Look Up Mashable's Best: E-readers, robovacs, laptops, earbuds, smart home and more Say More Mashable Selects Mashable Voices Safety Net Creator Hub Versus Gift Ideas For Everyone On Your List Switch Off Trending Now In My Bag All Series Why Gen Z is ditching mainstream dating apps for'hyper-niche' spaces Gen Z is taking a step back from dating apps and discovering new ways to connect through smaller and smaller online communities. Here's a not-so-novel theory of cultural development that you should be aware of, especially if you're an older person wondering about the behaviors of younger people: When TV and the internet first emerged on the cultural scene, they had a unifying effect on people. After all, there were only a handful of television channels you could watch, so everyone watched, and . Just take a look at IMDB's list of the Most Watched Series Finales Ever, and you'll see it's dominated by shows that first aired in the '70s, '80s, and '90s. Fast forward to the early 2000s, when social media first emerged, and you have a similar effect: everyone had a MySpace or Facebook account because there wasn't really any other game in town.

Look Up Mashable's Best: E-readers, robovacs, laptops, earbuds, smart home and more Say More Safety Net Creator Hub Versus Gift Ideas For Everyone On Your List Mashable Selects Switch Off Trending Now In My Bag VidCon with Mashable All Series These four sites are upholding the kink-forward legacy of AFF. Whether you're single and looking for some quick fun, online or offline, or in a relationship, trying to experiment with non-monogamy, the internet has no shortage of viable hookup and kink-friendly sites and apps for you to explore. By far the oldest and most popular of the bunch is AdultFriendFinder, with millions of registered users worldwide, but if you've exhausted its potential or just want to explore alternatives, there's a wide variety of sites out there catering to short-term fun, kink exploration, and polyamory. If you buy something through links on our site, Mashable may earn an affiliate commission. In internet notoriety, Ashley Madison might even surpass AdultFriendFinder on the list of naughty sites, largely because it was founded in 2001 as a way for married people to be unfaithful.

Look Up Say More Safety Net Mashable's Best: E-readers, robovacs, laptops, earbuds, smart home and more Creator Hub Versus Gift Ideas For Everyone On Your List Mashable Selects Switch Off Trending Now In My Bag VidCon with Mashable All Series The over-60 crowd is equally sick of the swipe and older, established dating sites are benefitting. If it wasn't already obvious from politics and entertainment, the Baby Boomers, born between the years 1948 and 1964, aren't ready to go quietly into retirement or give up the pursuits of youth. In fact, many of them are rekindling their romantic flames: a whopping 20 percent of them have tried dating apps, according to Pew research, and they spend just under 40 minutes a day testing their luck like the rest of us. Don't expect to find the Baby Boomers on Tinder, though. For long-term dating, the Boomers are more likely to use age-appropriate dating services like OurTime or SeniorMatch, or larger, more general-purpose dating sites like eharmony, according to Axios .

If AI takes over many jobs, how will people make a living? If AI takes over many jobs, how will people make a living? Once the AI bubble pops, we'll all suffer. Could that be better than letting it grow unabated? The Guardian's journalism is independent.

Sign up to receive the Future Tense newsletter every other Saturday. It's a busy time to run a Secret Santa site. For Elfster, one such site, the normal staff of around 20 elves (yes, they call themselves elves) balloons to a team of about 55. "We need a million servers, we need tons of support people--it's just off the hook for the holidays," Peter Imburg, the company's CEO, told me recently on Zoom. More than 21 million people have used Elfster for exchanges, and Imburg said the biggest group he's seen participate in an exchange on the platform was about 5,000 people. Imburg started Elfster in 2004 (the time of Friendster and Napster, hence the name) as a way to solve a personal problem: How to coordinate a family gift exchange when not everyone was in the same place, and with certain conditions, like not selecting yourself or your spouse?

The pandemic situation has changed the way we do business. Digitalization has accelerated in many ways. We see many businesses moving to online, we see cryptocurrencies emerging and metaverses being created. With Facebook's recent announcement of rebranding to Meta, this trend has only gained speed. Artificial intelligence (AI) has now become more important than ever.

We recently featured the brilliant Nichesss, an AI tool that can be used to generate content and ideas. As is often the case with new tools a Facebook group has been set up and recently users have posted some interesting results using the tool…AI written short stories! I'll get on to how in a moment, let's just take a moment to check out some examples. As the cradle rocked, and the fire crackled, and the kitten snoozed, a robot appeared at the door of the cottage. It was battered, dented and dirty.

The Pixel 4a is a return to form for Google's smartphone efforts: a lower-cost, mid-range phone that is high quality, long-lasting and fairly small, with a great camera. The £349 Pixel 4a is very much an attempt to boil down a smartphone to only the essentials and then make them all work really well. It slots under the higher-priced £669-and-up Pixel 4 series, replacing last year's Pixel 3a and 3a XL with only one size of phone, taking the design of the 3a and expanding the screen to fill the front of the device. A 5G version is coming later in the year but for now the Pixel 4a is 4G only. The body is high-quality, soft-touch polycarbonate and feels surprisingly nice.

After almost six years on the market, smart speakers now come in a variety of sizes, shapes, capabilities and prices. Whether you want a cheap speaker to keep the kids entertained, one that doubles as a digital photo frame or one that sounds so good you'll want to yell "turn it up to 11", here's a quick guide to the best on the market. Google's Assistant is the best voice system on the market. It has better understanding than rivals, an enormous range of knowledge and – importantly – the ability to choose between male and female voices, even on a user-by-user basis as Google can distinguish between the individuals giving instructions. The Nest Mini is the second generation of Google's smallest and cheapest smart speaker.

Coping with lockdown life is hard enough without having to listen to other members of your household while you are trying to work. If you can't get away physically, a set of noise-cancelling headphones could be just the ticket to isolate you just enough to concentrate. Most cheaper noise-cancelling headphones are terrible, but the Lindy BNX-60 are actually pretty good. They're a little old, originally released in 2016, but having been reduced to just £50 they offer incredible value. The noise-cancelling handles background drone fairly well, while the ear cups enclose your ears to help quieten the rest of the world.