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Surfshark VPN Starter Plan: 3-Yr Subscription

TL;DR: Improve your cybersecurity with just a few taps with this threre-year subscription to Surfshark VPN Starter Plan, on sale now for just $67.19 (reg. $430) with code SAVE20 until Sept. 30.

Surfshark VPN Starter Plan: 3-Yr Subscription
Credit: Surfshark

The office isn’t always an actual office these days. From taking meetings at a coffee shop to tackling things at a coworking space or signing on from an airport lounge, work happens wherever life takes you. But if you’re signing on to public WiFi, you probably don’t realize how important it is for your connection to be secure.

SurfShark VPN makes it easy to keep your data secure and your activities private. And right now, you can lock in a three-year subscription for just $67.19 with code SAVE20 until Sept. 30.

The scary thing about cybercrime is that you don’t have any warning. So when you sign on to public WiFi, you have no idea if your data is compromised or if you’re being tracked. Surfshark VPN serves as a great first line of defense, keeping you safer online wherever you go.

Surfshark VPN provides military-grade AES-256 encryption that protects your data and your online location to help prevent you from being tracked. A no-logging privacy policy takes things one step further, as the company itself doesn’t keep any tabs on your activity.

Not only does the VPN keep you safe from hackers, but it also lets you bypass geographical restrictions and watch content freely. Choose from over 3,200 servers worldwide across 100 countries. Need to share your real location on a certain app? A bypass feature makes that easy when needed.

This VPN gives you an added perk of access to Surfshark Search, a search engine that keeps your searches private and provides unbiased, organic search results. There’s also a kill switch that disables your internet connection at the system level if your VPN drops.

Secure this three-year subscription to Surfshark VPN Starter Plan for just $67.19 with code SAVE20 now through Sept. 30.

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Not the day you're after? Here's the solution to yesterday's Connections.



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Close-up of a person's hand holding a smartphone displaying opening screen for the Kalshi app

Kalshi lost another round Friday in its fight over whether states can treat prediction markets as gambling. A three-judge panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati ruled that Ohio and Tennessee can apply their gambling laws to Kalshi's event contracts, Reuters reported.

Kalshi's central argument is that its sports contracts are "swaps," financial products that fall under the CFTC's exclusive oversight rather than state gambling rules. The court rejected that.

SEE ALSO: Polymarket and Kalshi face possible regulation as Supreme Court 'monitors the situation'

Writing for the panel, Circuit Judge Julia Smith Gibbons said swaps generally refer to financial instruments used to hedge risk, not gaming-related contracts. She added that regulating gambling is a core part of a state's police power, and that the federal Commodity Exchange Act does not override Ohio's or Tennessee's gambling laws, according to Reuters.

Gibbons also questioned how betting on the number of corner kicks in a soccer match, or on a long-shot parlay, serves the federal law's goal of helping people manage financial risk.

The ruling overturned a preliminary injunction that had barred Tennessee from enforcing its gambling laws against Kalshi. It also upheld a lower court's refusal to grant Kalshi a similar injunction in Ohio. Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti called the decision a "great win" for the state. Kalshi said it expects the ruling to be overturned.

The unanimous decision deepens a split among federal appeals courts over who gets to regulate the fast-growing industry: individual states or the federal Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). A split among appeals courts often makes Supreme Court review more likely, but there's no guarantee.

SCOTUS receives thousands of petitions a year and agrees to hear very few. Similar cases are pending in Connecticut, New York, Arizona, Minnesota, and other states.



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Jolly, the mascot for the Muse AI agent, during the Meta Connect event in Menlo Park, California, US, on Thursday, Sept. 24, 2026.

You can already ask Spotify’s AI to make you a playlist. But Meta’s new personal agent, Muse, wants to know what you’re doing with it. An example? Tell Muse about an upcoming road trip, and it can make a playlist inspired by your destination — then start playing it when it’s time to leave.

That’s the idea behind Spotify’s connection to Muse. In a blog post Wednesday, the company said: "Your agent can play music on Spotify, save songs to your Library, build playlists, help you find a book or podcast." You just have to link your Spotify account and ask.

Screenshot of Spotify’s Muse announcement, showing a fuzzy beige mascot in green headphones holding the Spotify logo beside the headline “Get Even More Out of Spotify With Muse, From Meta.”
Credit: Screenshot/Spotify Newsroom

And the road trip is only one example. Muse can pick up the podcast you left unfinished this morning, put your dinner playlist on a connected kitchen speaker, or find new songs and add them to a playlist. It can also turn your notes and daily briefings into a Personal Podcast saved to your Spotify Library. If you run every morning at 7 a.m., you can even ask it to start your workout playlist right on schedule.

SEE ALSO: 10 ways to use Meta's Muse AI app, from flight credits to outfit ideas

Spotify is just one of several services Muse can work with. The agent also connects with Ticketmaster to help you find live events and Plaid to link your financial accounts. That’s the bigger vision behind Muse: You tell the agent what you’re planning once, and it handles everything across all the services you need—no need for you to jump between apps or platforms.

All AI agents carry some security risks, including Meta Muse AI, so be thoughtful before turning over control of apps, devices, and financial information.

Doesn’t Spotify already have AI for this?

Yes, and quite a bit of it. Prompted Playlist makes a mix from a written request, while Talk to Spotify lets eligible Premium users speak or type to choose what plays inside the Spotify app. Spotify also expanded Taste Profile in the U.S. this week, giving eligible Premium users a way to tell the app more about what they want in their recommendations.

SEE ALSO: Spotify launches AI chatbot for music and listening history

Spotify also already works with ChatGPT, where you can ask for recommendations without opening the music app. Muse goes a step further by coordinating playback with your schedule. If it gets the timing and the music right, you might forget you ever had to make a playlist for the commute. If it gets either wrong, at least you still know where the play button is...for now.



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Singer Taylor Swift attends Game Three between the New York Knicks and the Cleveland Cavaliers in the NBA Eastern Conference Finals at Rocket Arena on May 23, 2026 in Cleveland, Ohio

For Swifties, a new Taylor Swift song is rarely just a new song. It’s more of an invitation to revisit old interviews, scan the lyrics for familiar details, and ask who might have been in the room — or at least in her life — when she wrote it.

"Patient Zero," released Friday, Sept. 25, has given fans a fresh case. The song imagines a woman hearing from someone who is now dating her ex, and one theory keeps coming up: Could Swift be singing about Sophie Turner and Joe Jonas?

As Mashable covered earlier this week, fans were decoding clues before they even knew what Swift was announcing. She swapped the O’s in her Instagram bio for zeroes, put a countdown on her website, and gave everyone another reason to scrutinize her Emmys appearance. On Sept. 22, she revealed "Patient Zero." A day later, she announced that it was one of four new songs on The Life of a Showgirl: The Encore, an expanded version of her 2025 album.

That announcement got a mixed reaction from fans: Some were thrilled to get more music, while others weren’t eager for an encore of an album they hadn’t loved the first time around. The three other new songs are "Cleveland!," "Pink Clouding," and "Babylon." Swift said she wrote them during a trip to Sweden with Max Martin and Shellback, her collaborators on The Life of a Showgirl, 1989, and Reputation.

Now that the song is out, Swift has explained the conversation that gave her the idea for it. In comments shared with Capital FM, she said:

"I was hanging out with a bunch of friends, and one of my friends told us that she had been reached out to by the new girlfriend of an ex of hers, asking for guidance on if she had had the same experiences with this guy that this new girlfriend was having."

But Swifties have looked deeper, as they do, and some think they know which ex — and which woman — might be behind the song.

Why fans think it’s about Sophie Turner and Joe Jonas

The song begins with Swift’s narrator answering a call, saying "I’ve been expecting your call." She continues, singing,

"If you wanna party with somebody who might know, About the devil on his shoulder under his halo, When the toxins take their hold, you'd rather die than let it go, But if you're sick of him, I got you, I was patient zero."

For some fans, Swift’s history with Sophie Turner and Joe Jonas makes them an obvious possibility. Swift briefly dated Jonas in 2008 and later said their breakup inspired "Forever & Always." Fans also widely linked her Fearless vault track "Mr. Perfectly Fine" to Jonas when it came out in 2021. Turner, who was married to him at the time, shared that song on Instagram with the review: "It’s not NOT a bop."

Then, in 2023, after Jonas filed for divorce from Turner, Swift and Turner were spotted having dinner together. Turner later told British Vogue that she’d reached out to Swift while looking for a place to stay in New York, and Swift offered her one of her homes for free. Turner called Swift "an absolute hero" during that period.

You can see why fans connected those dots. In the r/TaylorSwift discussion thread, one listener wrote, "I’m firmly in the camp that this is Sophie Turner and Joe Jonas inspired." Another said, "Sophie and Joe?!?," but added that it could also be a fictional story informed by several of Swift’s experiences.

Other fans aren’t convinced there’s one couple to identify. "I think it has references to more than one of her exes," one commenter wrote, reading the song more generally as an offer of support to someone dealing with a difficult relationship.

Of course, the theory remains unconfirmed. Swift said the song began with a friend hearing from an ex’s new girlfriend. The publicly known Swift–Turner story is different, since Turner reached out to Swift for help after her marriage ended. Maybe their history found its way into the song anyway, but for now, the rest of us are basically in that group of friends, comparing notes and trying to figure out who the call was about.



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A screenshot of a marching band in 'Family Guy.'

A new TikTok trending audio has people humorously complaining about others "blockin' the street" and preventing them from getting where they need to go.

The audio originated in Family Guy Season 15 Episode 18, "The Peter Principal," which first aired in 2017. In this episode, humanoid dog Brian recalls being hindered by a marching band while attempting to deliver pizza for his previous job. A cutaway gag shows the sizable band singing that they are "blockin' the street" as they gradually make their way down a long road, obstructing Brian's path despite his gripes about needing to deliver the pizza in under 30 minutes.

Nearly a decade later, TikTok users are using the earworm to illustrate the frustration of being physically hindered from getting to their destination, typically by others thoughtlessly monopolizing a thoroughfare. In one example viewed 2.5 million times, @karoline.io used the song to convey "how it feels living in a tourist town" when visitors block the road while she's driving. Over 11,000 TikTok videos have used the audio, featuring everything from traffic jams, to concert crowds, and even some marching band culprits joining in, with sentiments ranging from irritation to good-natured ribbing.

Pet owners have used the audio to great effect, particularly to score clips of cats becoming tripping hazards at feeding time. A video by @ambiedpambied that shows her three cats gathering at her feet has racked up 2.8 million views, while @kopikat’s amusing animation of a similar dilemma has gained 1.3 million.

Other animals have also inspired use of the song, with @bays.irishcream's video of a herd of sheep in a road earning 1.1 million views, and @caitlindoes' clip of a cyclist with a huge pack of dogs gaining 4.1 million views. But even a single pet can block the proverbial street, with 2.6 million views on @soph86482's "big dog with no spatial awareness," 1.2 million on @fatherbattisto's "one fat old dog," and 2 million on @toria_56's extremely underfoot cat. 

The song is further being used to caption film and television scenes in which groups of people stand — or dance — in a street. While such scenes make sense and can even be dramatic in context, adding this commentary invites viewers to consider how ridiculous and unnecessary such posturing would seem to outsiders, as well as how annoying it would be to people trying to go about their day.

In one edit viewed 2.3 million times, @poogyus set the song to sped-up footage of BTS' crosswalk concert, filmed for The Late Late Show with James Corden in 2021. In the segment, the K-pop group ran out during red traffic lights to quickly perform songs including "Butter" in an L.A. street.

While primarily applied to physical obstacles, Family Guy's "blockin' the street" song has also been used to illustrate grievances such as encountering obstacles while working or having certain characters insistently impose themselves in a book. Considering the catchy nature of the tune and the abundance of hindrances we all encounter every day, there seems to be plenty of fuel for this trend.



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Discord in App Store

Back in early February, popular messaging app Discord announced that it would roll out age verification in order to keep its teenage users safe on the platform. By the end of the month, after facing significant backlash, Discord announced that it would be pausing that rollout while addressing some of the issues.

According to Discord, those age verification checks will now be rolling out.

Discord has launched a system that already estimates users' ages based on several factors, such as general activity levels, communities and servers joined, games that an account is connected to, and how old a user account is.

The company has also assured users that no messages, calls, or other content have been analyzed to make an age determination.

SEE ALSO: Discord defaults to teen experience for all users

Discord must believe in its model, as the company says that 90 percent of its users will not have to do or change a thing. However, Discord knows that mistakes will be made. The company says that any user can check the age group they've been assigned to by going to User Settings and checking Account Status. 

The main backlash against Discord's age verification system centered on the privacy and security concerns that came with the facial age estimation and ID upload methods. Discord says that if a user has to verify their age, there are now additional methods to do so that don't require facial age estimation or ID verification. These alternative methods include a credit card authorization, allowing the Apple App Store or Google Play Store to share a user's age range, a Google Wallet confirmation, or an AgeKey credential.

Adult users on Discord will notice no changes to how the platform works. Teenage users will still be able to message friends, join voice calls, and join non-age-restricted servers. However, age-restricted content and spaces will be blocked. In addition, extra safety protections have been added in cases where a non-friend attempts to message a teenage user.

Discord says it has already launched age verification checks in places like Texas, where it's required, and wants to get ahead of age verification laws as they expand globally.



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Nibble All-Around Knowledge App (5-Yr Subscription)

TL;DR: Learn new things in your spare time with this five-year subscription to Nibble All-Around Knowledge App, on sale for just $49.99 (reg. $449.95).

Nibble All-Around Knowledge App (5-Yr Subscription)
Credit: Nibble

Your phone doesn’t have to be a black hole of time-wasting. If you’ve got the right apps, you can turn your spare time into something way more productive. The Nibble All-Around Knowledge App serves up bite-sized lessons that help you learn something new during your morning commute, on your lunch break, or in line at the grocery store.

Right now, you can snag a five-year subscription to Nibble All-Around Knowledge App for just $49.99.

Make your phone time more productive

If you think you don’t have time to learn something new, think again. The Nibble All-Around Knowledge app was designed for today’s busy schedules, offering bite-sized lessons that teach you new things in just ten minutes.

Work on your self-improvement on the go with these handy audio episodes you can listen to anytime. The app is filled with lessons on over 20 topics, from art and AI to history and personal finance, so you can pick something you’ve been meaning to dive into.

Nibble’s flexible learning paths let you choose between a guided learning journey or hopping around depending on your mood. After you listen to lessons, explore the topic further with interactive AI experiences, such as chatting with historical figures. There are also learning games to see how much you’ve retained.

Nibble offers app and web access, and your account tracks your progress so you can access it easily across devices. This five-year subscription gives you unlimited library access, and you’ll never run out of lessons thanks to new content being added every month.

Snag a five-year subscription to Nibble All-Around Knowledge App for just $49.99.

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