A blog about Technology, new invention and ways of looking.
If you like playing daily word games like Wordle, then Hurdle is a great game to add to your routine.
There are five rounds to the game. The first round sees you trying to guess the word, with correct, misplaced, and incorrect letters shown in each guess. If you guess the correct answer, it'll take you to the next hurdle, providing the answer to the last hurdle as your first guess. This can give you several clues or none, depending on the words. For the final hurdle, every correct answer from previous hurdles is shown, with correct and misplaced letters clearly shown.
An important note is that the number of times a letter is highlighted from previous guesses does necessarily indicate the number of times that letter appears in the final hurdle.
If you find yourself stuck at any step of today's Hurdle, don't worry! We have you covered.
A blog about Technology, new invention and ways of looking.
TL;DR: This refurbished 2017 MacBook Air is on sale for $199.97 (reg. $999), offering a reliable Apple laptop for work, school, and everyday use at a fraction of its original price.
If your laptop needs revolve around work, school, streaming, or general day-to-day browsing, this new-to-you MacBook Air still checks a lot of boxes. Sure, it’s a 2017 model, but it remains a dependable machine for common tasks like writing papers, answering emails, attending video calls, and managing spreadsheets.
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It may not have an M-series chip under the hood, but it runs on an Intel Core i5 processor, which still delivers solid performance for multitasking. You can have multiple tabs open, switch between apps, and handle routine workloads without constant lag. Paired with reliable Wi-Fi connectivity, it’s capable of keeping up with both planned work and last-minute tasks.
The 13.3-inch widescreen display offers a 1440×900 native resolution, supported by Intel HD Graphics 6000. That’s perfect for streaming shows and movies, casual photo editing, and even light video work. While it’s not built for heavy creative workloads, it holds up well for your day-to-day.
Storage comes in at 128GB via SSD, which helps the system boot quickly and keeps apps running efficiently. While that number may sound paltry, it’s enough for tens of thousands of photos, thousands of songs, and plenty of documents. If you’re relying largely on cloud storage anyway, it’s more than enough.
The battery life isn’t something to scoff at, either. It can last up to 12 hours on a single charge, making it easy to use throughout the day without constantly hunting for an outlet.
This unit carries a Grade A/B refurbished rating, meaning it may show light cosmetic wear like small scratches or scuffs, but it’s fully functional and tested for reliability.
A blog about Technology, new invention and ways of looking.
CES is normally a place for big tech news, but this year's show could add a dash of political intrigue to the mix.
At 11 a.m. on Thursday in Las Vegas, the annual Consumer Electronics Show will act as the venue for a "fireside chat" between Consumer Technology Association CEO Gary Shapiro, FCC chairman Brendan Carr, and FTC chairman Andrew Ferguson. Carr's involvement is key here because the FCC recently banned the sale of drones from the Chinese firm DJI, which manufactures a large majority of consumer drones on the market.
The big question here is will Carr address the DJI drone ban at CES? It would certainly be an appropriate venue for it, given the tech-focused nature of the event. However, the description of the fireside chat is incredibly vague, promising only "candid conversations on how [the FCC and FTC] are navigating the rapidly changing tech landscape." There's no mention of a Q&A or anything like that, so it's very possible that the topics of conversation will steer clear of anything potentially controversial. We will have to wait and see.
In case you haven't been following the news, the momentum towards a total ban on DJI drones in the United States started last year as part of the Trump administration's trade war with China. The government required all Chinese-manufactured drones to undergo a "national security risk assessment" by late December. Unfortunately for DJI, late December came and the ban went into place.
For its part, DJI agreed to take part in audits, but apparently that wasn't enough for the FCC. Again, it's not certain if Carr will or won't address the ban at CES, but in case you're curious how he feels about it, he provided a statement at the time of the ban that might say everything you need to know.
"President Trump has been clear that his Administration will act to secure our airspace and unleash American drone dominance," Carr said.
A blog about Technology, new invention and ways of looking.
There's a new pair of AI-powered AR glasses on the block — the Pickle 1. According to Pickle Inc., these AR glasses use cameras, microphones, sensors, and artificial intelligence to observe, remember, and even anticipate a user's daily life. It's intended to function as part traditional wearable, part AI companion. After learning about you, the Pickle 1 glasses will then serve up real-time information, reminders, and suggestions, according to Digit.
And here's how Pickle Inc. describes its futuristic AR glasses on its website: "For a life better in every dimension, we need an intelligence that sees with you, remembers your life, and learns to understand you. A new soul."
Giving birth to a new soul is a big enough claim on its own, but the promo video for the Pickle AR glasses also shows a level of augmented reality that's far ahead of brands like Meta and Xreal, which already make AR glasses.
So, for many social media users, the early videos and concept images of the glasses simply seem too good to be true. The Pickle Glasses are reminiscent of Iron Man's AI-powered visual display, and some experts say that users should be very skeptical while the product is still in development. The Pickle website states that users can put down a $200 deposit to preorder the Pickle 1, with deliveries starting in the second quarter of 2026.
"As someone who worked in AR/VR for over a decade please listen. The @pickle glasses are not real. It’s literally just a mold of glasses made in China," one user wrote on X. "The technology for AR glasses in this form factor isn’t possible yet. Not even Meta or Apple has glasses like this. 100% fake."
"For context on how insanely fake this is: Xreal is one of the leading AR glasses companies on Earth. Their flagship glasses model (Xreal One) without any cameras, compute, or battery weigh more than Pickle claims their 'full AR' glasses with 4 cameras do," another user posted.
Whether the glasses are up to the hype or not, it might be best to wait until they come out and reviewers can get their hands on them before putting down the $200 deposit — or at least until we see an actual product demo.
A blog about Technology, new invention and ways of looking.
If you like playing daily word games like Wordle, then Hurdle is a great game to add to your routine.
There are five rounds to the game. The first round sees you trying to guess the word, with correct, misplaced, and incorrect letters shown in each guess. If you guess the correct answer, it'll take you to the next hurdle, providing the answer to the last hurdle as your first guess. This can give you several clues or none, depending on the words. For the final hurdle, every correct answer from previous hurdles is shown, with correct and misplaced letters clearly shown.
An important note is that the number of times a letter is highlighted from previous guesses does necessarily indicate the number of times that letter appears in the final hurdle.
If you find yourself stuck at any step of today's Hurdle, don't worry! We have you covered.
A blog about Technology, new invention and ways of looking.
Fans of the 1930s character Betty Boop can rejoice as a precursor of the iconic cartoon is now in the public domain, as of Jan. 1, 2026.
That means anyone can adapt that specific version of Betty Boop, which appeared in the Dizzy Dishes cartoon, into their own creative work without being subject to copyright laws.
This version of Betty Boop featured her characteristic large eyes and pout but also had elongated dog ears. Her romantic interest at the time was a dog chef, hence her surreal canine appearance.
In 2026, Betty Boop is joined in the public domain by other popular characters, books, films, and songs, including new Mickey Mouse cartoons and comics; the Blondie comic strip characters Blondie and Dagwood; William Faulkner's novel As I Lay Dying, the illustrated version of Watty Piper's children's book The Little Engine That Could; the film All Quiet on the Western Front; and the standards "Dream a Little Dream of Me" and "Georgia on My Mind," previously recorded by famous acts like The Mamas & the Papas and Ray Charles, respectively.
These and other creative works now in the public domain can be used without permission or payment. However, people should pay close attention to what version of the work is eligible for use.
Fleischer Studios, which appears to own the copyright to the fully developed Betty Boop character, pointed out that the expiration of that copyright does not apply to other Betty Boop copyrights and trademarks still in effect.
While nine early Mickey Mouse cartoons are now in the public domain, the Mickey Mouse character is still subject to enduring rights. (For more on these legal complexities, check out Mashable's story on the arrival of Popeye to the public domain in 2025.)
A blog about Technology, new invention and ways of looking.
When Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri looks into the rapidly approaching future of AI-generated content, he sees a massive problem: how to tell authentic media apart from the kind made with AI technology.
In a recent Threadspost on the topic, Mosseri said that social media platforms like Instagram will be under mounting pressure to help users tell the difference. Mosseri argued that major platforms will initially succeed at spotting and labeling AI content, but that they'll begin to falter as AI imitates reality with more precision.
"There is already a growing number of people who believe, as I do, that it will be more practical to fingerprint real media than fake media," Mosseri wrote.
That "fingerprint" could be created from within cameras themselves, if their manufacturers "cryptographically sign images at capture, creating a chain of custody."
"We need to label AI-generated content clearly, and work with manufacturers to verify authenticity at capture — fingerprinting real media, not just chasing fake," Mosseri added.
Such labeling could help people navigate the AI slop that's flooding the internet. (Mashable's Tim Marcin has explained how we got to this moment.)
Mosseri also wrote that identifying the authenticity of creator content will shape the way people relate to that media: "We need to surface credibility signals about who's posting so people can decide who to trust."
