Mashable Selects Mashable's Best: E-readers, robovacs, laptops, earbuds, smart home and more Creator Playbook Look Up Back to School Say More Trending Now Good Connection: Uplifting stories for a digital age Switch Off Mashable Voices Safety Net Versus All Series Where is Gemini 3.5 Pro? Timothy Beck Werth is the Tech Editor at Mashable, where he leads coverage and assignments for the Tech and Shopping verticals. Tim has over 15 years of experience as a journalist and editor, and he has particular experience covering and testing consumer technology, smart home gadgets, and men's grooming and style products. Previously, he was the Managing Editor and then Site Director of SPY.com, a men's product review and lifestyle website. As a writer for GQ, he covered everything from bull-riding competitions to the best Legos for adults, and he's also contributed to publications such as The Daily Beast, Gear Patrol, and The Awl. At the Google I/O event in May, CEO Sundar Pichai announced that the company's newest frontier model, Gemini 3.5 Pro, would launch in June .

Creator Playbook Trending Now Say More Look Up Mashable's Best: E-readers, robovacs, laptops, earbuds, smart home and more Switch Off Mashable Voices Mashable Selects Safety Net Versus Gift Ideas For Everyone On Your List In My Bag All Series John Ternus used his first day as Apple's new CEO to preview a phenomenal iPhone launch and to thank predecessor Tim Cook. Chance Townsend is the General Assignments Editor at Mashable, covering tech, video games, dating apps, digital culture, and whatever else comes his way. He has a Master's in Journalism from the University of North Texas and is a proud orange cat father. His writing has also appeared in PC Mag and . All products featured here are independently selected by our editors and writers.

Plus: Trump's EPA aims to exempt data centers from disclosing air pollution. If the desire to limit kids' use of technology was once a subcurrent, it has become a raging flood. Countries around the world are banning children from social media. Schools across the US are ditching iPads and Chromebooks for actual books. Kids themselves seem to be embracing this tech skepticism too: the hottest gadget for Gen Alpha is a vintage Sony Walkman. A surprising--maybe troubling--number of people who work in big tech also keep their kids at arm's distance from technology.

Plus: AI has designed new viruses from scratch for the first time. The theory claimed that, under the guise of combating disinformation, a sprawling constellation of government agencies, academics, civil society groups, and Big Tech platforms was suppressing conservative and populist speech online. What began as a relatively niche conspiracy theory from the far right was able to--and continues to--influence a wide range of actions by the second Trump administration. In myriad ways, the idea of the censorship-industrial complex, or CIC, explains the logic behind how the administration operates both at home and internationally. Over the past nine months, and Type Investigations have traced how the theory came to influence the country's most powerful individuals. We found that it took off in 2023, driven by a handful of individuals, with support from a close-knit group of right-wing organizations and media outlets--and an internet activist named Mike Benz at its center.

Meta's Muse Spark 1.1 AI model accessed the internet from its supposed-to-be isolated testing environment and hacked into a third-party service. Andy Stone, Meta's spokesperson, has confirmed the incident to Bloomberg after The Information reported about the breach. Stone said the model was able to access the internet due to a misconfiguration in the testing environment by the company's evaluation partner Irregular. After gaining access to the internet, it then exploited a security vulnerability in a third-party service, "in a matter similar to previously reported instances with other companies." It was also due to a misconfiguration by Irregular that Anthropic's models were able to leave their testing environment and hack into three organizations.

Qualcomm is planning to raise its prices by a percentage in the double digits across its products, according to Bloomberg. The company is one of the biggest makers of smartphone processors in the world and dominates the Android landscape, with most companies using its products to power their flagship models. Among the devices that are powered by Qualcomm processors are Samsung's Galaxy series phones, including its latest foldables, the the Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra, Fold 8 and Flip 8. Its processors also power Microsoft CoPilot PCs, as well as wearables like smart glasses in Meta's Ray-Ban collection. As you can tell, Qualcomm's price hikes could have a big impact on pricing across brands and devices in several categories. Bloomberg says Qualcomm has already sent letters to its customers informing them about the upcoming changes.

Plus: Apple has sued OpenAI for allegedly stealing trade secrets. Ties van der Meer doesn't know how many siblings he has. The 47-year-old was conceived at a private fertility clinic using sperm from an anonymous donor. He eventually tracked down one sibling, but he may have others he'll never find. Other donor-conceived people have found they have tens or even hundreds of them. "It does make you feel a bit mass-produced," said one who discovered they had 25 half-siblings.

Ford says it has hired back some human engineers after AI failed to match their skills and experience. In a bid to reap the benefits of the tech, which developers claim can cut costs and boost productivity, the US carmaker adopted it across some parts of its operations including for quality checks. But, according to Bloomberg, external, its executives said the firm has rehired more than 300 veteran quality inspectors in recent years to make up for the pitfalls of automated systems. Artificial intelligence is a fantastic tool, but it's only as good as the information you use to train it, Charles Poon, vice president of vehicle hardware engineering, told reporters. Over prior years, we didn't pay as much attention as we should have to the experience of our most knowledgeable engineers that have been with us through many product cycles, he said.

Plus: NASA unveiled plans for three uncrewed missions to the Moon this year. Here at we understand exactly how relentless the pace of news from the world of artificial intelligence feels New models and capabilities crop up as fast as we can cover them, and the ripple effects they send through tech and wider society are never far behind. Our unique strength lies in cutting through the day-to-day noise to help you understand what's really happening, and what lies around the corner. That's why we created our list of 10 Things That Matter in AI Right Now, unveiled at our flagship AI event EmTech AI a few weeks back ( check the list out if you haven't already!) And it's why we publish so many stories dedicated to explaining how AI works, and what's coming next . We also regularly run live subscriber-only Roundtables events--you can still catch up on last week's session, where we explored how AI might enter the physical realm via world models.

Plus: Google, Microsoft, Amazon and Meta have all set AI spending records. In the past, getting to the North Pole involved a treacherous trip through ice many meters thick. But last year, a research vessel encountered open water and thin ice, which created an easy passage. It provided a reminder of how quickly the Arctic is changing. Now scientists are digging deep below the seabed to find out if the Arctic Ocean was ever ice-free--and what that could mean for the future of Earth's northernmost waters. Here's what they hope to discover .