Category: 4. Technology

SAVE $100: As of July 3, the Apple Watch Series 10 is on sale for $299 at Amazon — down from $399. That’s 25% off the list price.

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If you’ve been holding out for a truly great Apple Watch deal, your patience just paid off. The Apple Watch Series 10 has dropped to $299 at Amazon in an early Prime Day deal — a hefty 25% discount from its usual $399 price tag, and according to price tracker camelcamelcamel, this is the lowest price on record.

Mashable Apple expert hand-picked this deal as the standout option ahead of Prime Day 2025.

The standout option here features a rose gold aluminium case paired with a plum sport loop — sleek, stylish, and the best value you’ll find. Other variants like the jet black model or the rose gold case with a light blush sport band are currently $329, while the silver case with a denim sport band lands at $319. That makes the rose gold and plum combo your best bet by far — if you act quick.

Aside from the eye-catching design, you’re getting all the latest iterations of the top-tier features Apple’s wearables offer. The Series 10 boasts a 30% larger screen, a thinner and lighter case, and super-fast charging that gets you to 80% battery in just 30 minutes. It’s packed with advanced health features, from ECG capabilities to menstrual cycle tracking, and even sleep apnea notifications via the new Vitals app.

Fitness junkies will appreciate deeper workout insights, customizable activity rings, and even water depth and temperature tracking for swimmers. And of course, all the Apple Watch essentials are here — texts, calls, Siri, Apple Pay, and seamless integration with your iPhone.

It’s also crack-resistant, dust-resistant, and carbon-neutral when paired with select bands.

Mashable Deals

While we don’t deem the Apple Watch Series 10 as an essential upgrade “if you already own the Series 9”, we do think it’s a “good place to start” if you’ve never owned an Apple Watch before.

If you’re curious about what to expect from Prime Day, check out our full Prime Day 2025 guide with all you need to know. What’s more, take a look at our standout early discounts.

The Leica Q3 premium full-frame compact camera now supports audio capture via USB-C from selected RØDE microphones, expanding their multimedia production potential.

Leica has quietly expanded the capabilities of their flagship Q3 camera with a significant firmware update that enables audio recording through its USB-C port when paired with compatible RØDE microphones. This development transforms the already versatile (and some might say expensive) full-frame compact camera into a more comprehensive content creation tool.

The new audio recording functionality works seamlessly with selected models from RØDE’s microphone lineup, allowing creators to capture “professional-quality” sound directly through the camera’s USB-C connection. Since we are now talking about a “digital sound path” (as opposed to using a 3.5mm cable), this integration opens the door to potentially better audio quality.

It looks as if Leica’s partnership with RØDE is particularly strategic, given the Australian company’s strong reputation among content creators and their extensive range of microphones designed for various recording scenarios. RØDE, on the other hand, is benefiting from being recognized by a top camera brand, Leica, as a leader in manufacturing audio devices for creators

Leica Q3 & RØDE – market positioning

The audio recording capability shows Leica’s commitment to position the Q3’s as a premium hybrid camera capable of satisfying both still photography and video production. At its current price point ($6,735), the camera competes with high-end mirrorless systems from Sony and Canon, many of which already offer comprehensive audio recording features, although not through USB-C. Then again, a Leica is often considered a “passion camera” – and a status symbol – where features might sometimes be less important than prestige. So it’s nice to see Leica and RØDE step up the game technically as well.

Availability and compatibility

Firmware 3.1.1 update enabling USB-C audio recording is available now through Leica’s official website. RØDE, on the other hand, mentioned that the current microphones to be supported are the Wireless ME, Wireless GO II, Wireless PRO, VideoMic GO II, and the VideoMic NTG.

Do you appreciate this type of new feature? Would you like to see wireless audio recording via USB implemented by other manufacturers? Please share your thoughts with us in the comment section below..

OSLO, Norway, July 3, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — Norway-based browser developer, Opera [NASDAQ: OPRA], is breaking down language barriers for its users with the launch of Opera Translate, a new, secure, and built-in translation feature for its flagship desktop browsers, Opera One and Opera GX. This significant update also brings powerful multitasking tools to both browsers and adds a new personalization option to Opera GX with fully customizable animated cursors.

Opera Translate arrives in Opera One and Opera GX

At the core of this update is Opera Translate, a built-in feature designed to break down language barriers for users across the globe. As one of the most requested features by users in Opera One and Opera GX alike, it comes integrated natively into both browsers, detecting when a webpage is in a different language than the user’s default setting in the browser and offering to translate it instantly. Supporting over 40 languages, Opera Translate makes it easier for users to explore international websites, follow global news, or navigate foreign content while traveling. Users can choose to translate a page just once, or set the browser to always translate certain languages.

The Opera Translate feature is powered by Lingvanex and their AI-enhanced technology for natural and accurate language processing. Crucially, the translation solution is hosted on Opera’s own European-based servers, ensuring that all translated information is processed in-house and protected by the strictest privacy regulations, without being sent to third-party services.

“The internet connects the world, but language can still be a barrier to exploring its full potential. With the introduction of Opera Translate, we’re giving our users access to content and ideas from across the globe without compromising their privacy,” said Tomasz Stawarz, Director of Product at Opera.

Opera One: Split screen now within Tab Islands

Opera One is getting improvements to its Split Screen feature after reviewing the community’s feedback., Users can now access the toolbar in each tab while browsing in Split Screen mode. This means that users now get:

• Access to Toolbar features: when in Split Screen mode, users can now access Pinboards, Snapshot tool, Flow, Bookmarks, Downloads, the Easy Setup menu, and any other features they choose to add to the Toolbar
• Player in Toolbar: now users can benefit from the Music Player in the toolbar when they’re using Split Screen mode.

This update also brings the Split Screen mode inside of the Tab Islands, which means that users can benefit from the tab grouping capabilities of Opera and add their joint tabs (in Split Screen mode) to any Tab Island.

Opera GX launches browser booster update with custom animated cursors and better tab management

The default mouse cursor is a relic and Opera GX is fixing that. With a new update, Opera GX is now the first and only browser that lets users fully customize their mouse cursor across the entire browser UI. In collaboration with Sweezy Cursors, Opera GX and Sweezy now offer a library of over 30 cursor packs – including both static and animated designs – that can be applied with a single click. No need to download third-party tools, change OS settings, or install risky extensions. For gamers who care about aesthetics and immersion, custom cursors bring more vibes to every click.

“Gamers spend hours perfecting their setup – from their hardware’s RGB to their in-game skins. So why should the browser cursor remain but a boring, static arrow? With custom animated cursors, we’re giving our users another layer of personalization to make their entire online experience truly their own. It’s about bringing the same level of style and identity they have in-game to the tool they use the most,” said Maciej Kocemba, Product Director Opera GX. 

Custom cursors are designed with several key benefits in mind:     

• Visual consistency: custom cursors work across the entire browser, not just on web pages. The cursor doesn’t revert when hovering over tabs, menus, or settings, ensuring a fully immersive and polished experience.
• Ease of use: users can simply browse the cursor collection in GX Store, click “apply,” and the cursor updates instantly. No configuration, no external downloads, and for free.
• Security: unlike third-party browser extensions that may pose privacy risks (access to displayed web page content), all cursor customizations in Opera GX are hosted and executed locally and safely within the browser.
• Performance: these custom cursors are fully integrated with Opera GX’s rendering engine, ensuring no slowdown even with complex animations.
• Future game IP integrations: Opera plans to collaborate with gaming studios to release branded cursor packs based on popular titles – giving users another way to express their identity online.

In addition to the cursors, the browser booster update officially brings the Tab Islands feature to the stable version of Opera GX, enhancing the browser with new organizing tools. Users can now name and assign custom colors to different Tab Islands to visually distinguish between their work, gaming, and social tabs. Furthermore, an entire Tab Island can now be saved as a single Speed Dial on the start page, making it easier than ever to revisit favorite research sessions or gaming setups with a single click.

To experience the new Opera features, users can download the latest versions of Opera One and Opera GX or wait for the automatic update to roll out.     

About Opera

Opera is a user-centric and innovative software company focused on enabling the best possible internet browsing experience across all devices. Hundreds of millions use Opera web browsers for their unique and secure features on mobile phones and desktop computers. Founded in 1995 and headquartered in Oslo, Norway, Opera is a public company listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange under the ticker symbol OPRA. Download the Opera web browsers and other Opera products from opera.com. Learn more about Opera at investor.opera.com.

About Opera GX

Browser developed by Opera [NASDAQ: OPRA]. Since its inception in 2019, Opera GX has quickly become the browser of choice for millions of gamers seeking a more custom internet experience. Along with countless customization options including color themes, sound effects, background music, and a gaming-inspired design, GX includes CPU, RAM and Network Bandwidth limiters that make the browser less resource-hungry and leave more of the computer’s resources for gaming. The browser also includes a Hot Tabs Killer feature, which lets users kill the most resource-draining tabs, and GX Cleaner to purge those old unwanted files. Opera GX is the first browser that allows users to fully customize its appearance, themes, sounds, and audio effects during use, completely changing the browsing experience. Simply download one of over 9,000 mods to start enjoying a new look for the browser that suits your preferences.

SOURCE Opera Limited

Jason Hall, aka ‘Thor,’ the face of Pirate Software, has left Offbrand Games amid an absurd storm of internet criticism and review bombings precipitated by the stand he took against the growing Stop Killing Games (SKG) movement. This exit of Hall shows how a campaign originally aimed at preservation has moved into further encompassing the bigger option of holding a person accountable versus online outrage and parallel blurred lines of guilt by association.

Controversy Clouds Game for the Wrong Reasons

Rivals of Aether II was not under the spotlight as it was poorly launched or had badly designed gameplay;-it was a philosophical disagreement. On June 27, 2025, Ludwig Ahgren, Offbrand Games co-founder and huge stream personality, addressed the eerie infestation of negative reviews on the game’s Steam page and lashing in frustration:“Such a bummer Rivals 2 is getting any s**t for this… People are now review bombing the game because Pirate Software, who has no personal stake in the game, works at Offbrand Games? 😔 Feels wrong.”Although Hall had nothing to do with making the game, the mere association of his vocal presence with Offbrand’s publishing label made Rivals 2 inadvertently borne of the impact of review bombings.

Pirate Software Responds to the Backlash

Amid the noise, Hall made his position clear, he would be stepping away from the company to stop further harm to its portfolio:“I am no longer working at @offbrand_games. People were attacking all of the games we were publishing and trying to mass review bomb them. You can dislike the things I say, but this kind of behavior is unhinged.”He added that while he learned a lot and cherished his time at the studio, he hoped OffBrand could continue without being distracted by his presence.

What’s Behind the Movement?

At the eye of the controversy lies the Stop Killing Games campaign, initiated by Ross Scott of Accursed Farms. The movement is for digital game preservation, resisting companies that deactivate or remove any sort of access to games that consumers have paid for. Ubisoft’s attempt to kill The Crew in late 2023, in spite of its offline side became the prime flashpoint.

The Fallout of Online Movements

This issue has stirred the growing tension within the community of players, when advocacy hits the limits of absolutism, is there room left for that said character to disagree? Can an individual, in the political sense, say that he supports the kernel idea on which the movement is based wherein he does not support every method that the movement employs? That answer has become ambiguous for now.

Pirate Software’s escapade out of Offbrand Games represents more than just a personnel change: it is an expression of the conflict between digital activism and personal branding on the modern internet. Though the SKG movement is gaining some traction, the internal rifts and external confrontation act as a reminder: solidarity can be so thin in the internet age if the internet decides that there is but one proper way to save games.

Apple last month announced its latest update for MacOS 26, codenamed “Tahoe.” It’s full of new visual design elements like Apple’s Liquid Glass design theme, better integration with the iPhone, and a more robust Spotlight feature that’s better integrated with Shortcuts. 

The theme of all of Apple’s updates this year is streamlining both the visual UI and feature sets across Apple devices, while making more apps and features available on them, punctuated by Apple Intelligence. 

Also: The best MacBooks of 2025: Expert tested and reviewed

Following the same trajectory as the last few years, Apple’s announcement of MacOS 26 comes during WWDC, with a developer beta opening up now, and a public beta likely sometime this month. The full release of MacOS 26 won’t be out until this fall, however. 

Let’s take a look at the biggest announcements Apple made for MacOS. 

1. The Phone app on Mac

The Phone app has finally arrived on MacOS, allowing for a more streamlined user experience between your iPhone and computer. Users can now access recent calls and contacts synced from your iPhone, and make calls with a single click in the same way. What’s more, the Phone app will include the new features added in iOS 26, including Hold Assist and Call Screening. 

Also: New to MacOS? 8 beginner tips and tricks to try first – and why

In addition to calls and contacts, live activities from the iPhone will be visible on your Mac, such as tracking an Uber or a delivery from Seamless. Clicking on the live activity will open up iPhone Mirroring, which will allow you to take action directly from your Mac. 

2. Liquid Glass and visual consistency

Apple dropped a major visual overhaul for iOS with its Liquid Glass design theme, and many of those updates are filtering over to MacOS, streamlining the user experience across devices. 

The dock, sidebars, and toolbars have been redesigned in the same translucent aesthetic that’s intended to show more content on screen without UI clutter. In addition, the rounded elements and added dimensionality look a lot more like what you’d see on the iPhone. Customization also allows you to adjust the control center in the same way as the iPhone

Also: What is Liquid Glass? Here’s everything we know about Apple’s major UI overhaul at WWDC

Just like the iPhone, Macs will support additional personalization options, including dark or light mode, an all-clear icon, and dock theme, as well as customized color tones. This customization extends to folder icons themselves, with colors, themes, and even emojis. 

3. Shortcuts and Spotlight get smarter 

MacOS 26 adds a handful of smart integrations for the Spotlight feature. Instead of just being a simple search bar, Apple’s updates to Spotlight make it into a more powerful control panel that works with Shortcuts and can take app-specific actions, while powered by Apple Intelligence. 

For example, during the WWDC keynote, we saw a demo in a photo editing app, with the user adjusting the color tone by searching for that function in the Spotlight. In a complex app like Photoshop, for example, if you can’t find a specific function, Spotlight could step in to act as a top-level search function. 

Also: Apple’s secret sauce is exactly what AI is missing

In supporting additional productivity features, Spotlight will also contain clipboard history and allow you to create automations in conjunction with Apple Intelligence to make complex actions like summarizing text or creating images. You can access Apple Intelligence models on your device or ChatGPT. 

Spotlight will also support a handful of shortcut Quick keys, such as “sm” for “send message,” for example. That opens a thread where you can send a message directly from the Spotlight app itself, without swapping to Messages. 

4. Apple Intelligence, of course 

Some of the Apple Intelligence features that debuted on the iPhone will now be available in MacOS, including a more robust, personalized Siri, and a smarter Shortcuts app. 

Apple is also opening up MacOS 26 so third-party developers can start creating apps that actually integrate with Apple Intelligence. It’s a smart move, allowing some breathing room to further innovate on its own AI features (which some say have fallen behind competitors’) while allowing external developers to bring useful AI functions to the Mac. 

5. Apple Games 

Coinciding with the launch of the Games app on the iPhone, we’re also seeing Games come to MacOS 26 as a dedicated store, launcher, and leaderboard. The Games app also brings an overlay showing system settings like low power mode, as well as online friends and communications.

Metal 4 comes to MacOS 26 as well, offering higher quality graphics with MetalFX Frame Interpolation and MetalFX Denoising for smoother visuals and faster frame rates.

Let’s talk compatibility 

All of these updates sound great, but not every Mac will be compatible with MacOS 26 Tahoe. Older Macs with Intel processors, unfortunately, will not support the new OS version. This means any Mac with an M1 processor or later will run MacOS 26, but most devices from before the 2020 mark will not. 

Also: Your Apple Watch is getting a major upgrade. Here are the best features in WatchOS 26

This move all but seals the deal on phasing out older Intel-based models, something we’ve been expecting from Apple for a while. If you do have a Mac computer with an Intel processor, you can still run the previous MacOS, Sequoia, or its predecessor, Sonoma, depending on how old your device is. 

Get the morning’s top stories in your inbox each day with our Tech Today newsletter.

This isn’t the first time scientists have created spongy materials that use sunlight as a sustainable energy source for cleaning or desalinating water. For example, a loofah-inspired hydrogel with polymers inside its pores was tested on chromium-contaminated water and, when heated by the sun, the hydrogel quickly released a collectible, clean water vapor through evaporation. But while hydrogels are squishy and liquid-filled, aerogels are more rigid, containing solid pores that can transport liquid water or water vapor. Aerogels have been tested as a means of desalination, but they are limited by their evaporation performance, which declines as the size of the material increases. So, Xi Shen and colleagues wanted to design a porous desalination aerogel that maintained its efficiency at different sizes.

The researchers made a paste containing carbon nanotubes and cellulose nanofibers and then 3D-printed it onto a frozen surface, allowing each layer to solidify before the next was added. This process formed a sponge-like material with evenly distributed tiny vertical holes, each around 20 micrometers wide. They tested square pieces of the material, ranging in size from 0.4 inches wide (1 centimeter) to about 3 inches wide (8 centimeters), and found that the larger pieces released water through evaporation at rates as efficient as the smaller ones.

In an outdoor test, the researchers placed the material in a cup containing seawater, and it was covered by a curved, transparent plastic cover. Sunlight heated the top of the spongy material, evaporating just the water, not the salt, into water vapor. The vapor collected on the plastic cover as liquid, moving the now clean water to the edges, where it dripped into a funnel and container below the cup. After 6 hours in natural sunlight, the system generated about 3 tablespoons of potable water.

“Our aerogel allows full-capacity desalination at any size,” Shen says, “which provides a simple, scalable solution for energy-free desalination to produce clean water.”

The authors acknowledge funding from the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Research Grants Council of Hong Kong SAR, the Environment and Conservation Fund of Hong Kong SAR, and the Hong Kong Polytechnic University.