Category: Technology

HBO Max is the latest streaming platform to roll out a TikTok-style vertical short-form feed and an AI Search experience to help users quickly find their next watch.

“HBO Max Shorts” will initially be limited to iOS users in the US. You can tap the new Shorts icon, next to the Home tab, to access the feed, which will feature trailers, clips, and bonus content based on your viewing history and preferences.

If a clip prompts you to watch the show, you can tap the episode number to start watching or add it to your My List to watch later. The clips are selected by HBO Max editors, who pick from a pool of videos gathered by a built-in AI tool.

“Once the tool has suggested these clips, HBO Max editors decide which best represent the stories viewers love and capture jaw dropping moments, pivotal plot twists, and visually stunning sequences,” Warner Bros. Discovery, HBO’s parent company, said in a press release.

In the future, HBO Max Shorts will include sports content and expand to more devices and markets, the company added. ESPN, Disney+, Prime Video, and Netflix already have similar vertical video feeds.

How to Use Natural Language Search on HBO Max

(Credit: Warner Bros. Discovery)

Alongside the new video feed, WBD announced an experimental AI search experience called “Ask HBO Max.” The idea is to let users describe what they’d like to watch in plain language. They could, for example, use terms like “in the mood for a comedy,” “dysfunctional family drama,” or “best movie for a girls night in,” and find relevant results.

The feature is limited to Android users aged 18 and older at launch and can be accessed from the search page. As with HBO Max Shorts, Ask HBO Max will eventually expand to more devices and markets, WBD said.

The parent company is currently in the middle of a controversial merger. After Paramount-Skydance agreed to take over the company earlier this year, 12 states challenged the merger on antitrust grounds. Last week, Paramount and WBD decided to delay the merger until June 1, 2027, or five days after a court reaches a decision on the lawsuit.

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Jibin is a tech news writer based out of Ahmedabad, India. Previously, he served as the editor of iGeeksBlog and is a self-proclaimed tech enthusiast who loves breaking down complex information for a broader audience.

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“Humanoid and animal-like robots” now rank as machina non grata at United Airlines.

The Chicago-based carrier updated its “dangerous items list” last week to ban passengers from taking those non-human companions on flights, whether they have their own seat or get tucked into the baggage hold.

That clause of United’s policy defines each category in duck-test phrasing: “A humanoid robot is an artificial intelligence-driven or remote-controlled machine that mimics how a human looks, moves, thinks, and speaks,” while “An ‘animal-like robot’ is an artificial intelligence-driven or remote-controlled machine that looks and behaves like an animal.”

The change did not get much, if any, public attention at first, but Live and Let’s Fly blogger Matthew Klint flagged it on Monday, citing internal communication from the airline and longstanding flight-safety concerns about the fire risks posed by lithium-ion batteries in robots and many other gadgets. Years ago, that risk assessment led airlines to ban people from checking in “smart” luggage unless they removed the rechargeable batteries from those connected bags. 

United, an early adopter of AI and other forms of automation, confirmed that this rule is driven by safety considerations. “We no longer allow humanoid and animal-like robots in the cabin or as checked baggage,” spokesman Charles Hobart said in an email. “Yes, these devices often use batteries that we do not accept on board or in checked baggage, and we believe this change will help further ensure the safety of our customers and crews.”

Smaller robots may still fly; the new policy mentions “small toys and gadgets” if they meet United’s other safety rules. The most important criteria in this context govern batteries: A device’s lithium-ion battery can’t hold more than 100 watt-hours. If it has two, their combined capacity can’t exceed 160 watt-hours, and any device with three or more will have to stay grounded. 

So, while a full-size version of Star Wars’ C-3PO (or a Tesla Optimus robot, should it ever reach commercial reality) would be right out, you might be able to carry on a smaller R2-D2 if its battery was small enough or wasn’t lithium-based. 

United is the second major US airline to restrict robots. Southwest Airlines, which has also been more aggressive than its competitors in restricting power banks, added its own ban on “human-like” and “animal-like” robots in May.

The proximate cause of that appeared to be the owner of a robot-rental studio in Dallas, Aaron Mehdizadeh, bringing a compact humanoid robot nicknamed Stewie on a Southwest flight from Las Vegas to Dallas. Despite what Mehdizadeh described in a post on X as extensive efforts to comply with Southwest’s then-published rules, including equipping Stewie with a battery “just under the legal limit” and then buckling in that bipedal bot like any other passenger, the Dallas-based airline was evidently not amused. 

While commercial aviation may be cooling on the idea of robots as cargo, self-loading or otherwise, the industry does not appear to harbor any general resentment toward “clankers” or be possessed by the FCC’s recent angst over snooping by imported robots.  

Tokyo’s Haneda Airport is now testing humanoid baggage-handling robots, some manufacturers of “ground support equipment” like aircraft tugs are developing automated versions of them, and many of United’s airport lounges already feature wheeled robots that glide back and forth to collect plates, utensils, and glasses from guests.

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Rob Pegoraro writes about interesting problems and possibilities in computers, gadgets, apps, services, telecom, and other things that beep or blink. He’s covered such developments as the evolution of the cell phone from 1G to 5G, the fall and rise of Apple, Google’s growth from obscure Yahoo rival to verb status, and the transformation of social media from CompuServe forums to Facebook’s billions of users. Pegoraro has met most of the founders of the internet and once received a single-word email reply from Steve Jobs.

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Has your luggage ever been lost at an airport? Sometimes it’s stuck at your home airport or at the layover, and sometimes you can’t be entirely sure. With a Bluetooth tracker like the Life360 Tile Pro, you can eliminate that uncertainty and know exactly where your things are. The two-pack is on sale at Amazon, marked down to $42.99 from its original $59.99 price tag. That’s $17 in savings!

Life360 Tile Pro

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As of July 28, the Life360 Tile Pro two-pack is on sale for 28% off. According to CamelCamelCamel, this is the lowest price it’s been at since last year, so now is the best time to get it!

Not only do these trackers work with luggage, but you can place them virtually anywhere. They can be put in your backpack and purse. If you’re moving cross country and shipping your car, you can place it inside and track that too! The tracker even has a carabiner hole that lets you loop it around objects like your car keys. This gives it an advantage over Apple AirTags, which usually need a separate peripheral to do that.

The tracker also has other functions, like discretely triggering an SOS alert to notify loved ones in case you’re in an unsafe situation. With the Tile app, you can ring the tracker to find in case you misplaced it. You can even use the Tile to reverse search for your misplaced phone! Just use the Tile itself to make your phone ring, even if it’s on silent mode.

Our expert Iyaz Akhtar awarded it a “Good” rating. In our in-depth review, he said, “The Tile Pro is an affordable Bluetooth tracker that can help you locate lost items at home or on the go, whether you use Android or iOS.”

If you’re looking for alternatives, check out the Samsung Galaxy SmartTag 2 the Apple AirTag (2nd Generation).

Be sure to check out our other Amazon deals and bluetooth tracker coverage.

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A TechPowerUp forum user who claims to have “found” an engineering sample of an unreleased Microsoft Surface Laptop Ultra equipped with an Nvidia N1X chip has posted an informal review, giving us another look at Nvidia’s new RTX Spark platform. Though we’ll need to see more, initial impressions are middling at best.

Nvidia showed off RTX Spark series of laptops at Computex, where Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang talked about reinventing the PC around a system designed for AI agents. The proof would always be in the pudding with such grand plans, and now we have details on how such a laptop might perform. It’s mostly pretty good, but maybe not great.

The forum user, Fouquin, says they found the device “sitting along the side of the road just North of Redmond, Washington,” though he later called his tale “story crafting,” so who knows how they really got their hands on it.

It’s a “prototype (EV1.5) of the yet-to-be-released Microsoft Surface Laptop Ultra with Nvidia’s RTX Spark N1X inside, and [I] have been playing with it for about a month now,” Fouquin writes. It’s fitted with a 20-core Arm CPU and a Blackwell GPU featuring 6,144 CUDA cores. The laptop is well-built, with a comfortable and accurate keyboard and tasteful backlighting. It’s mostly stable outside “Performance mode” and responsive to user input.

The Hidden Reason Nvidia Made the New RTX Spark

Fouquin was initially forced to use an old Nvidia driver from late 2025, but during testing, Nvidia released a preview of its 616.00 driver, which added CUDA support to the laptop’s Blackwell GPU. This allowed for proper benchmarks, such as the Phoronix Test Suite. In Cinebench 2024, it scored 1,386 points in the multithreaded test, and just 123 points in single-core testing. In Cinebench 2026, it scored 5,771 points in the multicore test and 540 points in the single-threaded benchmark.

That would put the onboard chip somewhere in the region of an Intel Core Ultra 5 245KF or AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D. TechPowerUp notes that, though you can’t directly compare these informal test numbers to its own reviews, such results would put the Surface Laptop Ultra behind its likely competitors, including the M5 MacBook Pro and similarly priced x86 Windows laptops.

Elsewhere in testing, Fouquin found the LG display’s local dimming was lackluster, resulting in blooming in high-contrast scenes. There was also quite apparent color banding in HDR mode, giving windows a strange vignette look. There’s no chassis flex, though; the laptop feels strong and sturdy, and appears quite repairable with easy-to-remove screws; Fouquin was also able to replace the SSD easily enough.

All in all, it feels like a decent first outing for an RTX Spark laptop. Not what Nvidia would have wanted for a first review, but this is an engineering sample, so it’s unlikely to have all the performance and stability tweaks of a commercial release.

Nvidia RTX Spark laptops are slated to launch this fall.

About Our Expert

Jon Martindale

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Jon Martindale is a tech journalist from the UK, with 20 years of experience covering all manner of PC components and associated gadgets. He’s written for a range of publications, including ExtremeTech, Digital Trends, Forbes, U.S. News & World Report, and Lifewire, among others. When not writing, he’s a big board gamer and reader, with a particular habit of speed-reading through long manga sagas. 

Jon covers the latest PC components, as well as how-to guides on everything from how to take a screenshot to how to set up your cryptocurrency wallet. He particularly enjoys the battles between the top tech giants in CPUs and GPUs, and tries his best not to take sides.

Jon’s gaming PC is built around the iconic 7950X3D CPU, with a 7900XTX backing it up. That’s all the power he needs to play lightweight indie and casual games, as well as more demanding sim titles like Kerbal Space Program. He uses a pair of Jabra Active 8 earbuds and a SteelSeries Arctis Pro wireless headset, and types all day on a Logitech G915 mechanical keyboard.

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TL;DR: Get six domain names for life with a Hostdeal Domain Names Lifetime Subscription on sale for $29.99 (reg. $120).

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Products featured in these stories are selected by our partners at StackCommerce. If you buy something through links on our site, PCMag may earn an affiliate commission.

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It’s only a matter of weeks before a new academic year begins, and the struggle to get everything ready to go is real. The cost of that back-to-school list can add up quickly, and that’s why we’re here to help you save some money on those academic necessities, especially when it comes to tech.

We’ve analyzed all the portable PCs that excel in the classroom and picked the top five models that are on sale with the deepest discounts. To learn more about what we look for in an education-focused laptop, check out our rundown of the best laptops for college students, and I’ll be updating this roundup to keep the deals fresh.

Apple MacBook Neo Back-to-School Deal

Apple MacBook Neo

13-inch Liquid Retina display, Apple A18 Pro CPU, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD

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Apple’s MacBook line has long been the gold standard for luxe laptops, with sleek industrial design and competitive performance. They’re not cheap, though, which is why the introduction of the MacBook Neo earlier this year was such a seismic event. A budget-priced MacBook is a tough order, but this is a very capable machine that we thoroughly tested in our review. The verdict: Editors’ Choice-winning productivity speeds, graphics performance, and display quality. It redefines what a budget laptop can be. Other retailers have this base model on sale for the full $699 retail price, but buying directly from Apple can save you $100 if you qualify for the educational pricing.

Dell XPS 13 Back-to-School Deal

Dell XPS 13

13.4-inch 2K display, Intel Core 5 320 CPU, 8GB RAM, 512GB SSD

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Other manufacturers aren’t taking the MacBook Neo challenge lying down, though. Dell just unleashed its ultralight and budget-priced XPS 13 laptop on the market, and students and teachers can snag a $100 discount through its education program. While we haven’t finished a full review of this model, we do have early impressions from the Computex trade show, where we noted that it’s slimmer and lighter than the Neo at just 2.2 pounds, boasts a larger touch-enabled screen, and has a backlit keyboard. Under the hood, you get an Intel Core 5 processor from Intel’s new Wildcat Lake platform that’s more than enough for schoolwork and entertainment, and the newly designed compact charger makes it even more convenient.

Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3i Back-to-School Deal

Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3i

15.6-inch FHD display, Intel Core i3 N305 CPU, 8GB RAM, 128GB storage

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If you’re on a tight budget and need a can-do laptop that doesn’t dazzle with performance power but still holds up, Lenovo’s IdeaPad Slim 3i is a good choice at this price. We gave this portable a mixed review, loving its light weight, spacious keyboard and sizable screen but dinging it a few points for somewhat lackluster operating speed. That said, for everyday educational work, it’ll get the job done. Port selection is solid, with multiple USB-C inputs, and connectivity features zippy Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth. Battery life is acceptable if not epic, and Lenovo’s Rapid Charge Boost gives you two hours of operation on just 15 minutes of plugged-in time.

HP OmniBook 5 16 Back-to-School Deal

HP OmniBook 5 16

2K display, Snapdragon X X1-26-100, 16 GB RAM, 512 GB SSD

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The advent of on-device AI in Windows 11 with Copilot spurred hardware makers to develop chips that are optimized for it, and Qualcomm was first out of the gate with the Snapdragon X Plus line. HP’s OmniBook 5 laptop uses that chip to deliver speedy performance and impressive visuals. We have a review of the 14-inch version of this laptop, where we raved about its exceptional battery life and class-leading 2K OLED display with HDR video support. At just 2.98 pounds, it’s light enough to carry from class to class all day, and the keyboard and touchpad are both comfortable and responsive. Amazon has this loadout on sale for 13% off right now, but we’re not sure how long it will last at that price.

Samsung GalaxyBook 6 Pro Back-to-School Deal

Samsung GalaxyBook 6 Pro

3K display, Intel Core Ultra 7 356H, 16 GB RAM, 1 TB SSD

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If you’re really looking to splurge, this $500 price cut on Samsung’s exceptional GalaxyBook 6 Pro will get your student the Windows portable of their dreams, with sleek styling, awesome performance and stellar battery life. In our review, we gave this unit an “Excellent” rating, and noted that it’s a real competitor to Apple’s high-end MacBooks for creative work. We were extremely impressed by the huge 16-inch AMOLED touch screen that’s bright, crisp and responsive, with up to 120Hz variable refresh rate and enough brightness to use outdoors with no eyestrain. Quad-speaker audio sounds rich and full, and the keyboard feels good to use. Port selection is also a high point, with a surprising variety for such a slim machine.

Want to save even more on tech for students, teachers, and everybody else? Our deals page gets straight As.

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K. Thor Jensen

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K. Thor Jensen is a writer and cartoonist living in the Pacific Northwest. He has contributed to dozens of prestigious outlets, including PCMag, Tested, Clickhole, and Newsweek. His second graphic novel, Cloud Stories, was released in 2017.

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An advertiser paid for editorial consideration of this deal. Our experts vetted the deal based on our independent expertise. Because we determined that the deal will save you money, we covered it.

Nothing gives one more peace of mind than knowing exactly where their loved ones are and that they are safe. The same can also be said for protecting our personal data. HeyPolo offers an excellent way to do both with smarter features, strong privacy controls, and an unwavering commitment to keeping your location data out of the hands of data brokers. Right now, you can take 83% off the privacy-first location-sharing app. This service typically costs $5.99 per month, but it’s currently available for just $0.99.

HeyPolo Deal

HeyPolo

HeyPolo location-tracking app, privacy features, SOS alerts, speed monitoring for parents.

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Getting started with HeyPolo is super easy. All you have to do is download the app on iOS or Android, create your family group, and invite your family members. You’ll only need one subscription fee, so for less than a dollar per month, you can have your entire family in one virtual space.

HeyPolo is from the folks at Surfshark, a company our experts recommend to secure your digital life. Surfshark VPN is one of the best VPNs we’ve tested this year. In his review, security expert Justyn Newman highlighted Surfshark’s well-defined privacy policy.

“Privacy policies can be confusing and dense. Surfshark takes a more comprehensive approach, offering an in-depth yet digestible policy that explains how the company handles data. The service has verified these claims with frequent third-party audits and quarterly transparency reports,” he explained.

This focus on privacy transparency is also evident in HeyPolo. Your info stays with you. There are no annoying ads, and all data is secured with end-to-end encryption.

You and your family members have total control over your location, including what’s being shared and when. You can share exact coordinates, a general area, or go dark with the private mode. There’s also the option to share your location for a set time, so tracking automatically turns off when the timer runs out.

HeyPolo avoids background tracking, helping eliminate the feeling of always being watched.

There are arrival alerts, which can be useful for parents. The app will send you a notification when your child arrives at their destination. This way, you can relax instead of constantly checking the map. HeyPolo has speed monitoring, which will definitely come in handy if you’ve got a new teen driver in your family.

You’ll even get automatic low battery alerts when someone’s phone battery is super low, so you’ll know why they haven’t responded to your last four text messages about dinner plans. If there’s ever an emergency, HeyPolo has an SOS feature. With one tap, you can send your exact location to chosen contacts.

Try HeyPolo for $0.99 with today’s deal. This offer is available to anyone without an active subscription. If you run into any issues, you’ll also get quick support via live chat, and you can cancel anytime, without hassle.

As Microsoft digs itself out from today’s Xbox outage, it looks like T-Mobile is now experiencing downtime of its own.

Customers are reporting unresponsive phones, with devices flipping to SOS Mode. “My service has been completely dead for like ten minutes,” one user wrote on Reddit about an hour ago.

“Our teams are actively working the reports of technical challenges impacting some customers,” T-Mobile tells PCMag. “Any service impacts are in the process of being resolved and are our highest priority. We know how critical it is to stay connected, and every available resource is focused on resolving this as quickly as possible.”

Reports on Downdetector started climbing just after 4 p.m. ET., peaking about an hour later. It’s unclear exactly what regions are affected most; PCMag staff with T-Mobile phones were not experiencing any trouble in Southern California, the Bay Area, or Philadelphia. On Reddit, however, there are outage reports from people in San Francisco and Philadelphia, as well as Ohio, Florida, Connecticut, and Washington State, among other locations.

In January, Verizon was hit by a major outage, during which subscribers also saw their phones display SOS Mode. It eventually issued $20 credits for the downtime.

Online, some people also reported trouble with AT&T and Verizon. However, neither carrier has any confirmed outages. It’s more likely that AT&T or Verizon customers tried to call someone on T-Mobile and couldn’t get through due to T-Mobile’s outage.

“Our network is operating normally nationwide,” Verizon tweeted. “If you’re having trouble reaching someone, it may be due to the reported outage on T-Mobile’s network.”

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Chloe Albanesius

Executive Editor, News

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I started out covering tech policy in DC for The National Journal, where my beat included state-level tech news and all the congressional hearings and FCC meetings I could handle. I later covered Wall Street trading tech before switching gears to consumer tech. I now lead PCMag’s news coverage.

Getting my start in DC means I still have a soft spot for tech policy; Congressional hearings can sometimes be as entertaining as a Bravo reality show, for better or worse. But PCMag is all about the technology we use every day, as well as keeping an eye out for the trends that will shape the industry in the years ahead (or flop on arrival). I’ve covered the rise of social media, the iOS vs. Android wars, the cord-cutting revolution that’s now left us with hefty streaming bills, and the effort to stuff artificial intelligence into every product you could imagine. This job has taken me to CES in Vegas (one too many times), IFA in Berlin, and MWC in Barcelona. I also drove a Tesla 1,000 miles out west as part of our Best Mobile Networks project. Of late, my focus is on our hard-working team of reporters at PCMag, guiding and editing their robust coverage.

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TL;DR: BigMIND is a backup tool that helps you avoid lost files, and a lifetime subscription is on sale now for $59.99 (reg. $357).

A dead drive can wipe out a full computer in minutes, and rebuilding from scratch means lost files and lost work. BigMIND Disaster Recovery Pro backs up your whole machine so you can bounce back fast, and a lifetime subscription is on sale now for $59.99 (reg. $357).

Standard file backup saves documents, but this goes further with a full block-level system image that captures your system, applications, settings, and files in one shot. When your machine won’t boot, bare-metal recovery rebuilds it from that image, even on brand-new or different hardware. Every backup runs a boot verification, so you know it’ll restore before you need it.

Restoring a single file doesn’t mean recovering the entire machine. You can browse backups from the dashboard, pull individual files, or mount an image as a virtual disk. AES-256-GCM encryption keeps everything locked down, and your backups live on your own drive, USB, or NAS instead of someone else’s cloud.

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There are some tasks that beg for a screen bigger than your phone, but don’t justify the seriousness of a laptop. The happy medium is—as you might’ve guessed—a tablet, particularly Apple’s famous iPad line. 

Oh, but there are so many models to choose from. If ultraportability is at the top of your priority list, then I must recommend the 13-inch iPad Air M3. With a wonderful screen and rock-solid performance, this featherweight tablet weighs just a hair over a pound and takes up less space in your book bag than a composition notebook. But here’s the cherry on top: Best Buy just knocked $300 off the $1,449 list price! 

Apple 13-inch iPad Air M3 

M3 chip, Wi-Fi + 5G Cellular, LED IPS Display, 1TB, USB-C

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This 13-inch iPad Air offers ample screen space comparable to a standard laptop without the weight, keyboard, or extra commitment that comes with one. Its backside and edges are made of smooth aluminum, but the front side (and display) are covered with fully laminated, anti-glare glass. The screen automatically adjusts the white balance and brightness depending on the light you’re in, thanks to Apple’s True Tone tech. It does have the same standard 60Hz refresh rate as its predecessor, but the processing power upgrade makes up for it in spades. 

The M3 chip changes everything, and it’s what makes this iPad Air stand out the most. It enables Apple Intelligence, improves battery life, gives the camera a quality upgrade, and generally boosts performance across the board. It’s a fair upgrade over the M2 models, and even holds its ground in light gaming if you’re buying this tablet for entertainment purposes. It’s a great, bigger-screened iPad for students and creators who need a power-packed tablet at a reasonable price, which is essentially what earned it our Editors’ Choice award. 

In our detailed review, PCMag expert Eric Zeman praised the M3 iPad Air for striking the “compelling balance between performance and price.” It’s ideal for users who want to do a bit more than browse, but nothing too particularly heavy-lifting. And with cellular connectivity and the massive 1TB of storage this particular model comes with, $300 off is the kind of deal that doesn’t come around often!

But if you’re looking for something else that tickles your fancy, check out our experts’ list of the best tablets for 2026!