tablet more kid-friendly. Moving a piece in real life moves it on screen, creating a cool mashup of your typical tablet game, hand-eye coordination, and problem-solving. Subjects include numbers, words, tangram, and art, plus extra packs for stuff like STEM or business-related math through a subject everyone cares about: pizza.

Credit: osmo

Things to consider when shopping for a kids’ tablet:

• Screen resolution: Deciding whether HD, HD, or FHD will suffice depends on the number of movies they’ll watch or games they’ll play. 4K is probably unnecessary fluff.

• Storage: They’ll probably have more apps than you do, and may need space for downloads like offline Disney+ movies, music, or some books for school.

• The intensity of parental controls: It’s less panic-inducing to send your kid off with a tablet when you don’t have to guess what content they’re absorbing.

• Rugged-ness: Because kids are as destructive as they are adorable and you’ll definitely feel better with a case that can handle some abuse.

Here are the best tablets to get for your kids in 2022:

Finding your soulmate is priceless. Sure. But do you have to use a paid site to find a real relationship? Does a monthly fee really weed out people who aren’t taking the process seriously?

This wasn’t really an issue before 2012, but the Tinder-led surge of 30-second profiles and instant access to all single folks within 10 miles gave older sites with tedious personality analyses and upscale subscriptions a run for their money — literally.

Vox said what we’re all really thinking: “At what point in the completely nightmarish process of online dating does one decide that it’s worth spending money on making that experience slightly less terrible?”

Is it worth paying for a dating site?

According to Reddit and Consumer Reports, not really. This Consumer Reports survey found that free sites actually scored better than paid sites on this when it came to overall satisfaction because they’re “better value.” Unless you’re absolutely lost without those heavy-duty matchmaking algorithms, many free sites still offer the questionnaires, detailed bios, and compatibility ratings that indicate red flags and users you wouldn’t get along with.

There’s no one dating site that everyone is particularly psyched about. Swiping exhaustion and creepily persistent users are an omnipresent part of all online dating. Sorry, but a paid subscription isn’t a metal detector that pulls all of the upstanding, faithful singles up out of the crowd. When there are sites that can offer millions of users for free and success stories to prove they work, why not try them before spending $40 per month elsewhere?

A hefty price point doesn’t guarantee the absence of fakes or catfishes, either. (Before the Tinder Swindler hype, in 2019, some guy on match posed as a millionaire and stole $80,000 from the woman he was talking to. In 2020, money lost to online “romance scams” hit a record high.) For what it’s worth however, many free sites are just as big as paid ones on privacy and safety, requiring users to verify themselves through Facebook to increase transparency about age and first names. Plus, no paid sites have the safety features that Tinder does, which was the first of the Match Group apps to offer 911 assistance and location services to make meeting a stranger safer.

The aesthetic experience certainly isn’t what your money is going toward, either. Many of the older, subscription-based sites have been slow to modernize their UX designs, still relying on the very 2000s style of bombarding you with notifications for every wink, message, and whatever else.

Can you actually fall in love with someone online?

We’ve all accepted that online dating is great for finding a friend with benefits, but telling family members that it’s getting serious with that person you met online still takes convincing. However, recent studies show that meeting online can foster a pretty reliable romantic foundation.

A 2017 study cited in the MIT Technology Review found that people who meet online are more likely to be compatible and have a better chance at a healthy marriage if they decide to get hitched. Another study found that heterosexual couples who met online were quicker to tie the knot. These stats don’t take anything from correlation to causation, but they do make the case that people who sign up for dating sites that require thoughtful responses are in a better spot to settle down.

There’s an unspoken assumption that people on free dating sites are young, horny people with no disposable income and that people on paid dating sites are mature, employed individuals who are ready to settle down. But nowadays, eharmony, Match, Tinder, and OkCupid have rather similar age demographics, all with surprisingly close splits between people in their 20s, 30s, and 40s.

Which dating sites are actually free?

Waters get muddied when basically every damn dating site has some sort of paid and free version. Truly free apps let users access its key features as a baseline, and then offer paid perks such as the ability to see everyone who has swiped right on you or boosts for your profile for a certain amount of time. Free-but-not-really apps are the ones that are technically free to use, but where you have to pay to do just about anything, including read or respond to messages.

Premium memberships of “freemium” apps are an affordable way to get more control over your pool of potential boos, but they probably don’t do much to expedite the grueling swiping process. When Tinder first released Tinder Gold, it beat out Candy Crush as the Apple Store’s top-grossing app. People were that willing to pay to see who swiped right on them. That might be handy knowledge if you’re looking to get laid, but it’s hard to tell if it would help find someone that you like enough to share your life with. No one I know has kept a paid version of a free app for more than a month.

At any rate, there’s a certain serendipitous feeling that comes with the possibility that, out of the millions of users Hinge could have shown you that day, your soulmate popped up in the crowd of 8 likes you can give out per day (compared to the unlimited likes that come with Hinge Preferred).

These are the best free dating sites for finding a serious relationship in 2022.

Looking for a portable camping grill to fuel your next outdoor adventure? These Cuisinart deals at Amazon will save you up to 45% as of July 29:

• The Cuisinart CGG-180TS Petit Gourmet Portable Gas Grill is a stainless steel tabletop grill with 145 square inches of cooking space — $94.78 $139.99 (save $45.21)

• The Cuisinart CCG190RB Portable Charcoal Grill is a personal charcoal grill that weighs just two pounds — $21.93 $39.99 (save $18.06)

A proper cooking setup can completely transform your next camping adventure. Well-fed campers are happy campers, after all.

While roasting hot dogs over a fire pit can be a fun tradition, it’s hardly the best source of nourishment. Cook some actual meals on your next trip with a portable camping grill instead. Amazon has a few Cuisinart grills and some grilling accessories on sale.

Check out the full list of products.

Cuisinart CGG-180TS Petit Gourmet Portable Gas Grill — $94.78 (save $45.21)

Got a big group? The Petit Gourmet gas grill from Cuisinart has a spacious cooking surface that can accommodate lots of food at once (eight steaks, eight burgers, up to 10 chicken breasts, or four pounds of fish). It only weighs 17 pounds and has durable folding legs, making it easy to transport and easy to set up and pack away.

Cuisinart CCG190RB Portable Charcoal Grill — $21.93 (save $18.06)

This portable charcoal grill from Cuisinart weighs in at only two pounds and is better suited for an individual or a smaller group. It’s nothing fancy, but in terms of bang for your buck, this little red grill takes the cake.

TikTok creator Chef Pii (@chef.pii) is the connoisseur behind a mysterious pink sauce that has taken over the Internet, seeping into both discourse and memes. The saga is as enigmatic as the so-called sauce, one that internet sleuths and users alike have put into question. So what’s going on?

The pink sauce fever

The TikTok chef began promoting the pink sauce sometime in June, slowly releasing a string of videos featuring the sauce, trying it with different foods, and displaying the packaging. The sauce is priced at $20 and quickly became a craze. But this is largely because Chef Pii refused to share how exactly the sauce tasted. She often had other reviewers do so, but provided cryptic answers herself.

The obscurity of the sauce and its true flavor had commenters digging deep: Questions ran from “What is it exactly?” to “What herbs are in the pink sauce?”. People also began to point out that the color of the sauce shifted with each new video. From millennial pink to a Barbie-esque hue, the sauce never appeared consistent, according to The Internet.

In late June, Chef Pii even released a TikTok addressing that concern, chalking up different colors to the respective lighting in each of her videos. A day later, she revealed the ingredients within the sauce, posting a graphic outlining each of them: dragon fruit, sunflower seed oil, honey, chilli and garlic.

Nutritional labels – and errors

Creator @sseaansvv sparked further questions yesterday, delving into the pink sauce saga and releasing multiple, detailed videos about the creation of the sauce and the drama that ensued. The TikTokker called out “Pink Sauce Lady” for errors in her nutritional label and how hard it was to discover the label on her website.

They also said that “there are not enough preservatives” within the sauce “to make shelf stable”, or foods that can safely stay within a pantry for at least year without having to be cooked or refrigerated.

Credit: Screenshot: TikTok / @sseaansvv.

In the caption for his second video, Sean SVV wrote, “I’m genuinely rooting for her to obtain a license, fix the labels, correct any errors and then sell out — legally”.

TikTokker @annareportsnews also posted a video the same day, marking the serving size per container as unrealistic and denoting that the label doesn’t say the sauce needs to be refrigerated.

The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) requires manufacturers of dressing and condiments to obtain food facility registration. Standards set by the FDA include labeling, testing methodology, manufacturing practices, and scientific protocols. In April 2022, the guidelines for nutritional fact labels on food and drink products was updated for the first time in 20 years. Serving size is amongst the updates for the label. The FDA now emphasizes the information in bigger and bolder font, and requires the number to “better reflect the amount people typically eat and drink today”.

However, the FDA doesn’t have pre-market approval for food products.

Following these videos – and consequential internet mania – Chef Pii addressed her followers in a video captioned “WE ARE FIXING THE ISSUES”.

Credit: Screenshot: TikTok / @chef.pii.

She apologized for the label errors (“I’m only human”), and stressed that the nutritional labels will be fixed for all future bottles of the sauce purchased. She also said she appreciates the support her sauce has received, that she is operating a small business, and that she is trying to lower the price of the sauce.

The nutritional label is also readily available for viewing on her site now, which previously didn’t seem to be the case.

“Yes, we are following FDA standard,” she continued in the video, stressing that the product is still in “lab testing”. Chef Pii concluded by speaking of her ambition to place the sauce in stores.

Twitter memes keep coming in

The Internet has become somewhat obsessed with the pink sauce in the past 24 hours. People are posting everything from memes to analysis, while others are simply expressing the desire to try the sauce. On Twitter, “Pink Sauce” is currently trending.

Tweet may have been deleted
(opens in a new tab)

Tweet may have been deleted
(opens in a new tab)

Tweet may have been deleted
(opens in a new tab)

Tweet may have been deleted
(opens in a new tab)

Tweet may have been deleted
(opens in a new tab)

Even Netflix has posted about the sauce, becoming another brand to stay on top of viral (and random?) digital trends. The pink sauce really did take over. It’s a testament to the faster-than-ever trend cycle that we now deal with – but also the Internet’s affinity for uncovering “mysteries”, no matter how small.

Tweet may have been deleted
(opens in a new tab)

But the tale doesn’t end there.

Last week, Chef Pii took to Instagram Live, YouTube, and (of course) TikTok to address users’ concerns multiple times over the past week. Her 52-minute YouTube video garnered over 60,000 views. She also spoke to multiple media outlets, including Buzzfeed, NBC and the Washington Post, defending her creation and discussing her newfound fame-slash-notoriety.

Notably, during her live session on Instagram, she said, “What do you mean FDA-approved? I don’t sell medical products. The Pink Sauce is not a medical product. The Pink Sauce don’t contribute to your health.”

That response got Twitter stirring once again, causing “F in FDA” to trend across the app.

Tweet may have been deleted
(opens in a new tab)

Tweet may have been deleted
(opens in a new tab)

On July 27, all pink sauce customers were sent an official email with new terms and conditions. According to Vice, the email read, “Dear Pink Sauce Supporters, we are working to overcome all issues. With the surrounding allegations and claims against the Pink Sauce, we want to take the time to ensure each customers safety. We are working, meticulously, to ensure we have no further delays in shipment.”

Chef Pii continued, explaining that she is now cooperating with the FDA and the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, saying she is awaiting on official approval for the sauce and updating the packaging to ensure “preciseness”.

UPDATE: Jul. 29, 2022, 3:57 p.m. EDT Added details about Chef Pii’s responses on social media and to media outlets.