Our gifting experts are obsessively searching for holiday gifts that are unique, thoughtful and suitable for any budget. Amazon just upped its game with new Android tablets for entertainment and work. Maria Diaz is a staff writer with a passion for home automation, smart home devices, and tablets. Three new Amazon Alexa tablets feature Alexa+ and premium construction, including a 12-inch Pro model. The tablets finally support Google Play, addressing a pain point for users.

Say More Look Up Mashable's Best: E-readers, robovacs, laptops, earbuds, smart home and more Mashable @Home Trending Now Mashable Selects Top creators, ranked Gift Ideas For Everyone On Your List Creator Playbook In My Bag AI at School Safety Net All Series Florence Pugh received a sensitive-content warning on her Cornell post; she doesn't appear to be the only one. Anna Iovine is the associate editor of features at Mashable. Previously, as the sex and relationships reporter, she covered topics ranging from dating apps to pelvic pain. Before Mashable, Anna was a social editor at VICE and freelanced for publications such as Slate and the Columbia Journalism Review. Follow her on Instagram .

Look Up Mashable's Best: E-readers, robovacs, laptops, earbuds, smart home and more Mashable @Home Trending Now Mashable Selects Say More Top creators, ranked Gift Ideas For Everyone On Your List Creator Playbook In My Bag AI at School Safety Net All Series Alex Perry is a tech reporter at Mashable who primarily covers video games and consumer tech. Alex has spent most of the last decade reviewing games, smartphones, headphones, and laptops, and he doesn't plan on stopping anytime soon. He is also a Pisces, a cat lover, and a Kansas City sports fan. It's easy to forget that Sony launched a fancy, expensive VR headset for PlayStation 5 just a few years ago. It's seemingly only going to get easier going forward.

Bruce Blakeman, a Republican who is running for governor of New York, released campaign ads featuring Zohran Mamdani, New York City mayor, and Kathy Hochul, the state's governor, gardening together and collaborating to raise prices for residents. Another ad features Hochul talking about hiking tolls and fares so people cannot afford to drive or take the subway. A spate of AI-generated ads that are obviously fake but grab voter attention have been a feature of campaigns in the lead up to the pivotal United States midterm elections on November 3. While regulation has focused on labelling AI deepfakes that could mislead voters, it is "slopaganda" - or identifiably fake ads - that mark this campaign season, says Scott Babwah Brennen, director of New York University's Center on Technology Policy and co-author of a recent report, Political Slopaganda. Political candidates and their supporters have spent more than $80m to make more than 164 AI-based ads this election season, according to the Wesleyan Media Project, a non-partisan election advertising tracker.

Our gifting experts are obsessively searching for holiday gifts that are unique, thoughtful and suitable for any budget. 'I use AI to do the things that I'm bad at': Linus Torvalds on why it works for him The Linux creator calls vibe coding'a wonderful way to find joy in programming,' but not for running Linux development. Torvalds likes AI for showing new developers the joy of programming. Torvalds discussed changes in the Linux kernel development process. AI has become a vital component in finding and fixing bugs in the Linux kernel.

'This is an apartheid regime' Does Trump have real leverage over Netanyahu? A US charity announced it will use an AI-software to monitor Gaza classrooms for'anti-Semitism' and'hate speech', while Israel airstrikes kill Palestinians across the strip. 'Rogue court': US sanctions ICC hours after ex-judge wins Nobel Prize

Drone strike kills 30 people in Sudan's Blue Nile region Share Drone strike kills 30 people in Sudan's Blue Nile region on social media At least 30 displaced people, including women and children, have been killed and dozens of others have been wounded following a drone attack in southeastern Sudan. The governor of Wad al-Mahi province told Al Jazeera on Friday that a drone belonging to the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) targeted the centre of the province, killing 26 women and four children. He said the drone was launched from "inside Ethiopia", according to the AFP news agency. Al Jazeera Arabic's Sudan correspondent, Wadah Al-Tahir, explained that the attack was the latest in a wave of drone strikes targeting the Blue Nile region and this time Wad al-Mahi province near the city of Damazin was struck. Friday's attack was just outside a displacement camp, near an informal gold mining site, where women earn a daily wage using chemicals and their bare hands to clear gold nuggets from the earth extracted by men.

Russian tech giant Yandex has said it was struggling to maintain services after two of its five data centres were struck by Ukrainian drones in the past two days. Often dubbed Russia's Google, the company runs the country's most popular search engine, as well as a food-ordering and taxi app used by tens of millions of people. President Volodymyr Zelensky said the attacks were in response to weeks of Russian strikes on Ukrainian data centres. Both sides have stepped up attacks on infrastructure in recent months as the war between the two drags on. Kyiv says its strikes are aimed at revenue streams for Moscow's war machine, and that the latest attacks could force Russia to divert resources to Yandex.

Look Up Mashable's Best: E-readers, robovacs, laptops, earbuds, smart home and more Mashable @Home Trending Now Mashable Selects Say More Top creators, ranked Gift Ideas For Everyone On Your List Creator Playbook In My Bag AI at School Safety Net All Series How to watch Dortmund vs. Werder Bremen online for free Live stream select fixtures from the Bundesliga without spending anything. Joseph Green is the Global Shopping Editor for Mashable. He covers VPNs, headphones, fitness gear, dating sites, streaming, and shopping events like Black Friday and Prime Day. All products featured here are independently selected by our editors and writers. If you buy something through links on our site, Mashable may earn an affiliate commission.

Look Up Mashable's Best: E-readers, robovacs, laptops, earbuds, smart home and more Mashable @Home Trending Now Mashable Selects Say More Top creators, ranked Gift Ideas For Everyone On Your List Creator Playbook In My Bag AI at School Safety Net All Series Steam's new free weekend lineup includes'ARC Raiders,' 'Core Keeper,' and free indie favorites Four games are free on Steam this weekend -- including one you get to keep forever if you claim it before Monday. Soumya is a deals writer who covers consumer tech, shopping deals, and the products people use every day. With experience writing about everything from AI tools and software to smartphones and home gadgets, she enjoys breaking down product research into clear, useful recommendations. When she's not tracking deals, she's usually comparing products, digging through reviews, and figuring out what actually makes a purchase worth it. All products featured here are independently selected by our editors and writers.