If you want to brush up on some skills or learn new ones, MasterClass offers a good way to do just that. The streaming service has hundreds of classes taught by professionals and experts in their fields, and now you can get a subscription for 40 percent less than usual. All MasterClass membership tiers are on sale right now, so you can sign up for as low as $6 per month.

With a subscription, you could watch a class on writing taught by James Patterson, or learn cooking techniques from Thomas Keller. If you’re trying to impress at your next pickup basketball game you could learn about shooting, ball-handling and scoring from Steph Curry. Each class includes around 20 video lessons that run about 10 minutes long on average, as well as an in-depth workbook.

MasterClass

MasterClass has also begun producing some original series for its platform. The series Business Rebels features different CEOs walking viewers through the strategies that helped them disrupt their industries. One entitled Skin Health features top dermatologists and a cosmetic chemist walking viewers through keeping their skin healthy through cleansing routines and specific beauty products.

The wide range of skills or life lessons you could learn through these classes is why MasterClass is on our list of best subscriptions you can give as gifts. Maybe your loved one who loves to host dinner parties could use some tips from Gordon Ramsay.

There are three subscription tiers for MasterClass that each differ only in how many devices they allow at one time, and whether offline videos are supported. The Standard subscription only supports one device, whereas the Plus subscription allows two. These are normally $10 and $15 per month, respectively, and neither offers offline mode. The Premium tier, which carries a regular price of $20 per month, allows up to six devices and features offline mode for downloaded classes.

All three tiers are part of the 40 percent off sale, which marks them down to $6, $9 and $12 respectively. MasterClass bills annually, so be sure to calculate the total from the “monthly” price before deciding.

Follow @EngadgetDeals on X for the latest tech deals and buying advice.

Gmail for Android’s Material 3 Expressive redesign continues with a new search app bar, while the “Mark as read” action in notifications is now widely rolling out.

When the first Gmail users started getting Material 3 Expressive in June, the message list and body was placed in containers. There’s also a prominent swipe action animation in your inbox.

Google is now adding another round of M3E with the search app bar. This moves the hamburger button and profile switcher outside of the search bar, which gets narrower as a result. It’s meant to “provide an emphasized entry-point to open the search view” when “search is key to the product.” The component is also coming to Google Keep.

M3 Expressive in Gmail is not yet widely rolled out, with new features often taking some time to become widely available.

Advertisement – scroll for more content

Meanwhile, the “Mark as read” has been slowly rolling out since late June, and is now seeing wide availability. As of version 2025.08.04.x, we have it across all our devices. It appears in between Delete or Archive and Reply for a nice quality-of-life improvement. 

More on Gmail:

The court has blocked the Federal Trade Commission’s investigation into Media Matters, the media nonprofit that previously published research showing that ads appeared on X alongside neo-Nazi and other antisemitic content. In 2023, Elon Musk’s X filed a lawsuit against the media watchdog following an advertiser exodus. It accused Media Matters of “knowingly and maliciously manufactur[ing] side-by-side images depicting advertisers’ posts on X Corp.’s social media platform beside Neo-Nazi and white national fringe content.” Just this May, the FTC started looking into whether the nonprofit violated antitrust laws by allegedly colluding with advertising and advocacy groups to boycott X.

In June, Media Matters sued the FTC, accusing it of unfairly targeting the group in retaliation for past criticisms of X. “The Federal Trade Commission seeks to punish Media Matters for its journalism and speech in exposing matters of substantial public concern — including how X.com has enabled and profited from extremist content that proliferated after Elon Musk took over the platform formerly known as Twitter,” the group said at the time. Now, Judge Sparkle L. Sooknanan has granted a preliminary injunction in the nonprofit’s favor.

Sooknanan has agreed with the group that the FTC’s investigation is “a retaliatory act” and has noted that it is “likely to succeed on its First Amendment retaliation claim.” She wrote in her decision that such probes would deter other reporters from speaking again. “Indeed, the FTC’s [investigation] has had its intended effect.” Apparently, because of the probe, Media Matters has “decided against pursuing certain stories about the FTC, Chairman Ferguson, and Mr. Musk.”

“The court’s ruling demonstrates the importance of fighting over folding, which far too many are doing when confronted with intimidation from the Trump administration,” Angelo Carusone, the president of Media Matters, told The New York Times. “We will continue to stand up and fight for the First Amendment rights that protect every American.” As the publication notes, courts had also blocked investigations into the group by the attorneys general in Texas and Missouri. Musk’s lawsuits against the nonprofit, however, are still ongoing.

Besides a slew of bug fixes, Android 16 QPR1 Beta 3.1 makes one change to the Location Quick Settings Tile.

In Android 16 (and earlier versions of the OS), Quick Settings used a pin icon for the Location Tile. This is also what appears in the status bar when location services are in use. The inspiration is clearly the Google Maps icon.

The QPR1 Betas tried a cursor-esque arrow icon for the QS Tile, but did not change the pin that appeared in the status bar.

Beta 3 vs. Beta 3.1

Advertisement – scroll for more content

With Beta 3.1, Quick Settings has reverted to the pin icon for a consistent look. This appears to be the only interface change in this patch (which is still on the July 2025 security level), while there are 24 bug fixes:

• Device instability or reboots related to Wi-Fi by improving how the system processes network statistics. (Issue #433037402, Issue #432867183, Issue #433418936, Issue #432795362, Issue #432770117, Issue #432699126, Issue #435489862, Issue #435011484)
• The Context Hub, a low-power sensor component, would crash due to excessive use of main memory, causing device instability; resolved by optimizing memory allocation and preventing memory leaks. ( Issue #420999948, Issue #426316038)
• The home screen sometimes lost its bottom row of pinned apps and the search bar, making them inaccessible; this was fixed by adjusting how these elements reappear after screen transitions. (Issue #428088033, Issue #428405658, Issue #429817851)
• Notifications would overlap in the shade, hindering readability, by refining the notification display and dismissal animation logic. (Issue #421792538, Issue #422749237, Issue #420418750, Issue #428896474)
• An issue that caused unexpected device restarts. (Issue #427676713)
• The Quick Settings UI on unfolded foldable devices appeared clipped or misaligned due to incorrect padding caused by double-counting the camera cutout. (Issue #419184923, Issue #421879049, Issue #421810067, Issue #423172198, Issue #422560004, Issue #424116279)
• An issue that caused devices to unexpectedly reboot. (Issue #408888279, Issue #409949346, Issue #409960197, Issue #410624610, Issue #407373090, Issue #430095518)
• The status bar appearing in the Quick Settings shade was sometimes misaligned with the standard status bar, causing a visual inconsistency. (Issue #419573315, Issue #419134909, Issue #432794874)
• Addressed a system hang or crash, particularly during unlock, caused by the camera’s Ambient Light Sensor (ALS) read getting stuck, by implementing a non-blocking method for sensor data retrieval. (Issue #421870862, Issue #420725698)
• The media player on the lock screen would sometimes disappear or become unresponsive. (Issue #420517884)
• An issue where the notification shade displayed a large, growing gap, obscuring notifications, by correcting how notification animations were clipped. (Issue #421366916)
• An issue where the media player notification could appear clipped or disappear during device rotation, by improving how its display area is sized and updated in UI transitions. (Issue #433040374)
• Video calls initiated from voice calls no longer experience muted audio; a system audio fix now correctly manages sound output during call type transitions. (Issue #434139133, Issue #427060263, Issue #438414975)
• An issue where black translucent bars appeared at the top and bottom of the home screen after exiting full-screen apps by correcting how transient system bar states were cleared. (Issue #425407737, Issue #433929827)
• An issue that caused the device to unexpectedly crash and restart during an OTA update.
• An issue causing occasional device restarts after system updates.
• Widgets on the home screen sometimes failed to load due to looking for outdated app files.
• Typing occasionally stopped working in apps because internal input system processes could race.
• Device crashes caused by the Context Hub running out of memory.
• Bluetooth crashes and instability caused by an “Unimplemented Packet Type” error have been resolved.
• An issue that could cause phone disconnections or system crashes during calls by resolving a memory corruption bug in audio data buffer handling related to audio playback speed changes.
• A brief screen flicker happened when launching apps from the notification shade.
• A system crash that could occur when using your device’s media features, especially when connected to a computer for media transfer, by improving the internal handling of media connection resources.

This should be the absolute final beta before the consumer launch that presumably comes in early September for existing Pixel devices.

Following a wave of lawsuits alleging that Roblox doesn’t provide a safe environment for its underage users, the gaming platform made a series of sweeping updates to its policies. To address recent concerns, Roblox published a post on its website detailing these major changes, including restricting all unrated experiences, which is what Roblox calls its user-generated games, to the developer or those actively working with them. Roblox said this change will roll out in the coming months, representing a big shift from its previous policy that allowed users 13 or older to access unrated experiences.

To further prevent any inappropriate behavior, any “social hangout” experiences that depict private spaces, like bedrooms or bathrooms, will be limited to ID-verified users who are 17 or older. Roblox will also restrict social hangout games that mostly take place in those previously-mentioned private spaces or adult-only places, like bars or clubs, to users who are at least 17 and have been ID-verified. To assist with the new rules, Roblox will roll out a new tool that automatically detects “violative scenes,” or more simply, user activity that goes against the rules. According to Roblox’s new policies, a server that hits enough violations will automatically get taken down and will have to work with the Roblox team to adjust the experience and get it back online.

These policy changes come after several lawsuits were filed against Roblox that claim the game doesn’t protect its younger users. In response to the lawsuit filed by Louisiana’s attorney general, Roblox wrote in a separate post that it works to block any efforts at exploitative behavior and constantly enhances its moderation approaches.

“Any assertion that Roblox would intentionally put our users at risk of exploitation is simply untrue,” the company statement read. “No system is perfect and bad actors adapt to evade detection, including efforts to take users to other platforms, where safety standards and moderation practices may differ.

Following the updated homescreen widget, Google Drive for Android is rolling out a Material 3 Expressive redesign.

This redesign starts the new search app bar component where the hamburger button and profile picture are placed outside the field, which is thicker than before. There’s a centered “Search in Drive” hint after the “Google Drive” wordmark animates out.

Meanwhile, the entire list or grid view of files is placed in one large container, which is a bit darker than the background. Other apps, like Contacts or Phone, place each line in its own box, but Drive just has continuous lists for the most part.

In the Files tab, the top tap indicator is smaller. Google Drive is also using a connected button group to switch between the list and grid view. 

Advertisement – scroll for more content

There’s no change to the height of the bottom bar.

We’re seeing this Material 3 Expressive redesign with version 2.25.310.0 of Google Drive for Android. It’s not yet widely rolled out, with some users only seeing one or two of the new components. 

More on Google Drive: