Look Up Say More Top creators, ranked Gift Ideas For Everyone On Your List Mashable's Best: E-readers, robovacs, laptops, earbuds, smart home and more Creator Playbook Mashable Selects In My Bag AI at School Safety Net Versus Trending Now All Series Free is our favorite price. Christina Buff is a Nashville-based freelance writer for who covers shopping with a splash of entertainment. If you're ever wondering what streaming service you need to watch something (and the cheapest way to sign up for it), she's your girl. 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.

A grassroots live tour by YouTuber Louis Rossmann highlights growing resistance to companies that keep people from controlling their devices. The train blasts through right as Louis Rossmann starts to speak. This has happened several times already at the event he's hosting on a Friday night in San Jose, California. All the speakers before him patiently paused when the train on the nearby tracks roared by, its loud horn blaring, then resumed talking. But Rossmann is mid-sentence in his rapid-fire delivery about the topic he's fiercely passionate about, and he doesn't stop. He shouts over the train.

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 Will GTA 6 be on Xbox Game Pass at launch? Matt Binder joined Mashable's tech vertical in 2018, where he covers social media, tech policy, cybersecurity, online scams, cryptocurrency, AI, creator news, weird tech, and other related tech beats. Should Xbox Game Pass subscribers buy GTA 6? Credit: Finn Gomez/The Boston Globe via Getty Images If you're hoping to play as part of your Xbox Game Pass subscription, then I have some bad news for you: will not be included in Xbox Game Pass at launch. Unfortunately, the same goes for PC gamers . So, if you're a casual player who was hoping to avoid buying a $600 gaming console just to play, Xbox Game Pass isn't the solution.

Is Microsoft's first ever handheld Xbox console worth the wait? For almost two decades, rumours have swirled about a handheld Xbox console to rival Nintendo and PlayStation. The ROG Xbox Ally has been released worldwide, putting an end to the speculation. It works natively with Xbox's Game Pass subscription service out of the box, meaning members will start off with hundreds of games in their library. But its big trick is that it's really a portable computer running Windows, meaning most digital PC games people already own will work too - so long as they don't need a keyboard and mouse to play.

Fans have reacted angrily after Microsoft announced price increases to its Xbox Game Pass subscription service. The company announced that the most popular tier of its Netflix-style video games system - available to PC and Xbox players - would rise by more than 50% from £14.99 to £22.99 per month. Reacting on social media, loads of fans said they had cancelled their Game Pass subscriptions, with some reporting the service's cancellation page had crashed due to demand. BBC Newsbeat has asked Microsoft if the outage was linked to a surge in visits. In a blog post detailing the changes to Game Pass, Microsoft said it would offer three tiers - Essential (£10 per month), Premium (£14.99) and Ultimate (£22.99).

When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. Say goodbye to Nest Aware, and hello to Google Home Premium. Lots of change is coming to Google Home in the coming weeks, from the replacement of Google Assistant with Gemini for Home to an overhaul of its smart home subscription service, complete with a new name. Google is rebranding its Nest Aware plans as Google Home Premium, adding a bevy of Gemini-powered features to the service's two tiers (Standard and Advanced), but it's not chaning the prices for those tiers. So yes, the Google Home Premium reboot doesn't include any price hikes, but that shouldn't come as a surprise, given that Google just boosted the price of its former Nest Aware tiers back in July--perhaps in anticipation of the coming changes.

Last week Ring announced a feature that will you to capture video 24/7 so you don't miss anything if a motion alert wasn't triggered. The challenge is that if you'll then need to wade through hours of footage to find an event. Now, the Amazon-owned company has introduced Smart Video Search, an AI feature for subscribers of the upcoming 20 Ring Home serivce that makes it faster and easier to find specific moments in your video history. The system is powered by Ring IQ, a combination of Ring AI technology and in-house expertise. It uses Visual Language Modeling (VLM) to match text to images and show results.

Like everyone, I have come to massively resent the insidious creep of subscription services. I started off with an affordable, shareable Netflix subscription, many years ago. Then came Spotify, then Disney when I had children, then Prime Video, all of which I could just about justify. Then my Fitbit started wanting to charge me to unlock features in a device I'd already bought. Google now charges me monthly to store in the cloud the photos I take on my Google phone.

If you tilted your ears in a certain direction on Monday, you could make out a resounding cheer from the creative class across social media platforms and various Discord servers. That's because the Federal Trade Commission sued software company Adobe and two of its executives for "deceiving consumers" by all but forcing them "into year-long subscriptions through hidden early termination fees and numerous cancellation hurdles." "Adobe has had it coming for years," New York journalist Nolan Hicks stated. "I don't know of a single person who is rooting for Adobe on this," tweeted video essayist Scott Niswander. One viral meme urged the agency to "tear the bitch apart."

The Xbox Series S is our recommendation for the best cheap game console for several reasons, not least because it's an excellent entry point into modern gaming. Even better, the most budget-friendly Xbox is on sale at Target. The price of a starter bundle has dropped from 300 to 220, making the Series S an even sweeter deal. A bundle of an Xbox Series S and three months of Game Pass Ultimate has dropped to 220, making it a relatively inexpensive entry point into modern gaming. The Xbox Series S Starter Bundle comes with three months of Game Pass Ultimate access (a value of 51).