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"PS5 vs PS5 Slim" is a face-off gamers want to see as they scratch their heads over how Sony's skinnier new console differs from the original variant.

For years, many complained about PS5's bulky, unwieldy body — and Sony finally addressed that with the new PS5 Slim.

Sony announced the new slim PS5 model in October 2024, following a decades-long tradition of each PlayStation console getting a smaller counterpart midway through its generation. As you can probably tell, it's meant to be smaller than the original 2020 model, but that's not all.

SEE ALSO: 180+ of the best Cyber Monday gaming deals

Here are all the ways in which the new PS5 Slim is different from its predecessor.

Note: While we're diving into the differences between PS5 vs. PS5 Slim, keep in mind that Sony is reportedly working on a new console called PS5 Pro. It's expected to hit store shelves later this year. We also may get new information regarding the PS5 Pro in the upcoming PlayStation showcase, which is reportedly set to launch in late May.

PS5 vs PS5 Slim: Price

For whatever reason, Sony has elected to not drop the prices of the new PS5 models. The PS5 Slim with a disc drive is still $499, while the PS5 Slim without a disc drive is, maddeningly, $449 — or a $50 increase over the original digital-only console.

• PS5 Slim (no disc drive) - $449

• PS5 Slim (with disc drive) - $499

• Original PS5 (no disc drive) - $399

• Original PS5 (disc drive) - $499

Opens in a new window Credit: Amazon PS5 Slim (no disc drive) Get Deal

With that in mind, yes, the digital-only PS5 Slim is a money-saver in comparison to the one with a disc drive, but not in comparison to the digital-only model that launched three years ago.

The new price also means that buying a digital model before purchasing the additional disc drive would cost more than just snagging the version with a built-in drive. I don't really have a good explanation for any of that.

My only advice is this: If you want a PS5 that only costs $399, you better get one now. Once the existing stock of both original models sells out, the new slim models will replace them on store shelves.

PS5 vs PS5 Slim: Size

Obviously, size is what many gamers are most concerned about here, so let's get right to it. Looking at Sony's stated dimensions, you can see that the new PS5 is indeed smaller than the original:

• Original PS5 (disc version): 104mm (height) x 390mm (width) x 260mm (depth)

• PS5 Slim (disc version): 96mm x 358mm x 216mm

Opens in a new window Credit: Sony PS5 (Original Disc Version) Shop Now Opens in a new window Credit: Sony PS5 Marvel’s 'Spider-Man 2 Bundle' (Slim, Disc Version) Shop Now

• Original PS5 (digital version): 92mm x 390mm x 260mm

• PS5 Slim (digital version): 80mm x 358mm x 216mm

PS5 Slim models Credit: Sony

In other words, per Sony's announcement blog post, that's about a 30 percent reduction in total volume. That's definitely an improvement, but there's some important context missing in just those raw numbers. The Verge ran a digital size comparison and discovered that both new models are still substantially larger than the Xbox Series X.

In other words, this "slim" console is still pretty dang big.

For a visual comparison, check out this awesome PS5 Slim vs. Regular Reddit post.

SEE ALSO: Save on 'Star Wars Jedi: Survivor,' plus more PlayStation deals this Cyber Weekend PS5 vs PS5 Slim: Horsepower and storage

Another important aspect of the new PS5 models to get out of the way is that they have the exact same internal capabilities as the originals. This isn't a PS4 vs. PS4 Pro situation. Games will run exactly the same across the spectrum of PS5 consoles.

PS5 Slim Credit: Sony

One little internal bonus that owners of the new PS5s get, however, comes in the form of expanded storage. For some reason, the original PS5 only had 825GB of onboard storage, with the option to expand via external SSDs. The new ones have a full 1TB of built-in space, so you can install a few extra games depending on how big they are.

PS5 vs PS5 Slim: Disc drive

Just like at the PS5's launch in late 2020, there are two PS5 Slim models. One of them has a built-in disc drive and the other one is digital-only.

PS5 Slim Credit: Sony

Well, sort of, anyway. There's an optional detachable disc drive you can buy for $79.99. This was actually rumored more than a year ago, but the PS5 models were expected to launch next year — not 2023.

PlayStation deals

PlayStation game deals

• A Plague Tale: Requiem — $29.99 $59.99 (save $30)

• Atomic Heart — $34.99 $69.99 (save $35)

• Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III + Limited Collector's Box — $129 $149 (save $20)

• Call of Duty: Vanguard — $15 $59.99 (save $44.99)

• Need For Speed Unbound — $49.99 $79.99 (save $30)

• NHL 23 — $24.99 $69.99 (save $45)

• The Quarry — $9.99 $69.99 (save $60)

PlayStation console deals

• PlayStation 5 + Modern Warfare III Bundle — $539.99 $569.99 (save $30)

• PlayStation 5 + Marvel's Spider-Man 2 Bundle — $499 $559.99 (save $60.99)

• PlayStation 5 Slim (non-bundle) — $499.99

• PlayStation 5 Slim + Marvel's Spider-Man 2 Bundle — $499.99 $559.99 (save $60)

• PlayStation 5 Slim + Call of Duty Modern Warfare III Bundle — $499.99

PlayStation controller deals

• PlayStation 5 DualSense controller — $39.99 $69.99 (save $30)

• PlayStation 5 DualSense controller (Midnight Black) — $65.99 $69.99 (save $4)

• PlayStation 5 DualSense controller (Gray Camouflage) — $68.85 $74.99 (save $9)

• PlayStation 5 DualSense controller (Galactic Purple) — $72.75 $74.99 (save $25.99)

SAVE $8.23: As of May 16, get the hardcover edition of Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief for $10.76, down from its normal price of $18.99. That's a discount of 43%.

Opens in a new window Credit: Amazon 'Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief' $10.76 at Amazon
$18.99 Save $8.23 Get Deal

Looking for a new YA fantasy to follow? Percy Jackson and the Olympians is now a new series on Disney+, 14 years after its theatrical debut in 2010. If you've been curious about the saga or you're a die-hard fan and want to collect the books now, here's a great deal that you can start with, going on right now during the Amazon Book Sale.

As of May 16, you can get a hardcover edition of the first book in the Percy Jackson series, Percy Jackson and The Lightning Thief, for just $10.76. That's $8.23 off its normal price of $18.99, and a discount of 43%.

The Lightning Thief kicks off a long-running series that follows the titular Jackson, who discovers he's a demigod, or a half-god, half-human, and his real father is the Greek god Poseidon. After uncovering his lineage, he's tasked with preventing the fearsome Titans from destroying the world as we know it.

The action-packed saga is a fun read, especially if you like Greek mythology, or if you just want to learn more about what happens in the books compared to the new series. There's likely a second season on the way, so you can gear up with knowledge about what's going to happen by starting with this first (now very affordable) book. And while it may be aimed at teens and preteens, there's certainly plenty to love here if you need a new series to love after wearing Harry Potter out after all these years.

SAVE 20%: The Soundcore Motion 300 wireless speaker is just $63.99, marked down from the usual price of $79.99. That's a $16 discount.

Opens in a new window Credit: Soundcore Soundcore Motion 300 wireless speaker (black) $63.99 at Amazon
$79.99 Save $16.00 Get Deal

Before the heat of summer arrives, it's time to prepare your list of essentials. You'll need some sunscreen to protect your skin, new sunglasses would also be ideal, a few great books, and some tunes. If you still need to sort out how to listen to your favorite summer playlist, today's deal at Amazon is ready to help.

As of May 16, the Soundcore Motion 300 wireless speaker is on sale for just $63.99, down from the normal price of $79.99. That's a 20% discount or a savings of $16. This price matches the lowest we've ever seen at Amazon. To score this sale price, you'll need to grab the black colorway.

Portable speakers have become an essential part of everyday life, and while your phone will do in a pinch, the best backyard hangs involve a powerful wireless speaker. The Soundcore Motion 300 is designed to produce clear, hi-res sound quality with deep bass. The compact size makes it perfect for tossing in your tote bag for the beach or easily storing in a desk drawer when it's not in use.

Lending itself to summer sessions, the Soundcore Motion 300 comes with IPX7 waterproof protection, so it can come along on your adventure to the beach, pool, or on the river-side hike. You also won't have to worry if the weather takes a turn and rain suddenly appears.

The portable speaker comes with a detachable strap, so you can conveniently hang the speaker from a tent canopy or your backpack. The soft outer rubber shell helps with durability should any falls or drops occur.

Soundcore mentions the speaker gets about 13 hours of play time before needing a recharge, so it should last all day.

If summer prep is on your mind, and you're in need of a fresh portable speaker, the Soundcore Motion 300 is on sale for under $65 today at Amazon. With great sound and a long battery life, there's no stopping the sounds of summer with this speaker.

Samsung has capitalized on backlash from Apple's tone-deaf iPad Pro ad with a message of its own: Samsung is your creative ally, not Apple.

Negative reactions to Apple's promo for the new iPad Pro, which featured a hydraulic press crushing creative tools and instruments, prompted the company to issue a rare apology for "missing the mark" — and it cancelled plans to run the ad on TV.

Tweet may have been deleted

Samsung had some thoughts too, running its own ad that seemed to pick up right where the hydraulic press left off.

SEE ALSO: The new iPad ad essentially flips AI-weary creatives the bird Why Apple's iPad ad fell flat

The rise of AI threatens creative livelihoods with the very unresolved issue of copyright infringement and generative AI tools that can create images, music, video, and text with simple prompts. The issue boils down to whether AI will replace jobs or empower creatives to better express themselves. Apple has long positioned itself as a friend to creatives, and profits from our aspirations of being the best creative versions of ourselves. Now that Apple's reputation has been tarnished, Samsung is ready to swoop in and offer consolation.

In the ad for Samsung's Galaxy Tab S9 Ultra posted on X, a woman walks through scattered wooden and metal debris and picks up a beat-up guitar from the floor of an empty warehouse like the one featured in the Apple ad. Reading sheet music from the Samsung Galaxy tablet propped up on a music stand, she starts playing guitar and smiles. The camera pans out to reveal a similar hydraulic press platform dripping with paint as the text overlay reads "Creativity cannot be crushed."

Samsung's ad is a not-so-subtle callout of Apple's iPad Pro announcement that struck the wrong note at the wrong time. "Apple's commercial was no doubt intended to convey the idea that the iPad Pro can also do many of the tasks that the various obliterated tools could," said Mashable reporter Amanda Yeo. "Unfortunately, the result looked more grimly dystopian than the tech giant intended."

But fear not, creatives. The strategically-timed move from Samsung has just the solution.

In a brutal year for tech layoffs, Tesla may have set the record for worst reason to lay people off.

At least, that's the implication in a new report from Reuters detailing what led to 500 employees from Tesla's Supercharger team being cut earlier in May. According to Reuters, Musk met privately with charging executive Rebecca Tinucci in what was expected by Tinucci to be a meeting about the future expansion of the charging network.

SEE ALSO: QAnon conspiracy theories are surging on Elon Musk's X. Here's proof.

However, Musk was reportedly unsatisfied when Tinucci's presentation and asked for further layoffs. Tinucci disagreed and Musk's response was to then fire Tinucci and the 500 other members of the Supercharger team who lost their jobs. It should be noted that, according to Bloomberg, at least some of those employees are now on their way back to Tesla.

If this interaction between Musk and Tinucci happened precisely as reported by Reuters, it would only add to a years-in-the-making tapestry of reports about the volatile work environment at Tesla. Whether it's an unusually high rate of workplace injuries or repeated accusations of racism on the factory floor, Tesla has generated plenty of headlines over the years that paint it as a pretty bleak place to work.

The same has been true for SpaceX and X (formerly Twitter) more recently. Hm, I wonder if there's some kind of common denominator between those companies?

SAVE $200: As of May 16, the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra is $1,219.99 at Amazon. That's a discount of 14%.

Opens in a new window Credit: Amazon Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra $1,219.99 at Amazon
$1,419.99 Save $200.00 Get Deal

If, after completing your spring cleaning spree, you're ready for a new smartphone, now's a great time to invest. For Android fans, you can't do much better than the excellent Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra, which is on sale for even lower than the Amazon Big Spring Sale price back in March.

As of May 16, the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra is on sale for just $1,219.99. That's a $200 discount and 14% off its normal price of $1,419.99. This price applies to the Titanium Black, Titanium Gray, Titanium Violet, and Titanium Yellow color options.

This is the largest model of the Samsung Galaxy S24 line, with a 6.8-inch display boasting a 3088 x 1440 resolution and a 120Hz refresh rate. It's powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor with 12GB of RAM, and comes with 512GB of storage and a 50MP zoom camera. It has a high-capacity 5,000mAh battery that'll give you plenty of usage and talk time, improved over the previous generation. Plus, it includes the Samsung S Pen stylus that you can use to doodle, take notes, or navigate menus on your phone.

This phone just hit retailers in January 2024, so the fact that it's already seen multiple discounts is a bit surprising, but it's good news for you. If you're ready to try out a new phone, be sure to go ahead and snatch this one up while it's available now for this lower price.

I realize it's tedious to complain about remakes. Often tied to the weary lament that "Hollywood is out of new ideas," such complaints are so constant that they are practically a metronome, keeping the time as studios churn out remakes or "reimaginings." Already this year we've seen Mean Girls, Road House, and The Fall Guy, and still ahead are The Crow, Twisters, Speak No Evil, and Nosferatu. And now comes The Strangers: Chapter 1, which is not a prequel but a relaunch of the home-invasion horror franchise that began in 2008 with writer/director Bryan Bertino's original thriller The Strangers. 

Renny Harlin, who in the '90s directed a slew of splashy action movies including the Sylvester Stallone-fronted Cliffhanger and the underrated Geena Davis pirate epic Cutthroat Island, is at the helm of this new chapter of the proposed new trilogy. But to call it "new" feels more than generous. Penned by Alan R. Cohen and Alan Freedland, The Strangers: Chapter 1 has some differences from the original. For instance, rather than an arguing couple staying in a remote vacation house owned by a family member, this installment follows an otherwise happy couple (Madelaine Petsch and Froy Gutierrez) that unexpectedly finds shelter in a last-minute Airbnb cabin. But otherwise, the plot points of the movie are so astonishingly similar that you might well experience déjà vu. 

How does The Strangers: Chapter 1 compare to The Strangers? Credit: John Armour for Lionsgate

Once more, a handsome, straight white couple from the city spends the night in a remote rural cabin, and are mercilessly and violently tormented by a mysterious trio of masked intruders. The masks from The Strangers resurface here with little discernible differences. And the routine of the killings is religiously the same, from start to finish: A young woman, whose face is lost to darkness thanks to an unscrewed porch light, knocks on the door asking if Tamara is there. Strange noises and blood-red graffiti in a bedroom hint that someone has already gotten into the house. Creepy wide shots confirm this to the viewer, while the female victim — left alone by her male partner — remains oblivious. The remote location means there is nowhere to run. The victims' phones and vehicles are strategically destroyed by the invaders. With no escape likely, death seems as inevitable as the killers' motivations are inexplicable.

Which begs the question, if Harlin and company are going to hew this closely to the original, why bother making this movie at all? It's not just that the other movie already exists. It's also that the scares in this movie fall flat because of how we as audiences have changed since 2008. Back then, The Strangers served as a rebellion in the reemergence of the slasher, which thanks to the success of Scream had become a subgenre flooded with glossy teen-aimed imitators, like I Know What You Did Last Summer, Urban Legends, and The Faculty. By contrast, The Strangers gave audiences a grimmer version of horror, one where no solace would come in the form of unmasking the killer. No motive would give a sense of closure. And the final showdown between killer and Final Girl would be more gutting, literally and metaphorically. 

SEE ALSO: 'Scream VI' writers and Jasmin Savoy Brown reveal the most crucial horror movie survival rules

The Strangers also offered unique terror with the same promise made by horror movies like The Blair Witch Project, Wolf Creek, and Open Water: It claimed to be based on a true story. That is true in only the flimsiest of senses. Bertino found inspiration in the senselessness and maliciousness of the Manson family murders and the unsolved Keddie cabin murders of 1981. (Be warned — googling either is nightmare fuel.) These influences might explain why in the 2008 movie, poor tortured Kristen (Liv Tyler) and James (Scott Speedman) act like they'd never seen a slasher movie before. 

That film was set in a contemporary time of cell phones and easy access to the entire Scream franchise (not to mention the decades-old Friday the 13th and Halloween series). And yet the characters had no awareness of slasher "rules," leading to a throwback shock and general helplessness in the face of random violence. This attitude might have been intended to reflect the naïveté folks had before Manson about what horror might crash into your home without reason. However, Harlin's Chapter 1 maintains this same ignorance, which feels even less believable in a modern world where true crime has become an omnipresent genre across movies, TV, and podcasts. Frankly, this makes his heroes — in particular, heroine Maya — almost unforgivably obtuse. 

Madelaine Petsch stumbles where Liv Tyler sprinted.  Credit: John Armour for Lionsgate.

But it's not the Riverdale star's fault. Where The Strangers focused intensely on the relationship crisis between its heroes ahead of their hardship, Petsch's Maya has no troubles. She and Ryan (Gutierrez), her blandsome boyfriend of five years, are beginning to talk about marriage, but neither seems particularly pressed on the issue. Her main goal at the start of the film is just to get to a job interview in Portland, Oregon, so she can be an architect. Ryan, meanwhile, is also there. Their characters, despite having plenty of pre-invasion time to talk, are not much defined beyond this, and so feel like flimsy stand-ins for the original tortured twosome. Their screams, while earnest, feel like little more than echoes.

Beyond the lack of characterization, The Strangers set up interpersonal tension before any intruder creepiness kicked in, which grounded the film in an eerie banality — essentially urging audiences to imagine what if an already shitty day ended with this?! Chapter 1 has no such tension, and instead coasts on audience awareness of what is to come. Behold the cliches of creepy rural horror: a rural strip of road dotted by only a handful of buildings; locals who range from odd to nosy, to downright menacing. And then for good measure, the angel-faced evangelical boys with proselytizing pamphlets who popped by at the end of the 2008 movie also make an appearance. When Ryan picks a fight with a surly mechanic, we know this outsider is doomed. But that also breaks some of the tension the original had, as the world beyond the couple's cabin was a mystery. 

While the 2008 sequel, The Strangers: Prey at Night, shook things up by adding two teen siblings to the mix, The Strangers: Chapter 1 instead expands to Venus, Oregon, a small town of a few hundred, which boasts businesses like Rudy's Garage and Molly's Diner, all with rusted facades that match the yellowing teeth of the scowling residents. With one short sequence in which Ryan and Maya make a pit stop on their way to Portland, this trilogy-starter shifts from proposing no motive for the attack to suggesting the petty kind common in rural horror, in which city-associated outsiders are hunted with relish. (See: Deliverance, Straw Dogs, The Wicker Man, Men.)

The Strangers: Chapter 1 aims to build lore but is a bore. Credit: John Armour for Lionsgate

Remarkably, the (very few) ways in which The Strangers: Chapter 1 is notably different from The Strangers also make it less interesting. The introduction of characters outside of predator and prey suggests there's more to these masked murderers than the horrific happenstance of "because you were home." It undercuts the mysterious menace of the original. Plus, the changes to the intruders' signature costumes are frankly unimpressive. 

In both The Strangers and its sequel The Strangers: Prey at Night, the killers paired their masks with a rumpled business suit, a trendy baby-doll dress, and a casual teen look that'd be well-suited to a mall hang. The incongruity with the masks was jarring, as was their lack of cohesion. These were outfits that might seem like puzzle pieces, but they refused to fit together; as a result, our brains ran wild with possible explanations.

The Strangers: Chapter 1 chucks these costumes, as well as the long blonde hair of one of the assailants. Now, they all wear hiking boots, jeans, and khaki jackets that would be equally suitable for hunting in the forest or hitting the flea markets in Brooklyn. It's giving nothing. Which perhaps is supposed to be more haunting, but instead is unengaging. Off-the-rack slasher fashion is something few outside Jason Voorhees can pull off. 

Between the repeated plot points and uninspired changes, all that's left is the ghoulish spectacle of human misery. As was the case in the prior installments, the horror here is pure nihilism. Unmoored from the morality and twisted motives of standard slasher movies, The Strangers: Chapter 1 doesn't offer hope or a hero to root for. Instead, it offers a front-row seat to the kind of violent crimes that make for seedy news coverage, relishing in the carnage. The opening credits even play into such fear-mongering, claiming a violent crime happens in the U.S. every 23.1 seconds. And yet, the film behaves as if its victims have absolutely zero awareness of such potential horrors, all the more outrageous when one is a young white woman — the primary demographic for the true crime genre! But because Maya and Ryan are babes in the woods,  when the intruders do their thing, there's little forward momentum and more panicked meandering, with much screams and tears. 

Personally, nihilistic horror hits me as more unpleasant and depressing than engagingly scary. Such bleakness bleeds out tension, making for a remake that is merciless but also exhaustingly familiar. The most haunting part of The Strangers: Chapter 1 is its finale's promise for more, when a title card threatens, "To be continued…"

The Strangers: Chapter 1 opens in theaters May 17.

Amazon deals of the day at a glance: OUR TOP PICK TP-Link Tapo MagCam $79.99 at Amazon (save $40 with on-page coupon) Get Deal BEST EARBUDS DEAL Anker Soundcore Liberty 4 wireless earbuds $79.99 at Amazon (save $50) Get Deal BEST BEAUTY TECH DEAL Shark SmoothStyle $79.99 at Amazon (save $20) Get Deal BEST HOME DEAL iRobot Roomba j7 robot vacuum $299.99 at Amazon (save $300) Get Deal

You never really know what sort of deals Amazon has in store on any given day — whether it's a major shopping holiday, a big promotional event (like the current Amazon Book Sale), or just a random Thursday. We've scoured pages and pages of Amazon deals and handpicked a few of the best ones you can shop on May 16 — with brands like TP-Link, Shark, Anker Soundcore, and iRobot coming out on top.

Here are our top picks for the best Amazon deals of the day. Be sure to check back at our deals from May 14 and May 15, too. Most of those deals are still going strong.

Our top pick Opens in a new window Credit: TP-Link Amazon deal of the day: TP-Link Tapo MagCam $79.99 at Amazon
$119.99 Save $40.00 with on-page coupon Get Deal

If you're looking to add an extra set of eyes to your home for security, the TP-Link Tapo MagCam offers sharp 2K video and a year-long battery life at a price that won't break the bank. Not to mention, it's on sale for it's lowest price on record as of May 16. While we haven't had a chance to test it ourselves, our friends at PCMag (which is owned by Mashable's publisher, ZiffDavis) have done the honor and awarded it a 4.5 outstanding rating. "It's an excellent value for a battery-powered camera that offers color night vision, built-in spotlights, local and cloud storage options, free intelligent alerts, voice control, and many other features," the review states, all of which earned the camera an Editors' Choice award. Usually $119.99, you can snag the TP-Link Tapo MagCam on sale for just $79.99 at Amazon with the on-page coupon.

Opens in a new window Credit: Shark Shark HT202 SmoothStyle blow dryer brush $79.99 at Amazon
$99.99 Save $20.00 Get Deal

Shark's SmoothStyle launched last summer and looks and acts like a fancier Revlon One-Step. It's basically a round hot air brush with some extra features. You can start with your hair wet and use the three preset air temperatures to dry and style your hair in one go without frying it. Once it's dry, you'll use the SmoothStyle like a thermal brush, with one preset heated smoothing comb setting. The comb itself has ceramic-coated plates to keep it from damaging your locks. Usually, it would run you $100, but as of May 16, it's on sale for just $79.99 at Amazon. That's 20% in savings and only the second time its dropped to this low of a price.

Opens in a new window Credit: Anker Anker Soundcore Liberty 4 wireless earbuds $79.99 at Amazon
$129.99 Save $50.00 Get Deal

Looking for a pair of noise-cancelling earbuds that won't break the bank? Anker's Soundcore Liberty 4s offer premium features like spatial audio, ACAA 3.0 technology for clear and crisp sound, personalized ANC, and an in-ear heart rate sensor to detect your heart rate as you listen throughout the day, all for just $79.99 as of May 16. That's $50 off the usual cost and the lowest price on record since their release at the end of 2022. They come with CloudComfort eartips to ensure listening for up to 28 hours (with the included charging case) remains comfortable the whole time.

Opens in a new window Credit: iRobot iRobot Roomba j7 robot vacuum $299.99 at Amazon
$599.99 Save $300.00 Get Deal

Although it's not the lowest price we've seen, 50% off any Roomba is reason to sound the alarm. The Roomba j7 is one of the most solid Roombas (and robot vacuums in general) you could bring home, thanks to its small obstacle avoidance feature. The j series Roombas will steer clear of smaller obstacles in your home, like phone charging cables, socks, and pet waste — a capability that Mashable Senior Shopping Reporter Leah Stodart found to be an "absolute game-changer." While it doesn't sport on-board mopping or self-emptying capabilities, we're more willing to forgive since it's on sale for only $299.99. That's $300 off its usual price and about $37 shy of its all-time low.

None of these deals catching your eye? Check out Amazon's daily deals for even more savings.

It's been 11 years, but a college football video game is finally releasing soon.

EA Sports College Football 25, the long-awaited entry in the renamed NCAA College Football video game series, will be launching worldwide on July 19, 2024. It'll be the first college football video game since the release of 2013's NCAA Football 14.

Developed by EA Orlando, the team has stressed in the past few months that this game is not just a re-skin of its NFL counterpart, Madden. Thanks to EA's new Name, Image, Likeness (NIL) agreements — which compensate players for their in-game representation — the game will feature over 10,000 real college athletes for the first time in the series' history. Additionally, College Football 25 will include all 134 FBS teams.

College Football 25 was first announced in February 2021 as a game that would happen at some point, with no definitive date. News of the game's development was sparse until its teaser trailer in February of this year with a promise of a full reveal in the following months.

Both versions of the game's cover have already leaked on the internet, with the Deluxe Edition seen earlier this month on Sony's Playstation store. The Standard Edition was seen on various social media circles on X (formerly Twitter) and Reddit. Interestingly, both covers feature current college football players, whereas in years past the NCAA series would only use the likeness of recently graduated players. It makes sense though as EA has paid a hefty chunk of change for the NIL rights to college athletes across the country.

Featuring on the standard cover are University of Texas QB Quinn Ewers, University of Colorado athlete Travis Hunter, and University of Michigan RB Donovan Edwards. Reception online to the leaked covers has been mixed at best, with some disappointed that the design isn't as cool as what they've envisioned in the years since the game was announced.

It's still unclear how the actual game will play, however, EA plans on doing a full reveal of College Football 25 on Friday, May 17.

SAVE 28%: Jake Adelstein's memoir Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan is discounted to just $12.99 in paperback during the Amazon Book Sale, down from the usual price of $18. That's a savings of $5.01.

Opens in a new window Credit: Amazon "Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan" by Jake Adelstein $12.99 at Amazon
$18.00 Save $5.01 Get Deal

As the yen sinks to record lows against the U.S. dollar, more people are heading out to experience the magic of Japan. If you've always wanted to visit Japan and hope to discover more about the country before you take the journey over to the land of the rising sun, today's offering at the Amazon Book Sale is literary travel prep.

As of May 16, Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan, the memoir by Jake Adelstein, is just $12.99 in paperback at Amazon, down from the usual price of $18. That's a 28% discount or a savings of $5.01.

Not many of us have epic stories to tell about what we were up to at age 19, but that's when Jake Adelstein moved from America to Japan in search of a journalism career. His memoir follows the highs and lows of his journey that eventually granted him access into the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Press Club, as the first American ever admitted.

The book is also the inspiration behind the the hit MAX series of the same name, Tokyo Vice. The two-season series stars Ansel Elgort as Jake Adelstein, Ken Watanabe, and Rinko Kikuchi. Both the book and the series dive into a lesser-seen side of Japan that includes extortion, murder, and corruption.

If a first-hand account of life in Japan as a foreign journalist sounds appealing or if you're a fan of the hit show, today's deal at Amazon brings the price of the paperback down to just $12.99 — a bargain price if comparing the cost to the total hours of engrossing entertainment it'll provide.

Affirm is the first BNPL (Buy Now, Pay Later) service to be available directly through Amazon Pay, and shoppers love it. Last year, BNPL orders increased by 85 percent during Cyber Week compared to the week before, while revenue increased 88 percent. And during last year's Amazon Prime Day there was a 20% increase in BNPL use from the previous year. With inflation still wreaking havoc, it's no stretch of the imagination to assume that Affirm use will remain high for Prime Day 2024.

The ability to pay for items in installments can sweeten your Prime Day prospects. But before going BNPL-wild on your haul, there are some factors to consider about Affirm versus other BNPL apps, as well as the advantages and disadvantages of using these tools in general.

SEE ALSO: Prime Day 2024: When it's happening and everything else we know so far Why Buy Now, Pay Later is so appealing

Layaway programs were popular with shoppers in the '90s until they were overtaken by credit cards. But there is a key difference between layaway and BPNL. When you put an item on layaway, it was held for you until you paid it off, at which point you could take it home. With BPNL, you get the goods shipped to you right away but then pay off that item in installments.

When combined with Amazon's typically lightning-fast shipping and Affirm's lack of late fees, BPNL can make big purchases feel easier to stomach.

Affirm's interest rates typically range from 0 to 30% APR based on your credit and payments can be spread out over three to 48 months. Different plans are available for different purchase amounts, and the minimum purchase amount to use Affirm is $50. Affirm's APR calculator can help you estimate how much interest you'll rack up on a certain purchase, which could hit $100 or more if you get a loan for, say, a pricey piece of furniture.

When it's wise to buy now and pay later

There are moments when BPNL is a good choice:

• For some big purchases, using BNPL services may make sense. Breaking up the cost of big investments like a new MacBook Pro or premium robot vacuum can be easier to manage over time rather than laying down the whole amount in one go.

• Using BNPL services on necessities like groceries depends on your habits. Habitually funding little daily expenses (like Starbucks) with an installment app can trigger a domino effect of debt, but may work better if you're buying something like toilet paper in bulk.

• When used responsibly, apps like Affirm can also help you work around the timing of your paycheck and monthly costs that require up-front payment, like rent. Be aware that Affirm's "soft inquiry" to determine your credit won't affect your credit score, but the company doesn't promise not to report your payment history to credit bureaus. To make sure you always pay on time, we recommend turning on automatic payments and confirming that your payment method won't expire over the pay period.

When you shouldn't buy now and pay later

There are times when you should absolutely avoid relying on BPNL:

• Before purchasing with BPNL, consider whether you'd buy that item if you didn't have the option to break up the payment.

• Don't snag something just to hit Affirm's $50 minimum.

• Make a wishlist ahead of time if you have to, and hold yourself accountable. The devil on your shoulder saying "You need this, though" can get louder when something is on sale. Especially during big shopping events like Prime Day, you don't want to cancel out your savings with a serotonin booster that you didn't know existed five minutes ago.

• Impulse purchases may feel less risky at the moment, thanks to tools like Affirm. But they can swiftly feel unnecessary once the Affirm reaper returns for payment month after month. Making a series of small payments can create the harmful illusion that you're spending less money. While that's technically accurate (and admittedly blissful) for the first few months, you'll still be spending the same amount of money by the time you've paid out every installment.

"It Ends With Us," starring Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni, hits theaters August 9.

SAVE $10.99: As of May 16, get the physical edition of Cixin Liu's The Three-Body Problem for $8, down from its normal price of $18.99. That's a discount of 58%.

Opens in a new window Credit: Amazon 'The Three-Body Problem' $8.00 at Amazon
$18.99 Save $10.99 Get Deal

Netflix's hit sci-fi series 3 Body Problem is an intriguing story that had to undergo some significant changes to bring to the small screen. Whether you've already been through the entire show and still have questions, or you're curious what it's about and why there are three bodies anyway, now's a great time to read the book that started it all. You can get it for a fantastic price thanks to the Amazon Book Sale. Reading the inspiration for the show may very well help you understand a bit more about what's going on – if nothing else, it's a good read that you won't be able to put down.

As of May 16, you can get a paperback edition of the first installment of the author's Remembrance of Earth's Past trilogy, The Three-Body Problem, for just $8 at Amazon. That's $10.99 off its original price of $18.99 and a discount of 58%.

There's a lot to unpack with this somewhat complex story, but that'll be much easier with the book in-hand. This is a sci-fi story that's been viewed in the past as "unadaptable," but it made for a thrilling ride when it hit Netflix as an adaptation from Game of Thrones creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, along with True Blood's Alexander Woo.

In a nutshell, this first book explores a past, present, and future where Earth comes into contact with an alien civilization from another Solar System-like galaxy with three suns, a representation of the "three-body problem" in orbital mechanics. The phrase refers to predicting the motions of three bodies (in this case the three suns) that interact gravitationally, like our system's sun, earth, and moon. Isaac Newton was the first to study this problem and realized it was very difficult to solve – and it's pretty complicated here, too.

If all that sounds like a fun ride despite the complexity, grab the book while it's still on sale for just $8.

Hunting down the best Prime Day sales can be exhausting. Limited-availability Lightning Deals often sell out in minutes, and it can take hours to sift through hundreds of thousands of discounts across the site.

But there's a better way to find Prime Day deals on the stuff you want: enable Alexa to give Amazon deal alerts.

SEE ALSO: Paying for Prime Day purchases with Affirm: With great power comes great responsibility Who can use Alexa's advanced deal alerts?

Advanced Amazon deal alerts are available for U.S.-based Prime members on newer Echo smart speakers and include upcoming deals on eligible products from your Wish List, shopping cart, or Saved for Later queue up to 24 hours before they're available. You can also have Alexa purchase an item for you as soon as its discount goes live.

The advanced deal alerts feature is available year-round, but it'll be especially valuable during massive savings events like Prime Day and Black Friday when discount FOMO is very real.

How to turn on and use Alexa's advanced deal alerts

1. Open the Alexa mobile app. Go to More > Settings > Notifications > Amazon Shopping; from there, hit Shopping Recommendations and then Deal Recommendations.

2. Add products you're interested into your Wish List, Shopping Cart, or Saved for Later queue on the Amazon app or website.

3. When Alexa catches word of an upcoming deal on one of those products, your Echo will light up yellow. Ask, "Alexa, what are my notifications?" to learn more.

4. Once you've heard the latest deals, ask Alexa to remind you about the deal or ask her to order it when it goes live. ("Alexa, buy it for me.") The purchase will be made using the default payment and delivery address in your Amazon account, so make sure that information is updated and correct beforehand.

What if an item sells out or I change my mind?

You'll only be charged if your order goes through when the deal is available. If a product sells out before Alexa gets to it, she'll break the news in an email and a push notification. And if you change your mind about an item, Amazon will send you a post-purchase confirmation email that contains a "Cancel order request" link just in case.

Evil returns with its fourth and final season this week, and you won't want to miss out on all the wicked fun. Picking up with the Antichrist arc that ended Season 3, the premiere episode offers a new theme for the show's pop-up book opening titles. As indicated by the episode title, "How to Split an Atom," it's all about the evils found in science. 

In the first four episodes released to critics, Evil touches on fears over particle colliders, lax food production regulations, Elon Musk's running X (into the ground), and those cute yet creepy robot dogs. Each episode, true believer ​​David Acosta (Mike Colter), skeptic Kristen Bouchard (Katja Herbers), and science guy Ben Shakir (Aasif Mandvi) are sent on a new monster-of-the-week adventure, touching on classic creatures, curious sci-fi questions, and religious visions of relentless demons. 

What you need to remember about Evil ahead of Season 4: Kristen Bouchard (Katja Herbers) hears something go bump in the night in "Evil." Credit: Elizabeth Fisher / Paramount+

Last season, the devilish Leland Townsend (Michael Emerson) managed to steal one of Kristen's frozen eggs from a fertility clinic. And he's used it — via surrogate — to pave the way for the birth of the Antichrist. Kristen, who's seen Leland fuck with her family in just about every way imaginable, could be furious. But in the first episode of this season, she laughs in his face. As seen in the teaser, she scoffs at the idea of him being father to her biological son. "Did you ever wonder why The Omen skipped the infancy? Because that's the real horror." 

Leland had been hoping to rope Kristen in through some biological imperative to care for the Antichrist, but she's too busy investigating tales of Satan worshippers and possessed pork in Upstate New York to take much notice. However, Leland still has his hooks in her husband Andy (Patrick Brammall), who was previously abducted, tortured, and turned into an oblivious sleeper agent. Whenever he hears a certain kitschy tune, Andy is putty in the hands of Leland — and Sheryl, Kristen's mom/Leland's workplace rival. 

See, while Sheryl is working for Satan, she's still trying to achieve what's "best" for the Bouchard family. Unfortunately, her vision of success may not align with her daughter's. 

Elsewhere, Father David is on new missions for the Catholic Church's version of secret intelligence, The Entity. Ben is being pestered by a pernicious djinn, and Sister Andrea (Andrea Martin) makes the most of her screen time by kicking all kinds of demon butt — with the help of gardening shears! 

Season 4 is very baby Antichrist-focused.  Ben Shakir (Aasif Mandvi) runs some experiences in "Evil." Credit: Elizabeth Fisher / Paramount+

For three seasons, Evil creators Robert King and Michelle King have made this irreverently fun series a mix of Catholic lore, cryptids, and supernatural scares. But with the end coming nearer and nearer for the series, which Paramount+ nearly canceled without a proper conclusion, there's a noticeable drive to hammer out the conclusion of Leland's big plan to bring about the apocalypse through the birth of the Antichrist. 

Early on, it seems the countdown to the birth might be meant to create a ticking clock on the season. However, within the first four episodes, the baby is born in a shockingly anti-climactic fashion. The Kings have some fun putting the endlessly sinister Leland into the kooky comedy of baby vomit and at-wit's-end parenthood, but these bits get most interesting when it pushes Leland to get creative in his manipulation. Stealing more files from Kristen's therapist, he figures out a new means to potentially lure the mother of five to return to the side of her infant (and destined for evil) son. Without spoilers, it's a moment both deeply chilling and not remotely supernatural. It's most interesting in how it impacts the Bouchards, and the projectile-vomiting baby of it all.

The weekly mysteries take a hit.  David Acosta (Mike Colter), Ben Shakir (Aasif Mandvi), and Kristen Bouchard (Katja Herbers) search for a werewolf in "Evil." Credit: Elizabeth Fisher / Paramount+

Like The X-Files or Doctor Who, Evil has offered plenty of thrilling tales through its one-off mysteries. But this season, two of the first four episodes don't offer answers as much as they do plant seeds for future reveals. As this streaming series airs week by week, that lack of closure on the minor mysteries can be a bit frustrating, but I'd advise fans who prefer the creepy critters episodes to hang in there. 

Episode 3 ("How to Slaughter a Pig") brings back the creepy campfire vibes of Are You Afraid of the Dark? Kristen and company are invited to an Upstate New York pig farm because of an internet game called the Possessed Pork Challenge. What follows is classic Evil — a satisfying mystery studded with scary moments of man and beast, as well as a political allegory that makes the final reveal even more haunting. From there, episode four digs deep into demons, complete with delightfully deranged practical effects. 

Evil's cast is back and crackling.  Sister Andrea (Andrea Martin) on the attack in "Evil." Credit: Elizabeth Fisher / Paramount+

In the final season of Evil, the three leads all get curious new aspects to their characters that are exciting to see explored. Kristen begins the season with a new devil-may-care attitude that brings chaotic sex scenes and laugh-out-loud quips into her plotline. David probes new aspects of his psychic abilities that unlock a seething rage almost alien to the ever-composed priest. And Ben has encountered enough unexplainable mysteries that cracking the code of the djinn might well break his very worldview. 

Whether a defiant levity, an uncharacteristic fury, or an absorbing obsession, these attitudes brew a tension as they push their players to a breaking point. We don't see what that break will look like in the first four episodes, of course. But considering how the birth of the Antichrist came well before mid-season, we can assume the real fireworks will be about our heroes — and they should be truly spectacular. 

Evil Season 4 premieres on Paramount+ May 23, with a new episode dropping each week. Seasons 1-3 are now streaming on Paramount+. Seasons 1 and 2 are also streaming on Netflix.

Google is addressing its deepfake pornography problem, now lowering AI-generated or synthetic porn in its search rankings.

A Google spokesperson confirmed to Bloomberg that the company is lowering this kind of content within search rankings on its engine, "continuing to decrease the visibility of involuntary synthetic pornography in search and develop more safeguards as this space evolves."

Traffic on sites featuring nonconsensual and AI-generated porn via Google has been down in the last month: two of the most prominent deepfake sites, for example, have respectively seen 21 percent and 25 percent less U.S.-based desktop search traffic in the first ten days of May, compared with the previous six-month average.

However, even with Google's plan to derank such search results, the sites can still be discovered.

Google says the company has "been actively developing new protections in search to help people affected by this content, building on our existing policies." Mashable has reached out to Google for comment.

SEE ALSO: Deepfakes of Taylor Swift have gone viral. How does this keep happening?

Earlier this month, Google updated its policies to ban advertisers from promoting websites that facilitate the creation of deepfake pornography. The update on its longstanding ban on sexually explicit ads will be enforced on May 30 and takes aim at "sites or apps that claim to generate deepfake pornography, instructions on how to create deepfake pornography, endorsing or comparing deepfake pornography services." Advertisers who violate this policy will face suspension and the inability to advertise with Google again.

Google is also offering a request form to remove involuntary fake pornography from its search results.

Last year, Bloomberg found that Google is one of the biggest traffic-drivers to sites promoting synthetic or AI-generated porn. Searches for celebrities or content creators combined with the word "deepfake" would often result in sites specializing in such content, sending millions of views their way. A recent report from Wired also revealed that thousands of women have complained to Google about these kind of websites. And in January of this year, NBC reported that nonconsensual deepfake pornography of celebrities appeared at the top of Google's search engine and Microsoft's Bing.

The prominence and proliferation of deepfakes has been deemed a crisis, especially for women and people of marginalized genders. This year alone, deepfakes of famous figures like Taylor Swift and Jenna Ortega have sparked discourse around the subject, and the role that big tech plays. Other major platforms, including Meta apps and X (formally Twitter), have been called out for their complicity in allowing nonconsensual porn to spread.

If you have experienced sexual abuse, call the free, confidential National Sexual Assault hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673), or access the 24-7 help online by visiting online.rainn.org.

When Apple launched its new iPad Pro devices earlier this month, the company said they were the thinnest gadgets it has ever produced. But are they structurally sound enough to resist a little accidental bending?

A reminder: Apple's new 11-inch and 13-inch iPad Pro are both incredibly thin, with the 11-inch model measuring 0.21 inches, and the 13-inch model being even thinner at 0.20 inches.

Likely recalling 2018's "bendgate," when freshly launched iPads bent just a little too easily, Apple immediately said that a new metal cowling inside the new models will make the devices sturdier, and less prone to bending.

That's easier to believe when you see independent tests, though, and now we have them. YouTubers AppleTrack and JerryRigEverything both put the new iPads to the bendy test, and the results were surprisingly good.

It's not that the new iPad Pros will never bend. If you apply enough force, they will definitely bend, and — eventually — break (especially if you bend it vertically instead of horizontally). But they fare better than the last generation of iPad Pros, and in all of the tests, it really took a lot of force to push them past their limits.

Perhaps even more importantly, while the new iPad Pros will bend when moderate force is used, they will more or less revert to the old shape and remain fully functional.

Featured Video For You Unboxing the 2024 iPad Pro and iPad Air

In addition to bending the new iPad Pro, JerryRigEverything also performed his usual test of scratching the device from all sides. The results are similar to what you'd expect — the device fares well under moderate stress, but if you really try and use a sharp knife, it will most definitely scratch.

These tests are never perfect, and the sample size is very small, but they do give us some idea of how the devices will perform in real life. And it appears that bending isn't something you should be worried about when purchasing the new iPad Pro.

If we had to compile a list of our worst nightmares, having your old, long deleted nudes randomly show up on your phone would probably be near the top of the list. Unfortunately, that's exactly what's happening to some iPhone users who upgraded to the latest version of iOS, 17.5.

According to this Reddit thread (via MacRumors), some iPhone and iPad users are seeing old, permanently deleted photos show up among their new pics. Worse, some of these photos were taken and deleted years ago, no longer gone for good.

SEE ALSO: No need to look up from your phone. Apple is trying to cure your motion sickness.

"Just completed the update. When in conversation with my partner, I went to send a picture and saw that the latest pictures were nsfw material we’d made years ago when we were living apart (covid etc). But WTF. It was permanently deleted. Years ago but magically it’s back?? I checked my iPad and it also has pictures (some art work I did years ago). I feel so uncomfortable. Anyone else got this issue? I mean with pictures coming back post update," wrote one Redditor.

"Same here. I have four pics from 2010 that keep reappearing as the latest pics uploaded to iCloud. I have deleted them repeatedly," wrote another."

On iOS, deleted photos can be accessed for 30 days after deletion, after which they should be permanently removed from the user's devices and the cloud.

This is concerning for several reasons. Besides the obvious — you don't want the photos you've deleted to ever show up anywhere again — the fact that these photos even exist somewhere makes you wonder what other deleted materials may be lurking in the cloud or on your device(s).

The bug seems to be present in the latest iOS 17.5 version, and MacRumors pointed out that some users reported a similar bug in the iOS 17.5 beta. It's unclear how widespread the issue is; we've contacted Apple about it and will update this article when we hear back.

Fabulous fighting game Drag Her! has been cancelled, ending hopes of seeing famous drag queens like Asia O'Hara and BenDeLaCreme scratch each others' eyes out. Times are tough in the games industry, and now even queens are being toppled.

Indie developer Fighting Chance Games publicly announced Drag Her!'s cancellation on Wednesday, revealing the project would be shutting down after three years in development.

SEE ALSO: Crab MLMs, gay Dracula, and Pooh Bear body horror: 9 of the best upcoming games at SXSW Sydney

"This is an especially painful decision brought about by a simple lack of funding," Fighting Chance Games wrote on X (formerly Twitter).  "Over the life of this project, we have pitched to a long list of publishers, platforms, and more looking to get Drag Her! picked up. Despite a groundswell of audience support, a fully funded Kickstarter, successful grant applications, and wonderful turnout at major game events — no amount of legitimacy we built has culminated in a deal."

Drag Her!'s small development team is also disbanding, meaning that we're unlikely to see another title from Fighting Chance Games any time soon. Studio director Ian Ramsay told Mashable that some team members have moved on to other jobs, while others are still looking for work.

"We still have a great deal of love and respect for one another and the game, and are sad that it’s come to a premature end," Ramsay said.

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Fighting Chance Games initially launched Drag Her!'s crowdfunding campaign in 2022, which raised over $75,000 for the 2D side-scrolling fighting game's development. While acknowledging that it would be a challenge to convince investors that a market exists at the intersection of drag and video games, the developers were resolute in taking on the task.

The team officially licensed the likenesses of famous drag queens such as Kim Chi, Laganja Estranja, and Alaska Thunderfuck 5000, and even got so far as running a beta playtest last August. Mashable had the opportunity to play Drag Her! at SXSW Sydney last year, and found it a delightfully camp experience. 

Yet investors remained skeptical, and Fighting Chance Games is now being forced to sashay away.

"Without money, and with a future made bleak by the ongoing layoffs in the game industry, we could no longer hang on," Fighting Chance Games wrote on Kickstarter. "If we were in a better position, we would've just self published and utilised different premium options (like DLC characters and outfits), but we were basically swinging from small pots of money that would keep us going and then forcing us to stop."

Sadly, Ramsay told Mashable that Drag Her! is unlikely to return to the stage despite the team's best efforts.

"We don’t really see [any future for Drag Her!]" said Ramsay. "We did everything in our power to bring our game to life. In order for us to come back to her, there would need to be a substantial shift in the demographics of the people who fund games.

"Investors remained reticent to see value in a game that didn’t reflect them personally. This was in spite of how many people it DID represent, the hungry dedicated fanbase, and the success the team accrued along the way."

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It's a sad end to Drag Her!'s story, and one that we're unfortunately likely to see repeated. The games industry is currently being ravaged by job cuts and studio closures, with over 8,000 layoffs announced within the first two months of 2024 alone. Both Electronic Arts and Take-Two Interactive have announced plans to cut five percent of their respective workforces, while PlayStation revealed it would lay off 900 employees.

In an environment where even Star Wars games are being cancelled while proven studios are killed, it feels as though nothing is safe in the games industry right now.

"For us, Drag Her! was a killer piece of gay media — a chance to showcase the sheer joy of queer culture — and an opportunity to move the community forward," Fighting Chance Games wrote. "A game that could normalise, equalise, and validate, rather than force us to the margins."

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Fortunately, all of Fighting Chance Games' hard work won't completely vanish into thin air. The developers are turning their lemons into "gay ass lemonade" by releasing a "skinny" version of the game on PC for free — more a drag princess than a fully fledged queen. 

Drag Her! Failure to Launch Edition will only have three combatants as opposed to the seven that were initially planned, and won't have the career mode that the developers had envisaged. But if you're a fan of Kim Chi, Laganja Estranja, or Alaska Thunderfuck 5000, it could still be fun to jump in for some local or online multiplayer. The incomplete game will be released on Steam May 16 at 9 a.m. PT /  12 a.m. ET.

"Fight your friends, neighbors, enemies, and she-roes (sometimes all at once with 4-player mode)," reads Drag Her!'s Steam page. "The only thing you can't fight is the inevitable foreclosure of your game studio."

At Google I/O earlier this week, generative AI was unsurprisingly a major focal point.

In fact, Google CEO Sundar Pichai pointed out that "AI" was said 122 times, plus two more times by Pichai as he closed out the event.

The tech giant has injected AI features into seemingly all of its products and services, including Search, Workspace, and creative tools for videos, photos, and music. But arguably the biggest news of the day was how Google's announcements compared to those from OpenAI. Just a day before Google I/O, OpenAI unveiled GPT-4o, a "natively multimodal" model that can process visuals and audio in real-time, which ostensibly ramped up the burgeoning rivalry.

Google I/O's vibe was very different from OpenAI's event. Google seemed unfocused, throwing endless AI spaghetti at the wall during an event that lasted almost two hours, compared to OpenAI's focused and breezy 26 minute show.

But the AI capabilities that the two companies shared were noticeably similar, even using the same rhetoric (the AI is "interruptible") and examples (AI can help with homework). Below, we've rounded up the three big, eerie similarities in the two companies' messaging.

1. Simulating more than one human-style sensory input at once

Both Google and OpenAI talked about their AI models being "natively multimodal." In this context, this piece of jargon means the models have visual, audio, and text understanding all rolled into one. In the AI world, these types of expression are described as "modalities."

Google proudly claimed that Gemini has been "natively multimodal" from the beginning. OpenAI's GPT-4o was its first model that combined voice and image processing with its existing text capabilities. So now, Google and OpenAI are on equal multimodal footing. Both companies showcased what they can do with technologies that can "see" and "hear."

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But both companies demoed features that explicitly showed off their models' abilities to "see" and "hear" in real-time.

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Google VP Sissie Hsiao presented a Live feature for the standalone Gemini app that echoes what DeepMind is working on with Project Astra, and might be the technology that powers this feature coming to Gemini Advanced subscribers in the coming months. Gemini Live "can better understand you and answer naturally, you can even interrupt while Gemini is responding and it will adapt to your speech pattern," said Hsiao.

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If an AI bot that you can interrupt sounds familiar, that's because OpenAI said it first. "You can now interrupt the model," said researcher Mark Chen during OpenAI's live demo the day before Google I/O. "You don't have to wait for it to finish your turn before you start speaking and you can just butt in whenever you want."

SEE ALSO: OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever is leaving. But what did he see?

Later on in OpenAI's live demo, researcher Barrett Zoph used GPT-4o to help him solve a linear math equation. Zoph pointed a smartphone camera at a piece of paper with a hand-written equation, and ChatGPT walked him through how to solve for "x."

Sameer Samat, president of Google's Android ecosystem, demoed a similar ability to help with physics homework using Google's existing Circle to Search tool. By circling a physics word problem displayed on a Pixel, Samat showed how Gemini can process the visual and provide step-by-step instructions on how to solve it.

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Both companies shared other ways of how multimodality can help users. Zoph showed ChatGPT's new vision capabilities on the desktop app by generating a graph from the code that was used to demonstrate GPT-4o's contextual awareness. ChatGPT accurately identified that the graph was about temperature data over time and successfully provided some analysis of what the graph meant.

The next day at Google I/O, Labs VP Josh Woodward demonstrated how Notebook LM, Google's digital scratchpad, could take in information from an open-source physics textbook and turn it into a podcast-style conversation between two bots about Newton's Laws of Motion. Then, Woodward showed how he could jump into the conversation as if he were calling in to the podcast, and ask it to customize examples for his son.

2. AI that's your friend thanks to context awareness

The message from both Google and OpenAI was about how multimodal AI can improve people's lives. "We want everyone to benefit from what Gemini can do," said Pichai talking about Google's flagship AI model, Gemini 1.5 Pro. This set the stage for announcements throughout the event about Gemini seamlessly fitting into your life by understanding context.

Nowhere was this more clear than in the Project Astra demo video from Google DeepMind. The technology, described as an "advanced seeing and talking responsive agent," is shown accurately responding to naturally phrased questions referring to visuals that aren't explicitly mentioned.

With the tester pointing a smartphone camera at various things, it describes what the code is on a desktop screen, identifies the concept of Schrodinger's Cat that shows a simple whiteboard drawing of a live cat's face next to a dead cat's face and a cardboard box held up by the tester, and comes up with a band name for a tiger stuffed animal and a (real) Golden Retriever. The band name is "Golden Stripes," by the way.

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On Android, Google VP of engineering David Burke showed off what context awareness looks like in users' hands. Burke demonstrated how you can ask specific questions about the contents of a YouTube video, like say, the rules of Pickleball.

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OpenAI also demoed contextual understanding. In demos posted to OpenAI's site, the audio version of GPT-4o "watched" its human conversation partners, flirtatiously noting a demo-er's OpenAI sweatshirt in one instance, and cracking dad jokes, understanding sarcasm, and refereeing an on-camera rock paper scissors game in others. In another demo, some code was casually shared with ChatGPT, and the application showed off GPT-4o's audio capabilities by actually analyzing the code, apparently without being fed any explicit description of what it was meant to do.

Google DeepMind's Project Astra is still very much in development, but its contextual understanding on Android will roll out to users in the coming months. OpenAI's GPT-4o voice mode isn't available yet, with no details on when it ships, according to CEO Sam Altman.

3. AI helpers that know your schedule and work needs

The overarching message of Google I/O and OpenAI's event was AI can take care of tasks in your life that range from visionary to mundane, which normally involve, you know, googling something, or using your own human brain. Google took this a step further with explicit callouts of AI agents, assistants, and teammates (there were a lot of different terms for AI helpers sprinkled throughout, which frankly we're still a little confused about.)

Examples of what Google agents could do included using Gemini to return a pair of shoes by taking a picture of them with your phone, and prompting the agent to search your Gmail inbox for the receipt, locate the order number, fill out a return form, and schedule a pickup. As Pichai noted, Google isn't quite there yet, but more concretely a Gemini side panel in the Gmail mobile app can summarize relevant emails or draft replies based on context clues mined from your inbox.

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This is where Google has the upper hand because AI becomes a lot more useful when it works across different apps like Gmail, Google Calendar, and Search. OpenAI was the one that started this conversation by talking about its goal of achieving AGI (artificial general intelligence) and making references to sci-fi AI assistants like Scarlett Johansson's character in the film Her. During OpenAI's event, CEO Sam Altman tweeted "her" in an apparent reference to the film. But despite OpenAI's explicit or implicit yearnings for this type of use case, there wasn't much talk about AI agents.

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Besides, OpenAI would have an uphill battle to fight if it wanted users to start uploading their work documents and calendars into their ChatGPT accounts. But you know what does have email and calendar apps? Apple. And OpenAI has reportedly finalized a partnership with the iPhone maker to bring ChatGPT to iOS 18. And Apple's developer conference WWDC is less than a month away.

The tech beef rages on with more battles soon to come.