Technology

The titleholder for most powerful robot vacuum evolves every six months or so as the top robot vacuum brands throw an elevated new flagship into the ring. For most of 2025, the suction power number to beat was 22,000 Pa (Pascals) — but in August 2025, the Dreame Aqua10 Ultra Roller became the new apex robot vacuum with its 30,000 Pa of suction power (among other noteworthy upgrades).

Though I currently serve as president of the Roborock Saros 10R fan club, that vacuum has been out for nearly 10 months now. It was only a matter of time before a new darling came through my doors to upstage it as the best robot vacuum to buy right now, and on paper, the Dreame Aqua10 Ultra Roller's specs are definitely superior. I've been testing it at home for a week and have some initial results to share with the class.

Dreame Aqua10 Ultra Roller $1,279.99 at Amazon
$1,599.99 Save $320   Shop Now at Amazon Shop Now at Amazon

If we want to take the "looks" part of "first look" literally, the Dreame Aqua10 Ultra Roller might just be the best-looking robot vacuum I've ever tested. My roommate, who is virtually unfazed by any new vacuum after the constant influx she's witnessed over the past three years of me turning our apartment into a testing lab, immediately noticed it. "Oh, THIS one is pretty."

Credit: Leah Stodart / Mashable Credit: Leah Stodart / Mashable

Its crisp white and silver palette matches my landlord classic all-white apartment with a nod to our stainless steel appliances. The clean design is only to be rivaled by the Saros 10 that I tested earlier in 2025, which was pretty great, but still not as powerful as this Dreame model.

Is the Dreame Aqua10 Ultra Roller good on carpet?

So far, the Aqua10 Ultra Roller has been a beast on both rugs and hard floors. If the 30,000 Pa of suction power benchmark doesn't mean much to you, here's a frame of reference: That's more than double the 13,000 Pa of suction power of the flagship Roomba with a roller mop, the 2025 Roomba Max 705 Combo.

Again, it's also notably stronger than the next-strongest vacuums on the market with 22,000 Pa, like the Roborock Saros Z70 with an arm, the Narwal Flow (also a roller mop robot vacuum), and the Dyson Vis Nav (which doesn't mop, self-empty, or avoid small obstacles). When you Google "most powerful robot vacuum," don't be fooled when those models come up — even AI hasn't caught up to Dreame's imminent takeover yet.

SEE ALSO: I found the most impressive robot vacuum under $500. You've never heard of it.

The Aqua10 Ultra Roller's strength has really translated to pet hair pickup, large crumb pickup, and even fine powder pickup across various rugs in my apartment. It fully cleared a mess I made on purpose on my plush Tumble fur rug involving crushed Goldfish crackers, spilled dry rice, and tough tufts of cat hair collected from the cat tree. I think the parallel spinning roller brushes underneath really help its efficacy on dry debris.

How it started... Credit: Leah Stodart / Mashable How it's going. Credit: Leah Stodart / Mashable

Even when I thought the Aqua10 Ultra Roller missed a few hairballs, it literally seemed to go back and grab the leftovers at the end of the session. Chances are high that it'll be bumped to the absolute best robot vacuum for carpet on my list.

Is the Dreame Aqua10 Ultra Roller good at mopping?

A new question has quickly become the face of shopping for a robot vacuum and mop combo in late 2025: Are paintbrush-style roller mops better than spinning mopping pads? For the most part, I think the rumors are true: Roller mop robot vacuums are great at sopping up droplets and larger splatters without dragging spill remnants across the floor.

The Dreame Aqua10 Ultra rinses the roller mop with water from inside the vac in real time, ensuring that the fibers doing the "cleaning" aren't merely soaked in the juice or buffalo sauce that they just wiped up elsewhere. Of course, the self-emptying dock also self-washes the roller mop each time it returns to the dock. For mop washing mid-session, you can toggle a certain amount of time or square footage to elapse between trips back to the dock. Still, the live roller rinsing is a much-needed cushion against streaking.

In another purposeful disaster I created on the floor, the Aqua10 Ultra Roller tackled my wine spill and left the hardwood spotless in just one pass.

From wine... Credit: Leah Stodart / Mashable ...to no wine. Credit: Leah Stodart / Mashable

But as you may notice in these photos, there was another level in this kitchen cleaning test: shredded cheese. We go through bags of shredded cheese embarrassingly fast in my household, and there always seems to be new pieces of cheese lying under the counter, even if I just vacuumed the day before. To my surprise, the Aqua10 Ultra Roller left a lot of that shredded cheese behind — mere hours after it aced my cat hair test. The missed spots were all along edges, either along the wall or along the rug edge.

A lot of vacuums struggle with corner cleaning, not due to weak suction but due to the shape and reach of their edge brushes. I'm going to play around with settings in the Dreame app to try to right this — sending the robot vacuum for multiple passes, boosting suction power, and tweaking zone placement are all ways I've found to make a robot vacuum work better. Strategic tweaking of settings for sufficient corner cleaning probably shouldn't be a thing you have to do with a 2025 flagship robot vacuum, though.

The Aqua10 Ultra Roller mop does reach out a little bit, but doesn't get super close to the wall. Credit: Leah Stodart / Mashable The Roborock Saros 10R's flexible spinning pad digs into corners much better. Credit: Leah Stodart / Mashable

So, it seems like there's something to be said for the flexibility of spinning pads vs. rollers. Not only do they scrub closer to the wall to grab more out-of-the-way droplets that I could see Dreame's roller missing, but those mopping pads' ability to scoot along edges is also handy for pushing dry debris out of corners into the vacuum's cleaning path.

(Next up on my testing docket: The new Dyson robot vacuum, the Spot+Scrub Ai, adopts the same roller mop technique — but the streets are saying it only has 18,000 Pa of suction power.)

Huge W: No phone chargers have been harmed so far

I never expect any robot vacuum to have 100 percent perfect small obstacle avoidance, even if it's one of the fanciest on the market. But even the high-end Roborocks that impressed me otherwise still consistently struggled with avoiding cords and phone chargers, even though they're spot on with other items like shoes and socks. So it's been really comforting to watch the Aqua10 Ultra Roller successfully dodge cords and cables on multiple occasions. From Halloween light extension cords on my living room floor to phone chargers that I throw in its path on purpose, I haven't had to yank anything from the Aqua10 Ultra Roller's jaws yet.

My next order of business is to see how it does around clumps of brown sugar or soil — the best makeshift pet waste.

It still can't climb stairs, but we're getting closer

Since the release of the X50 Ultra at CES in 2024, Dreame's main robotic vacuum claim to fame has its ProLeap system. That's the technology that originally stirred conversations about robot vacuums that can climb stairs, but the "stairs" in question could barely be more than two inches tall to be "climbable." That threshold has been bumped to 3.15 inches with the Aqua10 Ultra Roller, but that's still not really staircases.

For instance, my parents are currently adding a sunroom to their house, which will eventually be accessible from the living room via a sliding door (and maybe one shallow step down). The Dreame Aqua10 Ultra Roller would be one of the few robot vacuums that could safely scale that threshold and clean that room with the rest of the house without someone physically setting it in there. Every bedroom closet in my apartment has two large mirrored sliding doors, so it's nice to be able to send the Aqua10 Ultra Roller to sweep under my clothes without worry that it'll bust a wheel on the metal tracks. Still, it seems disrespectful to minimize the robust Aqua10 Ultra Roller to just a "stair climbing robot vacuum."

Eufy is trying to get in on the same climbing market with the Eufy Marswalker. However, it's not a standalone robot vacuum that can climb thresholds — it's a platform device that can take the Eufy Omni S2 robot vacuum up the stairs. That'll also be a 30,000 Pa robot vacuum, so pitting it against the Dreame Aqua10 Ultra Roller will be fun when it comes out in January.

Is the Dreame Aqua10 Ultra Roller worth it?

I would already recommend the Dreame Aqua10 Ultra Roller robot vacuum to anyone who is open to splurging on their next vacuum purchase, especially for pet hair. Forget a robot vacuum with an arm that picks up socks sometimes — this is the practically-priced innovation I've been looking for in a premium robot vacuum.

If you've already purchased a high-end robotic vacuum in the past year or so, you're probably safe to skip this one. But if you're in the market and ruling out cheap robot vacuums, the Dreame Aqua10 Ultra Roller is probably the best robot vacuum and mop out there right now — despite the lazy edge cleaning I've noticed in the first week.

For specs like 30,000 Pa of suction, the self-cleaning roller mop, and reliable small obstacle avoidance, its $1,599.99 MSRP is inarguably reasonable. Many weaker 2-in-1 robot vacuums have debuted around that same price over the past two years. But it's definitely worth noting that the Aqua10 Ultra Roller has been on sale for less than $1,300 for nearly the entire time since its release in August. While I still love the Roborock Saros 10R, its identical $1,599.99 price tag rarely gets a discount — and it has weaker suction power and less attentive cord and phone charger detection than the Aqua10 Ultra Roller.

Where to buy the Dreame Aqua10 Ultra Roller Amazon Dreame Aqua10 Ultra Roller $1,279.99 at Amazon Shop Now Dreame Dreame Aqua10 Ultra Roller $1,279.99 at Dreame (save $320 with code A10U320) Shop Now

I know we've probably had way too many Samsung events. But they're never enough. And apparently, we're getting one more this year—and it's not for phones, laptops, or earbuds, for a change.

SAVE $500: As of Oct. 14, the Samsung 49-inch Odyssey G9 curved gaming monitor is on sale for $799.99 at Amazon. That's 38% off its list price of $1,299.99.

Opens in a new window Credit: Samsung Samsung Odyssey G9 curved gaming monitor $799.99 at Amazon
$1,299.99 Save $500   Get Deal

Just like a good TV can enhance your cinematic experience, a good monitor can level up your gaming setup. If your current monitor feels lifeless and dull, it's probably about time for an upgrade. And it happens to be a great time, as one of our favorites from Samsung is on sale for $500 off.

As of Oct. 14, the Samsung 49-inch Odyssey G9 curved gaming monitor is on sale for $799.99 at Amazon. That's 38% off its list price of $1,299.99 and about $60 shy of its best price ever.

While you may think 49 inches is overkill when it comes to a gaming monitor, the Odyssey G9 features a 1000R curve, which basically wraps the screen around your head. It immerses you in the action without forcing you to scoot back to see the whole picture. "While the curve of this monitor is the main attraction, it's not the only highlight," former Mashable shopping reporter Dylan Haas wrote in his review. Other perks include solid visuals with the 5,120 x 1,440 pixel display, a quick 240Hz refresh rate, HDR 1000 support for brightness and contrast, sturdy build quality, Eye Saver mode that reduces screen flickering, and the ability to use it as a two-in-one display.

Our only drawbacks with this massive monitor are the response time (1ms, which could be faster) and the sheer size. As Haas pointed out, "You need a lot of room to fit this monitor and then some if you don't want to risk shoulder-checking it by accident when you get up." If you don't have the real estate to house this bad boy, you may want to opt for something a bit smaller. But if you want to immerse yourself in your games and have the desk space to do so, it's a pretty epic option — especially since it's $500 cheaper than usual.

SAVE $250: As of Oct. 14, the 75-inch Insignia QF QLED 4K Fire TV is on sale for $399.99 at Amazon. That's its same price from Prime Big Deal Days last week, and a 38% savings.

Opens in a new window Credit: Insignia Insignia 75-inch QF QLED 4K Fire TV $399.99 at Amazon
$649.99 Save $250   Get Deal

The cheapest 75-inch QLED TV we saw during Prime Big Deal Days in the first week of October is still at that price. You can still grab the massive 75-inch Insignia QF QLED Fire TV for $399.99 at Amazon — a nearly 40% price cut, dropping the TV to its lowest price ever. Amazon probably won't start teasing Black Friday deals until mid-November, so this is your chance to upgrade during the year's most elite cozy binge-watching months.

With this big of a steal on the table, you don't have to ride or die for your old LED TV anymore. Curse it out one last time, recycle it at Best Buy, and start building a new fall watchlist for you and your new big screen. We recommend Tim Robinson's The Chair Company, or if you're strictly in spooky season right now, we have a full interactive horror recommendations builder — just tell us what you're into, and we'll give some suggestions. We've seen everything.

SEE ALSO: If dark scenes are too dark on your TV, play around with these settings

If you've never had a QLED TV at home before, it's hard to envision what "quantum dots" even mean. In the simplest sense, they're an extra layer of tiny light-reflecting crystals on top of the LED backlight that your old TV had. QLED TVs are best known for brightness and boosted color saturation, and you'll notice that difference in vibrancy the first time you turn on a football game midday... and can actually see what's going on.

There's hardly ever such a thing as truly free money. We pay for everything, in some way: with labor, with time, with suffering.

So getting a payment from a tech or social media settlement isn't exactly free — it's likely the company messed up in some way and it legitimately owes you that cash — but it certainly can feel like getting free money. And if you're already using the tech or platform, then you might as well get paid for the issue.

Here are four major settlements you might want to look into — just to see if you're owed money.

AT&T

AT&T this summer settled data breach lawsuits between 2019 and 2024. If you are an AT&T customer, you might be entitled to some of the $177 million agreement. The company said it would be contacting customers between August and October. If you haven't been contacted, it might be worth reaching out to check. You can also check out a website devoted to the settlement, which has the proper forms, deadlines, and information you need to claim a settlement.

Facebook

Pretty much everyone used Facebook at some point, which means you could be due for a payment. Settlement payouts related to the Cambridge Analytica scandal actually began to roll out last month and could go on for several more weeks. There was a deadline in 2023 to submit a claim — to be honest, who could remember if they filed something two years ago — but those who will get a payout should get an email alerting them to the fact that a payment is forthcoming.

Amazon

The retail and tech giant agreed last month to pay $1.5 billion to an estimated 35 million customers over alleged deceptive practices regarding Prime membership. You could be eligible for a payment if you signed up to be a Prime member between 2019-2025 and did so using one of the so-called "challenged enrollment flows." Certain customers will automatically get paid while others may be sent a claims form by Amazon, depending on their eligibility.

For more information on the Amazon settlement payments, check out Mashable's coverage.

Anthropic

AI company Anthropic agreed last month to pay authors $1.5 billion over allegations that it used their work to train its model. So yes, you'd have to be one of the authors in the case to get paid by this settlement, but the Books3 dataset at issue in the case contains tens of thousands of works. The judge in the case, however, has expressed reservations about that settlement — so it remains to see what will actually result from it.

In the meantime, more class-action suits against AI companies are likely to come soon, including a recent case involving Apple and allegedly pirated books. You can check to see if your work was included in the notorious Books3 library at The Atlantic's searchable database.

One of the biggest highlights of Amazon's most recent announcements was the introduction of a brand-new Fire TV Stick, the Fire TV Stick 4K Select, which comes with a brand-new, Linux-based operating system, Vega OS. Apparently, though, it needs some time before you can use Plex on it as well as you currently can on older Fire TV devices.

It's that beautiful time when Netflix viewers worldwide tune into Love is Blind and wonder, "How is everyone missing all these red flags?"

Season 9 of Netflix's blockbuster dating show, in which couples pair up after getting to know each other sight unseen, kicked off Oct. 1. And just like with prior seasons, Season 9 is not skimping on the drama. From Patrick and Kacie's bizarre breakup to Anna and Blake ghosting their potential connections in the pods, there is a ton of juicy awkwardness to unpack.

Luckily, viewers will have the chance to further unpack all of Love is Blind Season 9's shenanigans at the upcoming reunion, coming to Netflix Oct. 29. In the reunion announcement video, hosts Nick and Vanessa Lachey get in their obligatory ghosting joke, telling fans, "the only thing scarier than [ghosting] would be missing the reunion."

You heard them! Something tells me it's going to get messy.

Love is Blind Season 9: The Reunion premieres Oct. 29 at 9 p.m. ET on Netflix.

Luxury cars usually promise comfort and style, but they don’t always deliver on reliability. Plush interiors and fancy tech often come with a side of expensive repairs a few years down the road.

TikTok seems to be abnormally focused on what the lion does or does not concern itself with these days.

It's become a meme to post about the lion or lioness — meaning yourself — and what does or does not concern them. Most of the time, in the TikTok trend, the lion's (or lioness') concerns are either relatively trivial or outside what you might expect from a so-called grindset online figure who'd actually post this sort of thing in earnest. So the lion may not be concerned with the effects of energy drinks, or it may be concerned with their anxious thoughts.

Here's what you need to know about the trend.

What is the meme, and where did it start?

The meme generally references a now-famous quote from Game of Thrones that you probably recognize offhand. It's a callback to when master manipulator Tywin Lannister tells his son, "The lion doesn't concern himself with the opinions of the sheep."

Now, how did it become a meme? That's a more complicated answer. The GOT quote is famous, and people have posted it earnestly for years, so much so that it has become cringey. The New York Times noted in May that the meme began with "manosphere" or "grindset" folks promoting a particular form of masculinity before being co-opted and morphed by people making absurd or edgy jokes.

Months later, the meme has shifted again, this time on TikTok. It's become more normie, for lack of a better word. It's more silly, less edgy, and certainly not sincerely referencing oneself as a "lion." In fact, it's directly mocking that sort of person. The TikTok posts often feel like a direct send-up of men who constantly post about their weird versions of what it means to be a man.

As best I can tell — at least as it presented itself on my timeline — this version of the meme was popularized by a user on TikTok with the handle @ckwon117 (now jokingly donning the username The Lion). Starting over the summer, he posted joking things the so-called lion wasn't concerned with, such as screen time or washing his water bottle.

The formula was pretty straightforward: The lion was not concerned with something pretty silly, and it was always delivered in a serious, monotone manner. The most popular of these TikToks really took off, racking up millions of views. It seemed the world was concerned with the lion's concerns.

How the lion meme went viral

As with any meme, the lion's and lioness' concerns went viral because people saw it worked. That's literally how a meme forms — it's online word-of-mouth and people playing with the format to put their spin on it.

Soon enough, the lion was concerned about not seeing his friends for a long time.

Or the lion was not concerned with finding love until, actually, late at night, he was.

Or the lioness is not concerned with curbs and whether or not she's driving over them.

Or the lion might just not be thinking very quickly today.

As things go with memes, soon enough, the lion's concerns could really be anything you wanted them to be. Any clever, funny, or silly thought could be converted to the format.

So if you see posts about the lion on your FYP, just know that person is almost certainly not sincerely calling themselves The Lion. But The Lion wouldn't really care what you think, anyway.

ChatGPT might soon get a lot "friendlier" with users — literally and figuratively. According to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, the company plans to introduce age-gating to the LLM, marking a clear distinction between how minors and adults will interact with the chatbot.

The update stems from a post Altman shared on X Tuesday, where he addressed growing frustration over the GPT-5 update over the summer, which resulted in ChatGPT "losing" its "personality," according to many user complaints.

In the post, Altman said he believes OpenAI has "mitigated serious mental health issues" associated with AI chatbot use, and that the company is now exploring ways to ease some of its tighter content limits. OpenAI recently introduced new safety tools as well, including new parental controls.

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Altman announced that OpenAI will roll out a new version of ChatGPT in the coming weeks that "behaves more like what people liked about [previous GPT version] 4o." Then, starting in December, as OpenAI introduces "age-gating" features, restrictions around erotic or sexually explicit conversations will be lifted "for verified adult users," Altman wrote. It's unclear how OpenAI will prove users' ages.

SEE ALSO: I tested OpenAI Sora 2 vs Google Veo 3 for AI video, and there’s a very clear winner

This is a notable shift for OpenAI, especially given that the company intentionally designed GPT-5 to make the chatbot less "sycophantic" and help prevent potential mental health crises among users. Now, Altman says he wants to "treat adult users like adults" and seems more open to allowing erotica or sexual expression within the chatbot experience for those who want it.

Altman's post quickly drew mixed reactions. Some users expressed frustration that instead of simply bringing back the beloved GPT-4o, OpenAI was releasing an update that would merely "behave like 4o."

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Others mocked the CEO for seemingly walking back his August comments, when he said he was proud that OpenAI "hasn’t put an AI sex bot into ChatGPT yet." And then there were those who pointed out the irony of Altman's newfound openness to erotic chat, given his recent prediction that ChatGPT could "cure cancer one day."

Mashable reached out to OpenAI for comment but didn't receive a response before publication.

Disclosure: Ziff Davis, Mashable’s parent company, in April filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.

Months of private Telegram conversations between Young Republican leaders across several states depict a startling culture of racist, fascist strategizing, according to an exclusive investigation by Politico.

More than 2,900 pages of Telegram chats obtained by the publication show repeated uses of violent, anti-Black, and antisemitic terminology, including the phrase "I love Hitler." Members of the group chat praised violent sexual assault and repeatedly used racist, ableist, and sexist slurs. Some evoked Holocaust imagery when discussing political opponents and casually used white supremacist dogwhistles. Many of them parroted talking points by conservative figureheads while doing so, including Tucker Carlson and Charlie Kirk.

SEE ALSO: For Trump officials, social media is war

Leaders implicated in the leak include Kansas Young Republican vice chair William Hendrix and New York State Young Republican leaders Bobby Walker and Peter Giunta, as well as one Trump administration employee, Michael Bartels. Guinta said in a statement that the leaks were part of a targeted character assassination, but did not categorically refute the contents. Other Young Republican leaders have denounced the chat, while the White House denied any affiliation with the Young Republican splinter group. All together, the group is a segment of a new wave of GOP activists, many of whom led the charge to get President Donald Trump back into office in 2025.

The Trump administration and its vocal Republican allies haven't refrained from using social media in increasingly controversial ways, including sharing racist and xenophobic posts, applauding anti-LGBTQ actions, and targeting individual dissenters directly. Groupchats, at large, have posed a different set of problems for conservative leaders, including the controversial exposed Signal chats between the nation's top defense leaders, Vice President JD Vance, and the editor in chief of the Atlantic. Behind the scenes, a robust network of Signal conversations between private industry leaders and political figures formed the basis of Trump's re-election campaign and rapid shift in political support, documented in a sprawling investigation by Semafor.

Last week, leaked Signal messages between top White House advisors showed Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth was considering deploying the U.S. Army’s 82nd Airborne infantry to Portland, the current hot spot for Trump's crackdown on so-called ANTIFA organizers. First reported by the Minnesota Star Tribune, the chats appear to show the Trump administration is still relying on the third-party encrypted messaging platform to discuss sensitive government operations — despite ongoing privacy (and reputational) concerns.

UPDATE: Oct. 15, 2025, 10:21 a.m. An earlier version of this story listed former New York State Young Republican vice chair as "Bobby Hendrix." It has been corrected.

It's common for movies to film far more content than you see in the cinema. After the editing process is complete, a lot ends up on the cutting room floor. Often to curb runtimes or to get a lower age rating to maximize the potential audiences.

TL;DR: Get Microsoft Office for life on sale for only $39.97 (reg. $229). Sale ends Oct. 19 at 11:59 p.m. PT.

Opens in a new window Credit: Microsoft Microsoft Office Home & Business 2019 for Mac $39.97
$229 Save $189.03   Get Deal

Have you seen how much Microsoft 365 costs now? And who can say when the next price hike will come.

Software subscriptions are a subtle way of massively overpaying for apps you used to be able to own. If you don’t want to pay $99.99 per year, every year just to use basic Microsoft Office apps, it might be time to switch to a more budget-friendly option, even if it costs a little more up-front. Right now, it’s only $39.97 to get Microsoft Office 2019 for life. That’s marked down from $229, but that price won’t last much longer.

SEE ALSO: Unlock eight Adobe and Microsoft apps for just $90

This version of Microsoft Office comes with:

• Word

• Excel

• PowerPoint

• Outlook

• OneNote

• Teams Classic

You can install each of these apps on one computer for life. After that, there are no subscription fees or hidden payments to worry about. You also don’t have to deal with a sudden update from Microsoft completely changing how you work (or those frustrating AI tools constantly interrupting you).

This version of Microsoft Office is a little older than the apps you get from Microsoft 365, but they still work great for everything from school to the office, and you don’t need internet to use them.

This license is for 1 Mac, but Windows licenses are also still available for now.

If you want to stop paying for Microsoft apps every month, then get a Microsoft Office 2019 lifetime license while it’s on sale for only $39.97.

Sale ends Oct. 19 at 11:59 p.m. PT. No coupon needed.

StackSocial prices subject to change.

Guillermo del Toro is the king of gothic horror and classic monster cinema, renowned for hits like Pan's Labyrinth and The Shape of Water. Now, he’s back with a new masterpiece—Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, which is easily one of the fall’s most anticipated releases. Given the director’s gift for visual storytelling through uncommon artistry evoking entrancing beauty and feeling, there’s no doubt his film will both mesmerize and move us, but how true to the classic will it be?

The ultimate winter e-reader accessory is coming to Kobo e-readers. No, it's not a fuzzy case or branded knit blanket — it's a remote. Rakuten, the company behind Kobo e-readers, just announced that on Nov. 4, it'll be launching a remote that's compatible with the brand's e-readers. A remote is one of our favorite accessories for an e-reader, and Kobos are the first e-readers to get a native remote.

Rakuten Kobo CEO Michael Tamblyn says, "The Kobo Remote is the perfect accessory for peak immersive reading; it’s an invitation to lounge deeper, multitask smarter, and simply enjoy reading without limits, no matter whether your environment is beach or blankets."

Opens in a new window Credit: Kobo Kobo Remote $29.99 at Rakuten
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Page-turning remotes are not a new innovation in the e-reader landscape. The BookTok girlies have been all over it for years, touting cozy setups with gooseneck stands and remotes to keep their hands tucked under the blankets while still being able to turn to the next page on their e-readers.

Kobo's remote will come in two shades, white and black, just like most of its e-readers. The Kobo remote measures 3.92 inches long and about 1.18 inches wide. It has a curved design for an ergonomic feel, and is powered by Bluetooth and a AAA battery. E-reader remotes have never been sold by e-reader brands, making Kobo the first to do so.

The Kobo remote is compatible with the following Kobo e-readers: Kobo Clara 2E, Kobo Clara BW, Kobo Clara Colour, Kobo Libra 2, Kobo Libra Colour, Kobo Sage, Kobo Elipsa, and Kobo Elipsa 2E.

Most other page turners come in two parts: one piece that clips onto the side of the e-reader to tap the screen, and then the actual remote, which controls that clip-on piece. The Kobo Remote will just be one piece, as it's native to the Kobo operating system and communicates with the device over Bluetooth rather than needing a clip-on piece to tap the screen.

This page-turner is much needed in the Kobo system, as I've found that generic page-turner remotes don't always work with the Kobo e-readers. Because the screens on Kobo e-readers aren't flush to their borders, the lip prevents the page turners from pressing the screen unless positioned just right. With the Kobo Remote, that won't be a problem.

The only current downside I see is the price. At $29.99, it's $10 more than most remotes you can find on Amazon, which typically retail for $19.99. That being said, the extra cost will be worth it for the cozy reading experience.

Now that Kobo has released a remote for its e-readers, it's just a matter of time before Amazon designs a remote for Kindles.

The day has finally arrived for Windows 10 to go into retirement. So if you have a computer that can run Windows 11, the time has come to decide whether you want to go ahead, or if you should take a different path (cough, Linux, cough).

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered a new type of attack that affects Android devices, and they say it lets hackers get their hands on your private data in a matter of seconds.

This includes your private chats, text messages, emails, and even two-factor authentication (2FA) codes, as Ars Technica reported.

The attack, dubbed "Pixnapping" by the team of researchers who discovered it, can be used to extract information from any data displayed on the screen. First, the victim has to download a malicious app. Once the app is installed, a Pixnapping attack can occur without the victim providing any further device permissions.

"Anything that is visible when the target app is opened can be stolen by the malicious app using Pixnapping," reads a message on the Pixnapping website, a resource created by researchers to share information on the attack. "Chat messages, 2FA codes, email messages, etc. are all vulnerable since they are visible."

According to the Pixnapping website, the vulnerability is detailed in a new research paper, part of a collaboration between seven researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, University of Washington, University of California, San Diego, and Carnegie Mellon University. A preprint of the paper, titled “Pixnapping: Bringing Pixel Stealing out of the Stone Age,” is available online and will be published this week at the 32nd ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security in Taiwan.

Information that can not be displayed on the Android device's screen, such as a secret key that is obscured using asterisks for example, cannot be stolen by the hackers in a Pixnapping attack. This is because of the way the attack is carried out.

Once a victim installs the malicious app, it weaponizes the Android API to target other apps with access to sensitive data. The app then accesses the pixels displayed on the screen using an unintended data leak, also known as a hardware side channel. The malicious app pushes those individual pixels through the rendering pipeline, where the Pixnapping attack then performs graphical operations. This continues until optical character recognition, or OCR, can occur, meaning the app can extract text from visuals.

In effect, any information that's displayed on your device's screen can then be stolen.

"Conceptually, it is as if the malicious app was taking a screenshot of screen contents it should not have access to," the Pixnapping site reads.

Researchers tested the Pixnapping attack on Google Pixel 6 through 9 smartphones, as well as the Samsung Galaxy S25, running numerous different versions of the Android mobile operating system, from Android 13 to 16.

While this is certainly concerning news, researchers say that they are unaware of any real-world examples of the exploit being used in the wild. 

The team of cybersecurity researchers informed Google of the Android vulnerability in February. Google released its first patch for Pixnapping last month. However, the researchers discovered a workaround within days, and informed Google once again. Google says it will release an additional Pixnapping patch in its December Android security bulletin.

Josh O'Connor has had a banner 2025, starring in queer drama The History of Sound, art heist comedy The Mastermind, and highly anticipated whodunnit Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery.

But that's not all! O'Connor's busy 2025 slate actually kicked off back in Jan. with the Sundance Film Festival release of the upcoming drama Rebuilding, written and directed by Max Walker-Silverman.

SEE ALSO: 'The Mastermind' review: Josh O'Connor is truly magnetic in Kelly Reichardt's latest film

Audiences have seen O'Connor as royalty in The Crown and as a tennis hotshot in Challengers. In Rebuilding, though, he's in full-on cowboy mode. He plays Dusty, a Colorado cowboy who loses his entire ranch to a devastating wildfire. With no home left, he moves into a FEMA trailer camp, where he forges new bonds with his neighbors who, like him, have lost everything. He also reconnects with his ex-wife Ruby (The White Lotus Season 2's Meghann Fahy) and young daughter Callie-Rose (Lily LaTorre).

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Rebuilding received largely positive reviews out of its premiere at Sundance, praising O'Connor's performance as well as the film's empathy for Dusty and his new community members. That quiet empathy is on display in the film's first trailer, which promises O'Connor ruminating on life, family, and his daughter's future.

In addition to O'Connor, Fahy, and LaTorre, Rebuilding also stars True Detective: Night Country's Kali Reis and Weapons' Amy Madigan.

Rebuilding hits theaters Nov. 14.

A Cambodian “pig butchering” scam ring has been relieved of $15 billion in Bitcoin courtesy of the Department of Justice, according to a DOJ press release issued on Tuesday. The scam’s alleged ringleader, UK and Cambodian national Chen Zhi, has also been indicted for his role in the scam, though he remains at large. Prosecutors say that the scam ring relied on human trafficking and violence to maintain its operations, and that it stole billions of dollars from people all over the world since 2015. 

In a 68-page indictment unsealed on Tuesday in a Brooklyn federal court, prosecutors accused Zhi and his associates of running a massive "phone farm" that operated 1,250 mobile phones, which controlled more than 76,000 social media accounts around the clock. The group reportedly also ran 10 “violent forced labor camps" across Cambodia, where human trafficking victims were coerced into stealing Bitcoin from unsuspecting victims. According to prosecutors, the people who worked in these camps were migrant workers who traveled to Cambodia in search of work but were instead trafficked and forced to work in these industrial scam compounds. 

The indictment reads like something you might see on TV or in a Hollywood movie, and government officials said it's the largest forfeiture action in the history of the Department of Justice.

A picture of a phone farm with 1,250 mobile devices appeared in the indictment. Credit: Department of Justice

For the uninitiated, a pig butchering scam works in two steps. The scammer creates a relationship with the victim, either through a traditional romance scam or some other means. Once the metaphorical “pig” has been “fattened,” the scammer will make their move and manipulate the victim into sending Bitcoin, often under the guise of a phony investment opportunity. Some victims will liquidate their entire life savings.

SEE ALSO: What are pig butchering scams? How to protect yourself from online con artists.

“Today’s action represents one of the most significant strikes ever against the global scourge of human trafficking and cyber-enabled financial fraud,” said Attorney General Pamela Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche in a press release. “By dismantling a criminal empire built on forced labor and deception, we are sending a clear message that the United States will use every tool at its disposal to defend victims, recover stolen assets, and bring to justice those who exploit the vulnerable for profit. We are grateful for the hard work of Director Patel and the men and women of the FBI.”

International pig butchering rings, often located in Southeast Asia, operate massive phone farms and call centers to enact scams at an industrial scale. In Cambodia alone, the scam industry steals $12.5 to $19 billion annually, per the indictment. However, prosecutors said the accused scammers didn't just steal money. Prosecutors said they also used violence to "further their criminal schemes," and the indictment contains bloody images of alleged victims of the gang's activities.

The indictment accused Zhi and his associates of bribing officials to stay ahead of law enforcement raids. One section of the indictment detailed how Zhi and his co-conspirators allegedly hunted down an associate who fled with stolen money, leveraging contacts in the government and mob to locate the thief.

Zhi is publicly known as the leader of the Prince Group, a multinational corporation that does business in over 30 countries. The group was “ostensibly focused” on real estate development and financial services, but the DOJ alleged it provided cover for the sophisticated scam operation. The indictment describes how Zhi and Prince Group executives allegedly used their ill-gotten gains to buy mansions, luxury yachts, expensive watches, private jets, and even rare artwork, "including a Picasso painting purchased through an auction house in New York."

The gang's operations even took place on U.S. soil, prosecutors claimed. The group reportedly used shell companies and financial institutions located in Brooklyn and Queens, New York to facilitate their schemes and defraud U.S. victims.

If located, arrested, and convicted, Zhi faces a maximum penalty of 40 years in prison for wire fraud and money laundering. Zhi is currently at large, with a sizable amount of his assets in the DOJ's hands. According to a U.S. Treasury Department press release, the Treasury and the UK’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) have also imposed sweeping sanctions against the Prince Group.

In total, officials with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York and the Justice Department National Security Division filed a civil forfeiture complaint for 127,271 Bitcoin, worth an estimated $15 billion.

The new red band trailer for HBO's IT: Welcome to Derry has everything fans of Stephen King's It could want. Children heading into sewers! Terrifying visions courtesy of Pennywise the Dancing Clown (Bill Skarsgård)! And so, so, so much blood.

SEE ALSO: Is 'IT: Welcome to Derry' based on Stephen King's book?

Developed by Andy Muschietti and Barbara Muschietti, the sibling team behind IT and IT: Chapter Two, the upcoming IT prequel series transports viewers to Derry, Maine in 1962. That's 27 years before the first film takes place, meaning it's perfectly timed to Pennywise's last awakening before the events of IT. (King's novel kicks off in 1957, but the films moved the time period up several decades.)

Based on IT: Welcome to Derry's latest trailer, Pennywise's 1962 feeding cycle will play out similarly to his 1988 cycle. He's going to terrorize a group of Derry children and feed on their "tasty, tasty, beautiful fear." Of course, the Derry children are making his mission easier for him, because they keep going into the sewers where he lives! Given how many times I yelled, "Don't go in there" at this trailer, I can only imagine how many times I'll yell it at the TV during the actual series.

The red band trailer for IT: Welcome to Derry gives a haunting glimpse at the kind of scares that lay in store for Derry's citizens, including a gnarly, zombified take on Uncle Sam. But it's the image of Pennywise's clown form that proves an eternal terror — especially when he unhinges his jaw.

In addition to Skarsgård, IT: Welcome to Derry also stars Jovan Adepo, Taylour Paige, Chris Chalk, James Remar, Stephen Rider, Madeleine Stowe, and Rudy Mancuso.

IT: Welcome to Derry premieres Oct. 26 at 9 p.m. ET on HBO and HBO Max.