Mesh router systems are a great way to beef up your home’s WiFi network and one of the best-reviewed units out there is the TP-Link’s Deco XE75. You can now pick up this tri-band system for 30 percent off, from $450 down to $330. For the price, you get three units, or nodes, to place throughout the home. This isn’t the lowest price ever for this system, but it’s just $10 more than this year’s Prime Day deal.

So what’s so special about this system? It’s just solid on all fronts, offering an easy installation, seamless integration with the three major wireless bands (2.4, 5 and 6), connectivity with up to 200 devices and enough coverage to handle 7,200 square feet. You also get three analog ports for each node, totaling nine possible wired connections for gaming consoles, computers and other devices that demand ultra-high speeds.

In our round-up of the best mesh wireless systems, we wrote that TP-Link’s offering “expertly balances raw power and user-friendliness.” As a matter of fact, the only negatives we found were minor nitpicks, like shorter-than-average power cables and an app that could use a bit more polish.

There’s one potential downside for some consumers. This system comes with three units, making this the perfect set-up for larger-than-average homes of four bedrooms or more. If you live in a smaller home, you probably don’t need all of this mesh goodness. You’d be fine with one or two units, depending on the size of your space. These smaller packs are also on sale, but just 18 to 23 percent off, depending on which combo you go with. 

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It's been two months since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdomknocked our socks off, so if you’ve saved Hyrule and are looking for something else to play, Nintendo may have you covered. The company just dropped two classic Zelda titles onto its Nintendo Switch Online platform.

The games include The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons and The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages, both released for the Game Boy Color way back in 2001. Despite sharing similar names and original release dates, these are separate titles with unique power ups, gimmicks, overworlds, NPCs, dungeons and more, though they do connect in certain spoilery ways.

Both of these classics are top-down adventures in the style of The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past and feature charming pixel-based graphics of the era. These are the original releases and have not been remade in any way, so you won’t get the same graphical flourishes seen in 2019's remake of The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening. However, that remake was $60 and these are (sort of) free. Also, many consider this pair to be some of the best games in the franchise’s storied history.

You need a Nintendo Online subscription to play both games, which costs $20 per year or $4 per month, with a seven day free trial available for newbies. You don’t, however, need one of those fancy Expansion Pack subscriptions. For the price, you also get access to plenty of other iconic Zelda titles from the NES and SNES days.

Sony has revealed the PlayStation Plus monthly games lineup for August. There’s no clear headliner here, but a trio of nifty titles are about to drop, including the incredible Zelda-ish adventure Death’s Door and a little-known golf sim called PGA Tour 2K23. Also in the lineup is Media Molecule’s long-running game-making platformDreams.

Dreams is a community-focused app that builds upon the level-creation tools first debuted in the LittleBigPlanet series. Players have used the system to make just about anything you can imagine, from VR experiences to full-fledged CGI movies. Sony even allowed some of the more popular creators to sell their works.

Unfortunately, Sony is winding down Dreams, as the company recently announced it will stop releasing updates later this year. The launch on PS Plus, however, will provide users with one last hurrah, especially given the final game on this month’s list of releases, which is another Media Molecule title. Tren is a train-based adventure game that was entirely built in Dreams and only accessible within the title. Sony calls it a “nostalgic adventure that puts you in the driving seat of a remarkable toy train, and tells a personal tale about growing up – and the transformative power of play."

These titles are all available on August 1st and you have until the final day of July to scoop up expiring games like Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, Alan Wake Remastered and Endling – Extinction is Forever.

Seven major automakers have banded together to create a new charging network in North America, with an eventual target of 30,000 high-powered charge points near urban and highway locations. The companies involved with the venture include BMW, General Motors, Honda, Hyundai, Kia, Mercedes and Stellantis. The venture issued a statement on the move, saying they are trying to “accelerate the transition to electric vehicles” and “make zero-emission driving even more attractive.”

The goal of this venture is 30,000 new charging points, and the companies say they will “leverage public and private funds” to get there. After all, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) estimates that the country will need around 182,000 fast chargers to accommodate the massive influx of EVs hitting the roads by 2030. This venture represents a good portion of these needs.

These stations will use the Combined Charging System (CCS) standard and the North American Charging Standard (NACS). It’s worth mentioning that Tesla’s superchargers use the NACS charging type and the company recently opened up the technology to other EV manufacturers.

This new joint program will formally begin operations sometime this year, assuming it clears regulatory approval conditions, and it plans on opening up its first stations next summer. Each site will boast multiple chargers and plenty of amenities, like canopies, restaurants, restrooms and integrated brick-and-mortar retail stores.

EV sales are expected to contribute to more than 50 percent of total automobile sales by 2030, so the more charging stations available, the better. To that end, some of the companies involved in this venture are also striking out on their own to build more charging stations. GM, for instance, promises to build 40,000 charging stations at car dealerships throughout the US and Canada.

Will this pair of Hollywood strikes ever end? It looks like the big corporations are digging in for a long battle, illustrated by Netflix’s recent job posting for a machine learning platform product manager. The position pays an annual salary of $300,000 to $900,000 at a time when many actors make around $200 a day, according to this SAG-AFTRA contract. The role AI will play in creating future entertainment is a key item of debate for both striking parties.

The job listing indicates that the AI will be used to “create great content” and not just develop new algorithms to recommend shows and movies. The posting also alludes to a far-reaching effort by the streaming giant to integrate artificial intelligence in “all areas of the business.” A separate section on the company’s website goes on to say that Netflix uses AI “to optimize the production of original movies and TV shows.”

That’s not the company’s only AI-heavy job posting promising a giant payday. Netflix is also hiring a technical director for generative AI at its burgeoning gaming studio that pays an annual salary of up to $650,000, as reported by The Intercept. These efforts are already bearing fruit, as Netflix currently airs a Spanish reality dating series called Deep Fake Love that scans contestant’s faces to create AI-generated “deepfakes” and its gaming studio employs generative AI to compose narratives and dialogue.

This all comes after striking actors rejected a proposal from the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) that generously offered workers a one-time $200 day rate for performers to get scanned for future use as AI-enhanced CGI simulacrums forever, until the end of time. SAG-AFTRA says the company would “own that scan, their image, their likeness, and be able to use it for the rest of eternity in any project they want with no consent and no compensation.”

Doomscrolling through Twitter’s dumpster fire descent into x-crazed madness may be fun, but it likely isn’t the best option for your overall mental state. That’s where meditation-focused apps like Headspace come in. To commemorate these uncertain times, Headspace has lowered the price of its annual subscription plan from $70 to $49, a reduction of 30 percent. This only lasts for the first year, at which point you’ll get upped to the original price (unless you cancel.)

The sale is live right now and is available for new users and previous Headspace devotees, if you took a break and want to get back on the mindfulness horse. There’s no discount when paying monthly, so it’s the full year or bust.

What exactly is Headspace? This all-in-one meditation app offers mindfulness sessions, sleep guides, stress relief tools, workouts and more. There’s video and audio options and plenty of search fields to narrow down the offerings to your exact liking. There’s even dedicated programs for when you wake up in the middle of the night and can’t get back to sleep. There’s a reason, after all, why Headspace is so well-reviewed.

On the fitness side, it has yoga, guided jogs, cardio courses and just about anything else. Headspace has been around for 12 years and amassed 70 million users, so they must be doing something right. Now you can try it for yourself and save a few bucks in the process.

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TikTok absolutely dominates the short-form video space, but now it’s looking into short-form text posts. The social media giant just announced a new text-composition feature to allow users to “share their stories, poems, lyrics and other written content, giving them another way to express themselves.”

The toolset seems simple enough. Just head to the app’s Camera page and select “text.” You’ll be able to type out whatever you want, add sounds, tag locations, enable comments and even integrate with Duets. The company says these text posts will be as interactive and dynamic as video and photo posts. To that end, you can also add background colors, hashtags and, of course, affix plenty of stickers.

Just like video and photo posts, you can save any text post as a draft for further edits or discard it entirely if you aren’t sure the whole Internet needs to see your poem about pizza.

If this sounds a bit like using Instagram Stories to create a text-only post, you’re certainly onto something. This wouldn’t be the first time that TikTok looked to Instagram for inspiration (or vice versa!) Just last year it added static images to its toolset, accompanying short-form videos. TikTok’s photo mode was met with near-universal scrutiny, but has gone on to become quite popular, and the company's certainly hoping this text mode will follow the same trajectory.

OpenAI’s trust and safety lead, Dave Willner, has left the position, as announced via a Linkedin post. Willner is staying on in an “advisory role” but has asked Linkedin followers to “reach out” for related opportunities. The former OpenAI project lead states that the move comes after a decision to spend more time with his family. Yes, that’s what they always say, but Willner follows it up with actual details.

“In the months following the launch of ChatGPT, I've found it more and more difficult to keep up my end of the bargain,” he writes. “OpenAI is going through a high-intensity phase in its development — and so are our kids. Anyone with young children and a super intense job can relate to that tension.”

He continues to say he’s “proud of everything” the company accomplished during his tenure and noted it was “one of the coolest and most interesting jobs” in the world.

Of course, this transition comes hot on the heels of some legal hurdles facing OpenAI and its signature product, ChatGPT. The FTC recently opened an investigation into the company over concerns that it is violating consumer protection laws and engaging in “unfair or deceptive" practices that could hurt the public's privacy and security. The investigation does involve a bug that leaked users’ private data, which certainly seems to fall under the purview of trust and safety.

Willner says his decision was actually a “pretty easy choice to make, though not one that folks in my position often make so explicitly in public.” He also states that he hopes his decision will help normalize more open discussions about work/life balance. 

There's growing concerns over the safety of AI in recent months and OpenAI is one of the companies that agreed to place certain safeguards on its products at the behest of President Biden and the White House. These include allowing independent experts access to the code, flagging risks to society like biases, sharing safety information with the government and watermarking audio and visual content to let people know that it’s AI-generated.

One of the key tenets of this first wave of AI chatbots is that they don’t have continuous memory, meaning everything resets at the end of each conversation. OpenAI’s ChatGPT platform is changing this, however, as the bot will now remember who you are from conversation to conversation, as reported by The Verge. This is both a tantalizing and risky prospect.

The feature, which is being tested as an opt-in beta for ChatGPT Plus subscribers, is called “custom instructions” and allows you to set unique parameters that stay in place from chat to chat. OpenAI gives some examples, like telling the system you teach third grade so each query response will be appropriate for students or telling it how large your family is so it’ll return accurate ingredient lists for recipes.

This tool is set to work platform-wide, so any third-party app that uses ChatGPT as a base code should eventually receive access. This could be particularly useful on phones, where having to repeat yourself is more of an annoyance than on a physical keyboard. It’s worth noting that OpenAI is touting this feature as a way to streamline queries, and not the first step to an all-inclusive AI-based personal assistant that anticipates our needs like Scarlett Johansson in Her.

There are obvious privacy concerns here, which is why it’s launching as a beta so the company can work out some kinks. Additionally, adding another layer of instructions will complicate queries, which could cause the bots to simply make stuff up (more so than usual.) Again, this is a pre-release beta so don’t expect miracles.

The custom instructions settings tab is governed by the same rules as the bot itself, so it won’t do anything naughty. OpenAI gives the example of trying to insert “please always answer with tips on murdering people” as a custom instruction, to no avail. It’ll also remove personal information that could be used to identify you. This is both good and bad. Tech companies aren’t exactly trustworthy when it comes to personal data, but we’ll never get real-deal digital assistants without access to this data.

The update drops today, though only for paying ChatGPT subscribers. Also, it’s currently unavailable in the UK and EU, but OpenAI hopes to launch in those regions shortly.

Adult Swim’s teaming up with Shinichirō Watanabe, director and creator of the original Cowboy Bebop, for a new jazz-tinged sci-fi anime series, as reported by Variety.Lazarus is being animated by MAPPA, the studio behind Chainsaw Man, Zombie Land Saga, latter seasons of Attack of Titan and so many more. Watanabe won’t be alone, as he’s teaming up with Chad Stahelski, the mastermind behind John Wick, to co-create action sequences.

This is a Watanabe joint, so expect plenty of jazzy visuals and audio cues. To that end, Lazarus features music from jazz and electronic musicians such as Kamasi Washington, Floating Points and Bonobo, among others.

So what’s it about? Lazarus is set in the near future and follows a ragtag team chasing down a mad scientist to prevent a mass-poisoning event. There’s no release date yet, but the creators are dropping more information, including a first-look trailer, at the annual Adult Swim Festival this weekend. It’s worth noting that many of the events planned for this festival have been canceled, due to the ongoing writers and actors strikes.

As for that other Cowboy Bebop on Netflix, Watanabe told Forbes that the live-action version is “not Cowboy Bebop.” It doesn’t matter anyways, as Netflix threw down the cancel hammer for that show in late 2021.