Mashable

TL;DR: Stream Nigeria vs. Cameroon in AFCON for free on BBC iPlayer. Access this free streaming platform from anywhere in the world with ExpressVPN.

The group stage is over. The comfort of knowing that you don't need to win every game is gone. The knockout stages are here, and it's win or bust in the Africa Cup of Nations.

We're braced for a bunch of big games in the first round of knockout fixtures, but it doesn't get much bigger than Nigeria vs. Cameroon. If you want to watch this huge game for free from anywhere in the world, we have all the information you need.

When is Nigeria vs. Cameroon?

Nigeria vs. Cameroon kicks off at 8 p.m. GMT on Jan. 27. This fixture takes place at the Felix Houphouet Boigny Stadium in Abidjan, Ivory Coast.

How to watch Nigeria vs. Cameroon for free

The match between Nigeria and Cameroon will be broadcast live on BBC Three, with coverage starting from 7:50 p.m. GMT on Jan. 27. You can also live stream this fixture for free on BBC iPlayer.

BBC iPlayer is geo-restricted to the UK, but anyone can access this free streaming service with a VPN. These powerful tools can hide your real IP address (digital location) and connect you to a secure server in the UK, meaning you can access BBC iPlayer from anywhere in the world.

Access BBC iPlayer to stream AFCON 2023 by following these simple steps:

1. Subscribe to a streaming-friendly VPN (like ExpressVPN)

2. Download the app to your device of choice (the best VPNs have apps for Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, Linux, and more)

3. Open up the app and connect to a server in the UK

4. Visit BBC iPlayer

5. Stream Nigeria vs. Cameroon for free from anywhere in the world

Opens in a new window Credit: ExpressVPN ExpressVPN (1-Year Subscription + 3 Months Free) £82.82 only at ExpressVPN (with money-back guarantee) Get Deal

The best VPNs for streaming are not free, but leading VPNs do tend to offer free-trial periods or money-back guarantees. By leveraging these offers, you can gain access to free live streams without committing with your cash. This is not a long-term solution, but it does give you time to watch key AFCON games before recovering your investment.

What is the best VPN for BBC iPlayer?

ExpressVPN is the best service for accessing BBC iPlayer, for a number of reasons:

• Servers in 94 countries including the UK

• Easy-to-use app available on all major devices including iPhone, Android, Windows, Mac, and more

• Strict no-logging policy so your data is always secure

• Fast connection speeds

• Up to five simultaneous connections

• 30-day money-back guarantee

A one-year subscription to ExpressVPN is on sale for £82.82 and includes an extra three months for free — 49% off for a limited time. This plan also includes a year of free unlimited cloud backup and a generous 30-day money-back guarantee.

Watch Nigeria vs. Cameroon for free from anywhere in the world with ExpressVPN.

TL;DR: Live stream Sinner vs. Medvedev in the Australian Open final for free on 9Now. Access this free streaming platform from anywhere in the world with ExpressVPN.

The question was always whether anyone was capable of beating Novak Djokovic, and Jannick Sinner answered that with an emphatic performance in the semi-final of the Australian Open. Now the Italian is one step away from winning the tournament, but Medvedev stands in his way. We're expecting a fantastic final between two exciting players.

If you want to watch Sinner vs. Medvedev in the Australian Open for free from anywhere in the world, we have all the information you need.

When is Sinner vs. Medvedev?

Jannik Sinner and Daniil Medvedev will meet in the Australian Open final on Jan. 28 (AEDT).

How to watch Sinner vs. Medvedev for free

Every match from the Australian Open is available to stream for free on 9Now, including the final between Sinner and Medvedev.

9Now is geo-restricted to Australia, but anyone can gain access to this free streaming platform with a VPN. These tools can hide your real IP address (digital location) and connect you to a secure server in Australia, meaning you can connect to 9Now from anywhere in the world.

Access 9Now from anywhere in the world by following these simple steps:

1. Subscribe to a streaming-friendly VPN (like ExpressVPN)

2. Download the app to your device of choice (the best VPNs have apps for Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, Linux, and more)

3. Open up the app and connect to a server in Australia

4. Visit 9Now

5. Stream Sinner vs. Medvedev for free

Opens in a new window Credit: ExpressVPN ExpressVPN (1-Year Subscription + 3 Months Free) £82.82 only at ExpressVPN (with money-back guarantee) Get Deal

The best VPNs for streaming are not free, but top VPNs do tend to offer free-trial periods or money-back guarantees. By leveraging these offers, you can gain access to 9Now without actually spending anything. This is not a long-term solution, but it does give you time to watch the 2024 Australian Open final before recovering your investment.

What is the best VPN for 9Now?

ExpressVPN is the best service for accessing 9Now, for a number of reasons:

• Servers in 94 countries including Australia

• Easy-to-use app available on all major devices including iPhone, Android, Windows, Mac, and more

• Strict no-logging policy so your data is always secure

• Fast connection speeds

• Up to five simultaneous connections

• 30-day money-back guarantee

A one-year subscription to ExpressVPN is on sale for £82.82 and includes an extra three months for free — 49% off for a limited time. This plan also includes a year of free unlimited cloud backup and a generous 30-day money-back guarantee.

Stream Sinner vs. Medvedev for free from anywhere in the world with ExpressVPN.

There is an ongoing national nightmare and not enough people are talking about it. Big Bird is now small. Tiny, even. I repeat: Big Bird is small. The horror.

How did this begin? We do not fully know. But Big Bird, seemingly out of nowhere, posted on X (formerly Twitter) that he was small — as if he woke up that way one day. Suddenly, his 8'2" frame shrunk to insect size. And we're just supposed to go on living our lives? In this changed world?

This was the initial post, from Wednesday.

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From there, the account for Big Bird has posted repeatedly about being small. And being stuck in his new, tiny size.

Big Bird seemed to grapple with his very identity. Frankly, the posts feel like cosmic horror.

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Has his new size rendered him invisible to his loved ones? Has our beloved giant bird been condemned to a life haunting what once was?

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Your screams will fall on deaf ears, bird. There will be no playing any longer.

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OK, so clearly, this is some sort of marketing stunt. To what end is unclear. But it has worked. The internet has been joking about Big Bird's shrunkenness.

This article, for instance, has negated some folks' worries.

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Others joked about how stressed they were.

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I don't know if this makes me a bad person but this joke made me laugh very hard.

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This one, too.

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And all of these.

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As of this writing this dire situation has not been remedied. Big Bird remains small, as far as we know. The horror continues unabated. But perhaps soon he will return to his full size and all will be right with the world.

SAVE $10: The digital version of Wingspan, a beautiful strategy game centered around birds, is on sale for just $9.99 on the Nintendo Store. That's a 50% discount.

Opens in a new window Credit: Wingspan 'Wingspan' $9.99 at Nintendo (save $10) Get Deal

If you love the outdoors and spotting wild animals, but don't love the temperatures outside, we give you full permission to stay inside. And there's a great gaming deal today that lets you get cozy and the couch and learn more about our avian friends.

As of Jan. 27, the digital version of the gorgeous strategy game Wingspan is on sale for just $9.99 on the Nintendo Store, down from $19.99. That's a 50% discount for an engine-building game that will delight the whole family.

SEE ALSO: Get the lastest 'Lego Star Wars' game for cheap, plus more of the best gaming deals this week

Wingspan was originally a board game that won the prestigious Kennerspiel des Jahres board game award back in 2019. Now it's available as a video game that explores the traits of 170 wild birds as you compete as a bird watcher, ornithologist, or collector to attract the best birds to your nature preserves.

Don't worry, you don't have to know a lot about birds to play — their traits are written on cards with lovely illustrations, and as you gather birds you'll gain skills to lay eggs, draw cards, or gather food, just like the real birds you're "collecting." You also get to hear recordings of the birds' songs and calls as you play. Up to five players can enjoy this relaxing game perfect for birdwatchers and nature lovers, or you can play solo.

Elon Musk's X, formerly known as Twitter, is going to begin integrating sports gambling. That doesn't mean you'll be placing bets on the app, though.

X is set to display gambling stats via a partnership with BetMGM, Fortune reported. Details on the deal were scarce, but according to Fortune, X will display betting info via MGM's sports betting division and then provide a link to the gambling platform.

As the sports blog Awful Announcing pointed out, MGM is the third-most-popular sports gambling app — behind DraftKings and FanDuel — and already has big partnerships with platforms like Yahoo and the baseball YouTube show Foul Territory. This potential partnership between X and MGM comes at a time when pretty much every sports media platform is saturated with gambling content amid its widespread legalization. In some ways, it does make sense that X would partner with a gambling platform because fans still use the app to chat about sports.

However, it is curious to see MGM tie itself to X when most brands are decoupling with Musk's site like it's going out of style. Giant corporations like Apple and Disney have ditched X after the new owner shared antisemitic conspiracy theories.

So, while we don't really know how it's going to look or when it's coming, one major brand might soon be a lot more prominent on the site.

The Ingenuity helicopter is too damaged to ever fly again. Yet before its final flight, NASA's historic Mars craft captured a sprawling view of the Martian desert.

In the aftermath of a "rough" landing during its 72nd flight, the small experimental chopper was left with at least one severely broken rotor, a tip potentially snapped off after crashing into the rocky ground. Yet on one of Ingenuity's final flights, flight 70, the NASA craft took in the scene you see below.

It's a vista of sprawling sand dunes. In the distance are rock-strewn ridges and mountains. And in the upper left corner you can spot the end of a helicopter leg.

SEE ALSO: NASA spacecraft keeps on going faster and faster and faster NASA's Ingenuity helicopter flying over smooth terrain in December 2023. Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / ASU / MSSS

Ingenuity snapped this image from some 39 feet (12 meters) above the ground on Dec. 22, 2023. Its final flight would be less than a month later.

It turns out those picturesque, flowing Martian dunes were likely the cause of Ingenuity's demise. The helicopter navigated by using software to track the movement of objects, like rocks, below. But the sandy terrain was largely "featureless," the space agency explained.

"The more featureless the terrain is, the harder it is for Ingenuity to successfully navigate across it," NASA said in a statement. "The team believes that the relatively featureless terrain in this region was likely the root cause of the anomalous landing."

"That remarkable helicopter flew higher and farther than we ever imagined"

Still, the Ingenuity mission vastly overachieved over nearly three years of extraterrestrial flight. It became the first craft to ever make a powered, controlled flight on another planet. NASA engineers initially hoped the demonstration craft, with four-foot-long rotors, might prove flight was possible on Mars, perhaps flying five times. But it flew 72 times.

It was a scout. And a planetary explorer. The future exploration of Mars — and search for past Martian life — will almost certainly involve future aerial craft, and have Ingenuity to thank. After all, this persevering craft proved that flight on Mars, a world with a profoundly thin atmosphere, was possible.

"That remarkable helicopter flew higher and farther than we ever imagined and helped NASA do what we do best — make the impossible, possible," NASA administrator Bill Nelson said when announcing that Ingenuity had taken its final flight.

Featured Video For You NASA spacecraft gets extremely close to volcanic world, snaps footage

NASA is headed to Jupiter's fascinating moon Europa this year. Scientists suspect a deep ocean sloshes beneath the icy world's crust.

The looming mission, called Europa Clipper, will launch in October, sending a spacecraft the length of a basketball court to make around 50 flybys by the distant Jovian moon, assessing whether it could harbor conditions suitable for life. It won't, however, land on the ice crust.

Yet the space agency is already preparing an ambitious follow-up mission, aptly named Europa Lander, that will touch down on the moon's surface and dig or drill into the ice. "In this mission concept, a spacecraft would land on Europa and collect and study samples from about 4 inches (10 centimeters) beneath the surface, looking for signs of life," NASA explains.

SEE ALSO: NASA will land daring spacecraft on a world 800 million miles away

The agency recently released images of the mission's unique landing gear, whose legs can absorb a heavy spacecraft's landing. Taken together, the lander's metal appendages make the craft look spider-like. Engineers are preparing to test these legs on a platform that will mimic a landing on Europa.

Below, you can see NASA staff working on this critical landing gear at the agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory — the same lab that designed and built missions like the Jupiter-orbiting Juno probe, the legendary Voyager spacecraft, and the Mars Perseverance rover.

An engineer testing the Europa Lander's landing gear. Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech The Europa Lander testbed at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech NASA engineers working on the craft's landing system. Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech

The craft will need a robust landing system. It will carry instruments that will dig some four inches into Europa's ice. "This is a depth at which the complex chemistry of materials from the ocean below would be protected from the damaging radiation that exists in space around Jupiter," NASA explained. It will also have a "miniature laboratory" aboard, which will look for signs of life, among other instruments.

For now, the Europa Lander technically remains just a "proposal." But engineers are preparing for its reality. First, though, the Europa Clipper will scour the intriguing Europan surface. After traveling hundreds of millions of miles away, the orbiting probe will arrive at the icy destination in 2030.

This isn't a conspiracy theory or future prophecy. The idea of an internet dominated by AI-generated content is already happening and it doesn't look good.

Ever since ChatGPT hit the market, AI-generated content has been steadily seeping into the internet. Artificial intelligence has been around for decades. But the consumer-facing ChatGPT has pushed AI into the mainstream, creating unprecedented accessibility to advanced AI models and demand that businesses are eager to capitalize on.

As a result, companies and users alike are leveraging generative AI to crank out high volumes of content. While the initial concern is the abundance of content containing inaccuracies, gibberish, and misinformation, the long-term effect is complete degradation of web content into useless garbage. 

SEE ALSO: OpenAI's new election rules are already being put to the test Garbage in, garbage out

If you're thinking, the internet already contains a bunch of useless garbage, that's true, but this is different. "There's a lot of garbage out there… but it has an insane amount of variety and diversity," said Nader Henein, a VP analyst for management consulting firm Gartner. As LLMs feed off each other's content, the quality gets worse and more vague, like a photocopy of a photocopy of an image. 

Think about it this way: the first version of ChatGPT was the last model to be trained on entirely human-generated content. Every model since then contains training data that has AI-generated content which is difficult to verify, or even track. This becomes unreliable, or to put it bluntly, garbage, data. When this happens, "​​we lose quality and precision of the content, and we lose diversity," said Henein who researches data protection and artificial intelligence. "Everything starts looking like the same thing."

"Incestuous learning" is what Henein calls it. "LLMs are just one big family, they're just consuming each other's content and cross pollinating, and with every generation you have… increasingly more garbage to the point where the garbage overtakes the good content and things start to deteriorate from there." 

As more AI-generated content is pushed out to the web, and that content is generated by LLMs trained on AI-generated content, we're looking at a future web that is entirely homogenous and totally unreliable. Also, just really boring.

Model collapse, internet collapse 

Most people already sense something is off.

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In some of the more high-profile examples, art is being duplicated by robots. Books are being swallowed whole and replicated by LLMs without the authors' permission. Images and videos that use celebrities' voices and likenesses are made without their consent and compensation. 

But existing copyright and IP laws are already in place to protect such violations. Plus, some are embracing AI collaboration like Grimes who offers revenue-sharing deals with AI music creators and record companies that are exploring licensing deals with AI tech companies. On the policy side, lawmakers have introduced a No Fakes Act to protect public figures from AI replicas. The regulations to fix all these problems aren't in place, but fixing them is at least imaginable. 

The plunge in overall quality of everything online, however, is a more insidious phenomenon, and researchers have demonstrated why it's about to get worse. 

In a study from Johannes Gutenberg University in Germany, researchers found that "this self-consuming training loop initially improves both quality and diversity," which lines up with what's likely to happen next. "However, after a few generations the output inevitably degenerates in diversity. We find that the rate of degeneration depends on the proportion of real and generated data."

Two other academic papers published in 2023 came to the same conclusion about the degradation of AI models when trained on synthetic, aka AI-generated data. According to a study from researchers at Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial College London, University of Toronto, and University of Edinburgh, "use of model-generated content in training causes irreversible defects in the resulting models, where tails of the original content distribution disappear," referring to this as "model collapse." 

Similarly, Stanford and Rice University researchers said, "without enough fresh real data in each generation of an autophagous [self-consuming] loop, future generative models are doomed to have their quality (precision) or diversity (recall) progressively decrease."

Lack of diversity, explains Henein, is the fundamental problem, because if AI models are trying to replace human creativity, it's getting farther and farther away from that. 

The AI-generated internet at a glance

As model collapse looms, the AI-generated internet has already arrived.

Amazon has a new feature that provides AI-generated summaries of product reviews. Tools from Google and Microsoft use AI to help draft emails and documents and Indeed launched a tool in September that lets recruiters create AI-generated job descriptions. Platforms like DALL-E 3 and Midjourney let users create AI-generated images and share them on the web. 

Whether they directly output AI-generated content like Amazon or provide a service for users to put out AI-generated content themselves like Google, Microsoft, Indeed, OpenAI and Midjourney, it's already out there. 

And those are just the tools and features from Big Tech companies that purport to have some kind of oversight. The real perpetrators are click-bait sites that pump out low-quality, high-volume, regurgitated content for high SEO ranking and revenue. 

A recent report from 404 Media, found numerous sites "that rip-off other outlets by using AI to rapidly churn out content." For a sample of this kind of content, which avoids plagiarism at the expense of coherence, look at questionable news site Worldtimetodays.com, where the first line of a 2023 story touching on Gina Carano's firing from Star Wars reads, "It’s been a while since Gina Carano began a tirade against Lucasfilm after he was fired war of starsso for better or worse we were due."

Clearly, this sentence was AI-generated. Credit: Worldtimetodays.com

On Google Scholar, users discovered a cache of academic papers containing the phrase "as an AI language model," meaning portions of papers — or entire papers for all anyone knows — were written by chatbots like ChatGPT. AI-generated research papers — which are supposed to have some kind of academic credibility — can make their way onto news sites and blogs as authoritative references.

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Even Google searches now sometimes surface AI-generated likenesses of celebrities instead of things like press photos or movie stills. When you Google Israel Kamakawiwo'ole, the deceased musician known for his ukulele cover of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow," the top result is an AI-generated prediction of how Kamakawiwo'ole would have looked if he were alive today.

Google Image searches of Keira Knightley result in warped renderings uploaded by users on OpenArt, Playground AI, and Dopamine Girl alongside real photos of the actress

Keira doesn't deserve this. Credit: Mashable

That's not to mention the recent pornographic deepfakes of Taylor Swift, an Instagram ad using Tom Hanks's likeness to sell a dental plan, a photo editing app using Scarlett Johansson's face and voice without her consent, and that fire song by Drake and The Weeknd that was actually an unauthorized audio deepfake that sounded exactly like them.

If our search engine results already can't be trusted, and the models are almost certainly feasting on this junk, we have stepped over the threshold into the web's AI garbage era. For the moment, the web as we once knew it is still somewhat recognizable, but the warnings are no longer abstract.

The internet isn't completely doomed

Assuming products like ChatGPT don't pull off a hail-Mary and start reliably generating vibrant, exciting content that humans actually find pleasurable or useful to consume, what happens next? 

Expect communities and organizations to fight back by protecting their content from the AI models trying to hoover it up. The open, ad-supported, search-based web might be going away, but the internet will evolve. Expect more reputable media sites to put their content behind paywalls, and trusted information coming from subscriber newsletters. 

Expect to see more copyright and licensing battles, like The New York Times' lawsuit against Microsoft and OpenAI. Expect to see more tools like Nightshade, an invisible tool that protects copyrighted images by attempting to corrupt models trained on them. Expect the development of sophisticated new watermarking and verification tools that prevent AI-scraping. 

On the flipside, you can also expect other news publications like Associated Press — and possibly CNN, Fox, and Time — to embrace generative AI and work out licensing agreements with companies like OpenAI. 

As tools like ChatGPT and Google's SGE become substitutes for traditional search, expect revenue models built on SEO to change. 

The silver lining of model collapse, however, is the loss of demand. The proliferation of generative AI is currently dictated by hype, and if models trained on low-quality content are no longer useful, the demand dries up. What (hopefully) remains are us feeble-minded humans with the unquenchable urge to rant, overshare, inform, and otherwise express ourselves online.

Love it or tolerate it, Valentine’s Day is the ideal time to right the gift-giving wrongs of the holidays. Were you sure your husband would love that faux-vintage turntable, only to find out later that what he really wanted was a weighted blanket? Did you misinterpret his months of hint-dropping about homebrewing, ponying up for the perfect craft beer kit, when he was actually talking about kombucha?

The best Valentine's Day gifts for husbands give you a second chance to get it right.

SEE ALSO: The best gifts for men: Creative ideas for every type of guy

In your defense, nailing the perfect gift for someone as close to you as a spouse is a lot harder than it sounds, especially when you've been together for a while and exhausted your best ideas. Instead of opting for something cliché or overly trendy, spend some time reading between the lines of his interests and hobbies. If he's a movie buff with a Regal Unlimited subscription who uses Letterboxd like his personal journal, for example, grab some cool merch from the A24 Shop. Don't be afraid to get hyper-niche.

With that in mind, we’ve come up with a list of Valentine's Day gift ideas for over a dozen different kinds of husbands. Some are luxe versions of everyday items, while others are special-occasion splurges. A select few are gifts that the both of you can enjoy — because healthy relationships are all about sharing, right?

Whether you just started dating or you’re practically engaged, shopping for the perfect Valentine's Day gift for your boyfriend can be a surprisingly tricky task. How much should you spend? Are you going for a big romantic gesture or keeping it simple? And what about the classic "we’re not doing gifts this year," but you still "surprise" each other with gifts anyway thing?

Seriously, though — what *is* that?

SEE ALSO: Best gift ideas for people in long-distance relationships

If you're stuck in a gift-giving rut, our best advice is to zero in on the items he uses daily and the topics he brings up whenever you hang out — these are easy jumping-off points for V-day gift ideas that'll make him feel seen. (Oh, he just mentioned in passing that his wallet's falling apart? Get him a really nice leather one that he'd never splurge on himself. Stuff like that shows you've been paying attention.)

Below, we've rounded up a list of Valentine's Day gift ideas for boyfriends that say "I love you and I get you" without being totally cliché. Spoiler alert: There will be no mention of whiskey stones or beard oil.

Over the course of my time at Mashable, I've been obsessed with finding a robot vacuum that performs actual magic on carpets and bare floors — but maybe not as (healthily) obsessed as our in-house vacuum aficionado/expert Leah Stodart. I've been particularly intrigued by the elusive robovac category know as "hybrids," which are essentially mop-and-vac combos that take two of the most dreaded household chores off your to-do list.

As often happens in life, products (and people, cough cough) that promise too much end up providing less-than-satisfactory results. This includes hybrid robot vacuums that often end up sacrificing mopping ability for powerful vacuum suction, or vice versa. No future robot vacuum buyer wants to cheat themselves out of spotless floors by investing in an underperforming item, which is why I took it upon myself to test the most expensive and the most intelligent Roborock vacuum you can buy right now. Enter: The Roborock S8 Pro Ultra.

This Roborock has a pretty sleek and minimalistic design, albeit a bulky base. Credit: Stacia Datskovska / Mashable

Roborock, a mainstay brand in the robot vacuum industry, unveiled a new S8 product series back in April 2023. The hype around the S8 Pro Ultra was especially strong, but we take all such internet hype with a fat grain of salt.

That's why, high Amazon rating notwithstanding, I decided to see for myself whether the Roborock S8 Pro Ultra pampered 1,300 square feet of my floor with flawless results or whether it made me retrace all of its steps with a dustpan and broom in hand. Here's what followed (dramatic Morgan Freeman voice).

SEE ALSO: The best robot vacuums unveiled at CES 2024 go where Roombas still haven't In-app features are stunning, but setup was a chore

As with most robovacs, to get the Roborock S8 Pro Ultra up and running you have to connect it to the Roborock app (available on Android and iOS) via a series of intricate, ancient rituals (read: either scanning the QR code on the vac itself or pairing your phone and vac to the same WiFi network). I went with the latter method since, for the life of me, I couldn't find the QR code on my new Roborock.

Attaining a solid WiFi connection was a process that involved a lot of loading and buffering. This is where I docked a few points in the S8 Pro Ultra's user friendliness category. After this speed bump, however, the rest of the setup process was way smoother.

My parents already programmed the vac with their own Roborock app before I even laid my hands on it, which meant that, once I was connected to the item on my app, I saw our full first floor map right in the center of the screen. Roborock seamlessly transfers floor map data between different accounts for the same vacuum — definitely a time-saver worthy of some appreciation.

While we're on the topic of floor maps, it took the Roborock an alarmingly short amount of time to maneuver around 1,300 square feet of my floors for the first time ever and absorb the findings — just 10 minutes. Let me put this metric in perspective. When I tested out the Yeedi Mop Station, I wrote the following about its mapping time: It took the vacuum "more than a day to run its course multiple times around the rooms and get a visual of their full layout. In other words, the vac started this procedure around 4 p.m., got tired, docked, and only finished the job at hand by midday the next day." Yeah, major props to the Roborock for doing it at record-breaking speeds and never once getting fatigued.

The layout of my first floor living area that Roborock successfully (and speedily!) mapped. Credit: Screenshot: Roborock Just one example of how personalizable the vac's in-app settings are. Credit: Screenshot: Roborock

The Roborock app interface itself was sleek and clean compared to other ones I've familiarized myself with in the past. Nonetheless, getting the vacuum to actually start a cleaning job wasn't as simple as I hoped it would be — due to the sheer amount of settings and options offered by Roborock. Did I want to turn on "less collision" mode to foresee walls and furniture in advance? Would a standard cleaning route versus a zig-zag one be better? How frequently did I want the S8 Pro Ultra to wash its mop... or did I wish for it to do so after each room?

Once I was more "fluent" in the functions of this vac, such intricate and intimate features were a godsend, but, in the beginning, it was all a bit too much to take in.

High-tech cleaning options provided not-so-high-tech results

The Roborock S8 Pro Ultra allows you to choose from room by room, zone by zone, all-over clean, or even spot clean options. The latter turned out to be redundant because of how imprecise it is — when I tried to navigate the vac to a particular "trouble area" by tapping my finger on its approximate location in the app, the vacuum missed the spot by a few inches. For the most part, I stuck with the all-over clean option: a really stress-free way of cleaning your entire space, especially since the vac empties itself automatically.

I also attempted to control the vacuum manually (as if in a video game) through the remote control setting, which allows you to move the bot via buttons or a joystick-esque controller. Feeling like the Roborock's puppeteer was slightly disconcerting, and it turned out that this feature is hella undercooked — the vacuum would only move forward and to the right. Backwards and to the left were out of the question. No deal.

Though I didn't fiddle with these settings myself, Roborock also gives the option of creating certain "no-go zones," which are ideal for pet households and maximalists with a ton of furniture. Additionally, you can customize floor surface on the app (choosing from carpet, tile, something called "entrapping threshold," and more).

No other robot vacuum I've tested in the past gave such massive DIY privileges to its users, so I was thoroughly impressed at first blush. I personally chose to set my mop wash frequency to 20 minutes, the washing mode to "balanced" (which the Roborock app said was suitable for medium-sized homes), scrub intensity/water flow to "intense," and suction power to "turbo" (the second highest and thus second loudest suction level). This isn't a strict recipe — the benefit of this Roborock is that it fits the needs of your household.

Despite the plethora of cool cleaning options Roborock serves up on a platter, quantity overshadowed quality in this case. In other words, I didn't see a major difference between cleaning with carpet suction boosting powers on versus off (or else cleaning with “clean along floor direction” on rather than allowing the vac to, literally, go against the grain).

The S8 Pro Ultra has a spot clean option. Credit: Screenshot: Roborock You can even control it via joystick (kinda). Credit: Screenshot: Roborock When it came to vacuuming up messes, the S8 Pro Ultra ate and left crumbs

If you've read any of my past robovac reviews (don't tell me, I don't want to know), you're familiar with the Graham Cracker Test I carry out (patent pending) to test the products' vacuuming capabilities. The test essentially revolves around crushing up graham crackers that are past their s'mores prime and scattering them in key areas of the house: In this case a thick carpet, a thin floor mat, around the leg of a side table, and along the edge of a hardwood floor. The next part is monitoring my dog so that he doesn't gobble up the crackers and also seeing whether the vacuum will pick up all crumbs during its cleaning.

Pictures speak louder than words, or however that saying goes, so take a look at the before/after results for a sense of how the S8 Pro Ultra performed on the test:

Graham Cracker Test (before cleaning). Credit: Stacia Datskovska / Mashable Graham Cracker Test (after cleaning). Credit: Stacia Datskovska / Mashable

Yeah, clearly it didn't do so hot (especially when it came to vacuuming around the leg of the table and the edge of my thin floor mat). Now, was this experiment representative of a real-life scenario? Probably not, as you're unlikely to leave such precise messes and such big crumbs while going about your daily activities. But anything can happen, and the S8 Pro Ultra proved that it's not necessarily ready to handle that "anything" when it comes up.

I'm a tough grader, but I do give credit where credit is due, so I have to applaud the amount of dust particles, hair, debris, and other unsavory molecules that the vacuum did suck up over the course of my time using it. After five days of collecting gunk through once or twice-a-day cleanings, this is what I found in its dustbin:

Pardon the dust. Literally. Credit: Stacia Datskovska / Mashable

Those are tangible (and allergy-inducing) results right there — irrefutable evidence of the fact that the Roborock S8 Pro Ultra doesn't just fake cleanings. It might not swoop up all the crumbs on your floor, but your space is undoubtedly made cleaner thanks to its hard work. Maybe the Roborock's DuoRoller brush is responsible for this achievement. The brand advertises it as a brush that "will spin in opposite directions, which can improve the pick up of hairs on carpet and avoid tangled hairs... with an increased grip strength for carpet cleaning, floors, and any other surfaces."

Though I did have to rescue the brush after parts of a plant got stuck in it (and got damaged as a result, which I will mourn forever), I never had to untangle any yucky hairs as per Roborock's promise. Count your blessings, people.

Spotty mopping was compensated for by self-refilling tank and self-washing/drying mop pads

As I mentioned earlier, it's very rare that a robot vacuum (even one that costs over $1,000!) is able to provide A+ vacuuming and mopping at the same time. One function usually takes a backseat while the other rides shotgun, and it was no different with this Roborock.

When I ran it on vac and mop mode, it didn't do the latter part very well — the areas that it did mop were mopped well, but it also missed a bunch of spots on my bare hardwood floors for no particular reason. I will say that the dynamic lift setting soothed my heart with the knowledge that, when the vacuum detects a carpeted surface, it lifts its mop pads and stops water flow. Soaked rugs are not a vibe, so this was a positive.

Other points to include on Roborock's list of positives: its self-refilling water tank and self-washing/drying mop pads, which actually wash themselves well. After just one full auto/all-over clean, the dirty water tank (the S8 Pro Ultra also has a clean water tank that you're responsible for replenishing) was dirty. We're talking mucky-gray, I-must-empty-this-out-now-before-I-throw-up dirty, which is proof positive that the vac cleans its pads effectively for future mopping rounds.

The vac's base has two tanks, and it self-refills with clean water. Credit: Stacia Datskovska / Mashable The water inside the vac's dirty water tank was sufficiently dirty. Credit: Stacia Datskovska / Mashable

BTW, besides self-refilling, washing, and drying, this vacuum also self-empties after each cleanup — you don't have to worry about replacing its dust bag for up to seven (!!) weeks. This timespan pretty much checks out, given the contents of the dust bag that revealed themselves when I peeked into it after five days. However, after those seven weeks, you do have to buy a new bag from Roborock (six dust bags at the retailer will cost you a whopping $31.99 and the price stays the same when shopping for them via Amazon). Regularly having to invest in accessory replacements is how they get ya, but buying the Roborock S8 Pro Ultra is already a sunk cost. You might as well treat your new helper to the very best.

Battery life is similar to most higher-end robovacs on the market; price is unnecessarily high

To track the S8 Pro Ultra's battery life, I started running it on the vac and mop setting at 1 p.m. (fully charged) and monitored how long it took the vacuum to run out of juice/run back to its home base for a recharge. It ended up doing so at 3:50 p.m., which means it has a battery life of approximately two hours 50 minutes. This checks out with the 180 minute runtime Roborock promises.

For reference, other hybrids that I tested — primarily, the Yeedi Vac Station and Yeedi Mop Station — had runtimes of up to 200 minutes and 144 minutes, respectively. This means that the S8 Pro Ultra is not performing battery miracles, but it's certainly not an outlier based on how frequently it needs recharging, either.

Now that we've thrown potential competition into the mix, it's time to get down to the juicy stuff: How does the Roborock S8 Pro Ultra compare to other vacuums, and is it worth paying an MSRP price of $1,599.99? (Though it's frequently $400 off at Roborock and Amazon.)

My Roborock looking all shiny, new, and overpriced. Credit: Stacia Datskovska / Mashable

The S8 Pro Ultra might be loaded with tons of perks that other robovacs don't even dream of having (like 6,000 pascals of suction power, a PreciSense LiDAR Navigation system that allows it to work at night while you sleep, and more), but its actual performance doesn't justify jolting your savings account like that.

After all, even comparable robovacs from Roborock's S8 series — like the S8+ hybrid, which our reviewer Timothy Beck Werth awarded with a ~Werthy~ Mashable score of 4.4 — cost no more than $999.99. If the only added benefits the S8 Pro Ultra brings are self-washing and self-drying mop pads, then... it's not really worth it. The Yeedi Mop Station Pro, after all, (though not as new and shiny and cool as the Roborock S8 Pro Ultra) has self-washing pads, too, and doesn't charge over $799.99 for all of its features combined.

If you have bucketloads of money to blow, you might want to invest in this high-end robot vacuum. If, however, your New Year's resolution is saving some dinero, the Roborock S8 Pro Ultra is just not worth the splurge.

A factory reset on a MacBook wipes the device of all personal data and reinstalls a clean, unimpeded version of macOS.

Thankfully, completing a factory reset on a MacBook is painless. Apple has generally kept the process fairly streamlined. However, there are a few differences in the procedure depending on whether you have a MacBook with Apple silicon or if it’s a MacBook with the Apple T2 Security chip. Whether you’re running macOS Monterey or later will also impact the step, albeit slightly.

First, check to see if your MacBook has the ‘Erase All Content and Settings feature’. If so, follow these steps depending on the OS.

SEE ALSO: MacBook Air vs. MacBook Pro: All the 2023 MacBooks explained For macOS Monterey:

Step 1: Select the Apple menu in the top left-hand corner and hit ‘System Preferences’.

Step 2: Choose ‘Erase all Content and Settings’.

For macOS Ventura or later:

Step 1: Select the Apple menu in the top left-hand corner and hit ‘System Settings’.

Step 2: Navigate to ‘General’ in the sidebar and click ‘Transfer or Reset’.

Step 3: Choose ‘Erase all Content and Settings’.

Once ‘Erase all Content and Settings’ is selected, you’ll have to sign in with your admin credentials, including your password. Apple also provides a notification of everything being erased, including Apple ID, Touch ID, Apple Wallet, and Find My settings.

This is also the chance to initiate a Time Machine backup if you wish. By selecting ‘Open Time Machine’, you can create a backup of your files and information. However, you’ll be required to have an external storage device.

Once you confirm and select ‘Erase all Content and Settings’ again, the factory reset is initiated. The MacBook is then activated and restarted, with a fresh setup process to initiate.

Use Disk Utility

If your MacBook doesn’t offer the ‘Erase All Content and Settings’ feature, you can use the ‘Disk Utility’ tool. Follow these steps to erase all content:

Step 1: With your MacBook powered down, turn it on and immediately press and hold the Command (⌘) and R keys. Do so until the Apple logo appears.

Step 2: Enter the admin password and select ‘Disk Utility’

Step 3. Navigate to ‘Macintosh HD’ in the sidebar and click ‘Erase’. 

Step 4: Type ‘Macintosh HD’ into the “Name” field and select APFS format or Mac OS Extended (Journaled).

Step 5. Select ‘Erase Volume Group’ or ‘Erase’ depending on what appears. If asked, enter your Apple ID to initiate the wipe.

With that, your MacBook is now wiped and ready for a new owner. You can now donate, sell, or gift your MacBook to someone and not worry about lingering data being accessible.

Percy Jackson and the Olympians is a rollicking fantasy adventure, complete with frightening monsters, high-stakes battles, and gods pulled straight from Greek mythology. So it may come as a surprise that one of the show's best — and most talked-about — scenes is a quiet discussion between two parents.

Of course, these aren't normal parents. One is the Greek god Poseidon (Toby Stephens). The other is mortal Sally Jackson (Virginia Kull), who has spent the last 12 years preparing her son Percy (Walker Scobell) for his heroic destiny — and protecting him from the world of the Olympians.

SEE ALSO: How is 'Percy Jackson and the Olympians' different from the books?

Like many stories from ancient legends, Sally and Poseidon's relationship is a tragic romance. Separated by circumstances of literally mythic proportion, unable to raise Percy together because Olympian law dictates that Poseidon shouldn't even have a child, their story has no clear solution. Sally carries the burden of the truth about Percy's parentage, while Poseidon is unable to help without endangering both his son and the woman he loves. It's a tough dynamic to understand solely through Percy's eyes, but in episode 7, "We Find Out the Truth, Sort Of," Percy Jackson and the Olympians offers us a bigger window into Sally and Poseidon's connection, in all its painful messiness and surprising beauty.

Toby Stephens in "Percy Jackson and the Olympians." Credit: Disney / David Bukach

"We Find Out the Truth, Sort Of" marks our first introduction to Poseidon and what his relationship with Sally really looks like. Because of this, our first glimpse of Poseidon in the flesh is not some bombastic display of godly power, but of a man and a woman simply talking in a diner about the difficulties Sally faces in raising Percy alone.

"It was a really clever way to introduce their relationship and introduce Poseidon, because it makes them very human," Stephens said of the scene in a video call with Mashable. "It's a domestic scene between a mother and father, and at the heart of it there's this pain. It's a yearning between two people to be connected who can't be, but Poseidon is also yearning to be connected with his son but can't because he's protecting him."

SEE ALSO: Jay Duplass talks Hades' big introduction to 'Percy Jackson and the Olympians'

The diner scene was the first scene Stephens shot for the series, yet the chemistry and history between Poseidon and Sally were already well within reach for the actors. "I really liked working with Virginia, and she's a really great actress," said Stephens. "We found that very quickly. The scene just had a very intimate feel."

Percy Jackson and the Olympians began creating that sense of intimacy between Sally and Poseidon right from the very first episode, with a scene that sees Sally sitting on her fire escape, taking in the rain.

Kull was incredibly excited to see the fire escape scene when she first read the script. "In television, you typically don't have time for things like quiet, ordinary moments. And this seems like a humdrum moment, but I think it tells such a huge story," Kull said. "It's not just Sally sitting in the rain on the fire escape — she's sitting in the rain communing with the great love of her life and the father of her kid, and this is the way that she feels close to him."

Virginia Kull in "Percy Jackson and the Olympians." Credit: Disney/David Bukach

The diner sequence feels like a natural progression from that fire escape moment. Sally and Poseidon are connecting in both, but there's still a distance between them. On the fire escape, Poseidon isn't actually present. But even when he's next to Sally in the diner, there's a tragic divide between them. They're close, but still far apart.

Director Anders Engström achieved this paradoxical nearness by telling Kull and Stephens to play the whole scene without ever looking at each other. For Kull, that became a key to unlocking the power of the diner scene.

"What that did to us as actors was that all of the feelings of, 'I need to see how this is affecting the person that I'm speaking to, I want to know what he thinks about what I'm saying,' we couldn't act on," Kull explained. "Therefore, the desire to be heard, to be understood, and to connect was so heightened and so charged, it was electric. It meant that any bad impulse to 'perform' went away, and I was just desperately listening to and clinging to what he was saying. Even the silences were powerful."

In these silences, where Sally and Poseidon sit shoulder-to-shoulder yet never look at one another, Percy Jackson and the Olympians builds an entire world of a relationship that, up to this point, we haven't fully understood.

"Because Poseidon has been absent for the whole show, the audience is going, 'What a jerk, this guy is this absentee father.' And then when you meet him, you go, 'Right, I get it. It's much more complicated, and actually he really does care,'" Stephens said. "This scene is not in the book, but I think it's needed in the TV version, because it gives you much more context."

Percy Jackson and the Olympians is now streaming on Disney+.

Wondering how to watch college basketball this season? Here are your best options: Best for affordability Sling TV Blue Plan $20 for the first month, then $40/month (save $20 ) Get Deal BEST FOR SINGLE GAME FuboTV Pro plan 7-day free trial, then $79.99/month Get Deal

The Purdue and Rutgers men’s basketball teams are scheduled to meet in a Big Ten Conference contest at Jersey Mike’s Arena in Piscataway, New Jersey, on Sunday, Jan. 28. The game is scheduled to start at 1 p.m. ET. 

Purdue, ranked No. 2 in The Associated Press poll, enters the matchup 18-2 overall and 7-2 in the Big Ten. Most recently, Purdue defeated Michigan 99-67 on Tuesday. Through the first 20 games, Zach Edey paces Purdue with 22.9 points and 11.4 rebounds per game. 

Rutgers comes into the contest 10-8 overall and 2-5 in the Big Ten. On Jan. 21, Illinois beat Rutgers 86-63. Aundre Hyatt leads Rutgers in scoring with 12.2 points in the first 18 games.

SEE ALSO: How to watch college basketball without cable

Matt Painter is the Purdue men’s basketball head coach. Steve Pikiell is the Rutgers men’s basketball head coach. 

Purdue vs. Rutgers basketball game time and network

The Purdue vs. Rutgers men’s basketball game is scheduled for a 1 p.m. ET start on FOX on Sunday, Jan. 28. The FOX broadcasters are scheduled to be Tim Brando (play-by-play) and LaPhonso Ellis (analyst). 

Without cable or satellite TV, some options to watch the Purdue vs. Rutgers men’s basketball game via online live stream include FuboTV and Sling.

Best streaming services for the Rutgers vs. Purdue basketball game

You need to choose a streaming service to watch college basketball without cable or satellite TV. Here are the best streaming services to consider for the Rutgers vs. Purdue basketball game on FOX.

Most affordable: Sling TV Opens in a new window Credit: Sling Sling Blue Plan $20 for the first month, then $40/month Get Deal

FOX is available on Sling TV in select markets. Those include Atlanta, Austin, Chicago, Dallas/Fort Worth, Detroit, Gainesville, Houston, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, New York, Orlando, Philadelphia, Phoenix, San Francisco, Seattle, Tampa, and Washington, D.C. 

If you’re not in one of those markets, getting Sling TV won’t help you watch the Purdue vs. Rutgers men’s basketball game. 

If you’re in one of those markets, getting Sling TV for Purdue vs. Rutgers basketball would work for you. You’ll need the Blue Plan, which comes at $20 for the first month and $40 for subsequent months.  

Sling TV’s sports channel offerings include ABC, ACC Network, Big Ten Network, ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN3, ESPNews, ESPNU, FOX, FS1, FS2, NBC, NFL Network, Pac-12 Network and SEC Network.

Best for single game: FuboTV Opens in a new window Credit: FuboTV FuboTV Pro plan 7-day free trial, then $79.99/month Get Deal

FuboTV offers more than 250 channels of live TV and the option to watch on 10 screens at once. You can try FuboTV with a seven-day free trial period. 

Visit the FuboTV website to see if your zip code includes the FOX broadcast. If you’re in luck, then you can get FOX with the FuboTV Pro plan, which has a rate of $79.99 per month.

FuboTV’s sports channel offerings include ABC, ACC Network, Big Ten Network, CBS, CBS Sports Network, ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNews, FOX, FS1, FS2, Golf Network, Marquee Sports Network, Monumental Sports, NBC, NBCSN, NFL Network, Pac-12 Network, and SEC Network. 

You load into a public VR world. At first, things seem pretty innocent — until you enter the sauna only a few steps away from the spawn point. Suddenly, you've stumbled upon a public orgy full of e-boys and e-girls with genitals larger than physically possible in real life. People silently sit and watch; who knows who these people are.

There are dedicated games for people to have sex in virtual reality, such as VirtaMate and AnthroHeat, but more often than not people are getting intimate on the metaverse social platform VRChat. Here, players are able to join over 25,000 community created worlds, most of which are innocent hangout spots while others are a breeding ground for horny gamers.

SEE ALSO: Buzzy CES vibrator looks — and acts — like a remote

There are multiple levels to sex in virtual reality, or as many call it, erotic roleplay (ERP). The first is not too dissimilar to phone sex: Players will talk dirty using the chat function or their voice while their avatars interact with each other. 

A majority of VRChat ERPers, however, take it a step further by using Bluetooth sex toys to simulate what appears on screen. Mashable spoke with creators of tools that make this possible, as well as ERPers who utilize this technology to explore their sexuality. 

Making VR sex a little bit more real

ERPers use one of the many "dynamic penetration systems" that allow for their virtual penis to enter a virtual vagina, asshole, or mouth. This combined with full body tracking, which allows for every movement of your body to happen in-game, creates for impressively realistic looking sex. This experience may trigger someone's phantom touch — a phenomenon where users believe they can "feel" sensations in VR — which some claim they can orgasm solely from.

However, not everyone can experience phantom touch. In the absence of this, two tools (RealFeel and Buttplug.io) emerged that trigger Bluetooth sex toy movements from in-game events.

"Originally I made RealFeel as I lack phantom sense," Kanna, creator of RealFeel, told Mashable. "I felt nothing when I did lewd acts in VR. RealFeel was made to fix that for me."

Four months after Kanna created the tool for personal use, the project started to take off. Now seven years after its creation, RealFeel claims to have 2,800 Discord members. RealFeel is designed to only work with VRChat while Buttplug.io is an open source tool that can be adapted to work with any game — including Animal Crossing.

Every tool works slightly differently but, generally, they require the user to select what region(s) of their avatar they want to trigger their toy(s). Some tools require your partner to connect to your toy in order to activate it, while other tools allow anyone to activate the toy with touch. 

This GIF shows the configuration of a RealFeal breast sensor, changing the start and end of the sensor cone:

Via Giphy

"I created the first sex interface for Second Life, back in 2005," Kyle Machulis, the founder of Buttplug.io, told Mashable. "This is just a natural progression of something humans have been doing for decades already. People have been having sex in online worlds since the late '80s, early '90s."

Depending on your toy, the tools can translate complex inputs into complex outputs. At its most basic, this means a fleshlight understanding the depth your character has penetrated another. If you have one of the more complex toys (i.e. the SR6) you can adapt your tool to move up and down, side to side, rotate and twist, as well as lubricate and control heat.

"Bringing Bluetooth toys into it makes things interesting very quickly," John*, Director of Foxhole, a furry group that organizes ERP meetups, told Mashable. "VR porn becomes obsolete because you have an opportunity in VRChat to engage with other human beings. That's a deeper level of connection. It's more meaningful and more customizable." 

80 percent of VRChatERP Discord members reported more intense orgasms when having sex in VRChat compared to watching porn—14 percent even reported orgasms more intense than real sex. 

Just H Party and Shangri-La are VRChat public worlds for foxy users to find others to have sex with. At Just H Party, people will enter lockable rooms before they get down and dirty, but at Shangri-La you'll regularly find people having sex in the public sauna.

Tweet may have been deleted Why have VR sex?

Many engage in VR sex due to social anxieties. One user told Mashable in Discord, "I'm an introvert and afraid of the real world so I'd rather explore myself online." While others love the safety of it: "There's zero chance of pregnancy, and there is zero risk for physical harm. If someone does something you don't like you can just block them, kick them out of the world, or simply leave," another user explained. 

"VR can definitely add a positive side to sexual exploration," Dr. Karen Stewart, PsyD, a sex and relationship therapist, told Mashable. "It gives a person the opportunity to explore people, sexual experiences, and try new things without fear of judgment – from themselves or anyone else. It's not permanent, no one else’s feelings are involved, and is truly safe sex because no actual body-to-body contact nor fluid exchange occurs."

This is just a natural progression of something humans have been doing for decades already. - Kyle Machulis, the founder of Buttplug.io

As is expected, technology can sometimes stand in the way of immersion. VR sex replaces the awkward silence while putting on a condom with controllers running out of battery, and swaps ignoring queefs for ignoring the background noise of Discord notifications. 

There's also a cost. Players may be naked but they'll be strapped with a headset, 3+ trackers, headphones to prevent moaning blasting to your roommates, and however many sex toys a player wants to use — this could cost over $1,500 excluding a gaming PC to run everything on. 

Money aside, this is a great way for long-distance couples to connect in a deeper way than purple Snapchat messages. That said, hookup culture in VRChat is rife. "Getting your virtual dick sucked is easier than getting five bucks," one horny user explained.

Adult activities within an all-ages space

You only have to be 13 years old to play VRChat (as it's not strictly a sexual platform), so people publicly having sex are at huge risk of exposing themselves to minors when having sex or picking people up in public worlds.

Many users are hyper-aware of this risk, especially in the wake of the British police investigating a sexual assault in VR, so they run checks to avoid getting intimate with a minor. People in the Shangri-La sauna reported checking their partners bio, asking directly, and trusting their gut before engaging with another user. Unfortunately, these efforts just aren't enough to completely remove this criminal risk.

To prevent children entering these spaces, communities form on Discord that require ID age verification. VRChatERP, for example, requires two pictures: one of your face and ID in the same picture and another with your ID and Discord name in the same picture. 

"We initially had less invasive requirements for age verification, which lead to almost daily issues with members being minors," Steve*, the founder of VRChatERP, told Mashable. "Ultimately, our method of verification is essential for ensuring that adults have no chance of sexually interacting with minors and vice versa. We haven’t had an age-related ticket in about a year."

SEE ALSO: Sex workers are cloning themselves with AI to make sexy chatbots Exploring kinks not possible IRL

Each community hosts a range of different events, some groups prefer chilled meetups while others opt for flashy DJ-events with corners for people to ERP in. "I've joined worlds and the first experience I get hit with is a bunch of people moaning, it's quite surreal," one event attendee explained.

Just like real life, many people enter these communities and begin their slut era. Soon, they tire of this and start to play with a smaller group and explore new corners of their sexuality. Some slowly become more open to queer sexual interactions while others begin to experiment in kinks they hadn't previously considered.

"During ERP I may be more willing to engage in slightly violent kinks or kinks that would be not-good or downright unhygienic in real-life," a user who has been having VR sex for two years told Mashable. "The idea of being cut or stabbed during sex does seem really hot but it probably wouldn't be so great if I was actually hurt like that."

Kinks that aren't possible to safely explore in real-life are able to be explored in this virtual realm. For example, hard vore — the desire to be ripped apart before being eaten — can be explored if the player is skilled enough to make an avatar that can have its limbs removed with blood and gore.

"The downside of this fantasy fulfillment is that it has been found that people can become jaded to 'real world' sexual experiences." Stewart explained. "For instance, if a young person is experimenting with VR sex on a regular basis, exploring fantasies, things that will not happen in reality, when they encounter a real-life sexual relationship they may have erectile problems, orgasm disorders, or lack interest in real human touch."

In a virtual reality where your creativity and imagination can run free, the line between fantasy and reality become blurred. Bluetooth sex toys help deepen the immersion that what you're experiencing is real, allowing unrealistic kinks to feel like a new reality. 

"Don't get lost in wonderland. Know the boundaries between fantasy and reality," John pleaded. "Don't forget, at the end of the day, you're not some cat or dog or animatronic or fox girl. You're a human being with a life to live."

* Pseudonyms have been used to protect sources' privacy.

TL;DR: The Omnia X6i PD Wall Charger is compact and can quickly charge three devices at once. As of Jan. 27, you can grab it on sale for $64.99 (reg. $75) — that's 13% in savings.

With hybrid and remote work being the norm these days, power is power. If one of the devices you rely on is out of battery, it can put a damper on your whole day's flow. That's why finding charging solutions that can support your lifestyle is crucial.

Most of us move between our phones, tablets, and laptops. If you need a compact charger to keep multiple devices ready to go, the Omnia X6i could be your answer. This wall charger can fast charge three devices at once, and it's on sale for just $64.99 (reg. $75) for a limited time.

The Omnia X6i PD uses GaN technology to give you efficient, super-fast charging in its three ports: USB C1, USB C2, and USB-A. This gives it universal compatibility, which means it should work on most Apple or Android devices. It also sports a helpful LED indicator to show you the real-time status of your charge.

If you travel often for work or pleasure, this multi-device charger has some features that may win you over, such as the compact design and ability to do triple-duty. It's small enough to keep in your purse, backpack, laptop case, and even your pocket. Plus, it comes with travel plugs for over 150 countries (US, UK, EU, and others), making it an internationally compatible solution that won't add any bulk to your travel gear. 

Don't settle for the slow charge of most multi-chargers out there. Upgrade your charging experience with the lightning-fast, compact Omnia X6i charger while it's on sale.

Pick up this Omnia X6i PD Wall Charger for just $64.99 (reg. $75) for a limited time.

StackSocial prices subject to change.

Opens in a new window Credit: Adam Elements Omnia X6i PD Wall Charger $64.99 at the Mashable Shop Get Deal

TL;DR: As of January 27, get the Heated Reclining Stadium Seat for only $99.99 — a 16% discount.

The work of a sports fan is never over. You may be there supporting your team, but the weather might not make it easy this year. Whether you have tickets to the big game, are tailgating, or are showing your colors for the little league home team, you don't have to fight the weather from the stands. Instead, just park in a seat that could help keep you nice and warm all on its own. The Heated Reclining Stadium Seat has a built-in heating system powered by a USB battery pack, and it's on sale for $99.99  for a little while longer. 

Comfort the moment you touch down

This time, getting into the hot seat is a good thing. The deluxe Heated Massage Stadium Seat is comfort you can carry. Leave the discomfort to the athletes battling it out down below while you recline on a comfortable heated stadium seat that gets as high as 110°F. The seat just needs a USB battery pack to power up. Just make sure to bring your own, as one isn't included, but that means you can just plug in any USB power source. Long game? Bring your own power station. 

Game going into overtime but your back's aching? Just turn on any of the three massage settings and settle in for the long haul. There are three detachable pockets to keep your essentials, foldable armrests for a wider seat, and thick padded for comfort. Plus, this seat is made of waterproof material that's suitable for a variety of conditions. 

Turn up the heat

You may be bringing the heat supporting your favorite team, but this stadium seat is here to bring the heat and support you. 

Until January 28 at 11:59 p.m. PT, you can get the Heated Massage Reclining Stadium Seat for $99.99 (reg. $119.95), with no coupon needed. 

StackSocial prices subject to change.

Opens in a new window Credit: Alpcour Heated Massage Reclining Stadium Seat with Armrests and Side Pockets $99.99 at the Mashable Shop Get Deal

TL;DR: As of January 27, get this Gemelli Home Oven for only $199.99 — that's 33% off.

Snacks are serious business, especially when the game is on. Just any old snacks might not cut it. If you want something a little more gourmet without dominating the whole kitchen, see what you can cook up with the Gemelli Home Oven. This countertop convection oven brings a whole menu of potential in one compact package. 

Pizza, rotisserie chicken, mac and cheese bakes, and so much more are on the table with this little oven, and it's on sale for $199.99 for a limited time. 

Like your own restaurant on the counter

The Gemelli Home Oven is like having a pro-quality convection oven plus a rotisserie cooker on your countertop. Plus, the lower oven works as a built-in pizza drawer, so you can double up on snacks. And all of it is controlled by the knobs on the side, no complicated menus or touchscreens. The oven has an elegant stainless steel finish along with an internal non-stick coating for easy cleaning. 

The main oven compartment has four quartz heating elements and a max temperature of 450º. You can move the racks between three positions and choose from eight cooking functions, including Bake, Convection Bake, Slow Cook, Convection Roast, Broil, Rotisserie, Defrost, and Keep Warm.

Get the whole gang together for a slice of something hot and cheesy from a pizza drawer that can bake up to 12-inch pizzas. You could also use it for frozen snacks, toast, bread, bagels, and a whole lot more. You can also use the rotisserie feature to cook meats up to six pounds at a time. 

Get snacks ready for the big game

Snack in style during the big game. 

Until January 28 at 11:59 p.m. PT, you can get the Gemelli Home Oven for just $199.99. No coupon needed. 

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Opens in a new window Credit: Gemelli Gemelli Home Oven - Convection Oven with Built-In Pizza Drawer and Rotisserie $199.99 at the Mashable Shop Get Deal

TL;DR: For a limited time, you can get Microsoft Office 2019 for Mac or Windows for $39.99—that's $190 off the regular price of $229.

Certain apps are hard to get by without. Microsoft programs like Word, Excel, and PowerPoint may be the mainstays for productivity, but there's more than one way to get them. If you already have a Microsoft 365 subscription, then you know how quickly those fees can add up month to month or year to year. A cheaper alternative is to go for a slightly older version of the same software that has a lifetime license. 

Microsoft Office 2019 comes with many of the same apps as Microsoft 365, but you only pay for it once to get it on one computer for life. And you can get it on Windows or Mac for just $39.99. 

What's in Microsoft Office 2019

The Mac version of Microsoft Office 2019 comes with Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote, and Teams Classic. These are all the 2019 versions of the apps you may have used with Microsoft 365, so they might look a little different, but they still have many of the same features.

The Windows version has the same apps as what's available for Mac, but it replaces Teams with Publisher and Access. That means you can always have reliable software for drafting essays, analyzing data, crafting presentations, and even creating standout printables for your next big meeting. 

Save on Microsoft Office for life

Stop paying a monthly fee for productivity. 

Go for a classic version of the apps you rely on that works great and doesn't require a monthly or yearly subscription:

• Microsoft Office Home and Business 2019 for Mac, on sale for $39.99

• Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2019 for Windows, on sale for $39.99

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Opens in a new window Credit: Nerdused LTD Microsoft Office Home & Business 2019 for Windows $39.99 in the Mashable Shop Get Deal Opens in a new window Credit: Nerdused LTD Microsoft Office Home & Business 2019 for Mac $39.99 in the Mashable Shop Get Deal

NASA wants to hear far-out, unconventional, and out-of-this-world aerospace ideas.

The space agency's Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program — which encourages "visionary ideas that could transform future NASA missions with the creation of breakthroughs" — funds research into a diversity of ambitious proposals it finds compelling. For example, NASA is currently funding an idea (still only an idea) to construct a telescope the size of Washington, D.C., on the moon.

Now, the program has released a new batch of innovative concepts that it's chosen for further theoretical development, and included is a plane designed to fly around Mars — and stay aloft in the extremely thin Martian atmosphere. The proposal is called MAGGIE (short for Mars Aerial and Ground Intelligent Explorer), and it's an aircraft envisioned to provide unprecedented exploration of Mars' surface.

And unlike planes on Earth, the craft is designed to take off and land vertically, like a helicopter.

"You can land any place you feel is interesting," Gecheng Zha, the director of the CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) and Aerodynamics Lab at the University of Miami, told Mashable.

SEE ALSO: NASA will land daring spacecraft on a world 800 million miles away

The Martian plane is a novel idea, but perhaps not as wild as it sounds. NASA is only spending some $175,000 on 13 different awardees for this early "Phase I" conceptual research. But it comes with the opportunity for NASA to further develop such aerospace technology and move innovation to the next phase — which means even more funding and support.

"It can't just be science fiction."

"Anything proposed to NASA has to be very, very well thought out," Zha, who is also the president and founder of Coflow Jet, the aviation technology company that proposed the MAGGIE craft, emphasized. "It has to have scientific merit. It can't just be science fiction."

A plane on Mars

The Martian aircraft, which would be powered by the solar panels spread across its wings, has a strong Mars influence: NASA's Ingenuity helicopter — a NIAC-graduate and the first craft to make a powered, controlled flight on another planet. The small, solar-powered experimental chopper, with four-foot-long rotor blades that spun a blazing 2,400 revolutions every minute, made over 70 successful flights before meeting its demise on Jan. 25 after a rough landing. Originally, engineers hoped it might fly five times, if at all.

"We were enlightened by Ingenuity," Zha said.

Yet a plane would be able to carry significantly more weight than a future Martian helicopter, and would fly more efficiently on a distant world where craft would almost certainly need to rely on the sun for energy, Zha explained. (A nuclear-powered endeavor, like the Perseverance rover, requires a heavy engine. That would make lifting into the air difficult.)

The Ingenuity helicopter flying on Mars in August 2023. Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / ASU / MSSS The Jezero Crater on Mars, a dried-up river delta now explored by NASA's Perseverance rover. Credit: NASA

Flying anything on Mars is a great challenge. That's because, compared to Earth, the Martian atmosphere is quite thin. Its volume is about 1 percent of Earth's, making it difficult to generate the lift needed for flight. Yet the MAGGIE plane's narrow double-wings are designed (conceptually) to produce many times more lift than conventional aircraft on our planet.

Once in the air, the plane would cruise at some 60 meters per second, or nearly 135 mph. That's significantly slower than, say, the commercial jets you're used to flying on. But on Mars, flying slower is imperative. Flying quickly burns too much energy.

"You don't want to fly too fast," Zha emphasized.

Beyond its extraordinarily thin air, Mars has another notable obstacle for aircraft. There are no runways. And Martian astronaut missions certainly aren't going to have the time and ability to clear land and boulders to create an airfield. So the craft must take off and land without one.

"You don't want to fly too fast."

The trick is in the wings' flaps. The propellers are always facing forward, but by turning the wing flap down to 90 degrees, the airflow from the propellers creates lift. "That will get the plane up vertically," Zha explained.

One day, perhaps, a plane like MAGGIE will robotically explore the Martian surface from some 3,280 feet (1,000 meters) for interesting places to land and capture samples. It will be a compact plane — MAGGIE is currently designed with about a 26-foot (7.85 meters) wingspan — so it could fit and fold inside a large rocket. But it would allow unprecedented exploration of the Red Planet, a world that once gushed with water and could have potentially hosted primitive life — if life ever existed on Mars, that is.

Planes on Mars may also prove essential for Martian travel later this century and beyond. After all, it's hard to get around on a world without an Interstate Highway System.

"We provide the possibility to move around," Zha said. "There are no roads there."