Mashable Tech – Spoken Edition

Of all the changes Microsoft could have made with the new Surface Pro it introduced on Tuesday in China, adding a USB-C port was a gimme. Except that it wasn’t and Microsoft didn’t. The choice to leave USB-C off its flagship product puts Microsoft at odds with an industry that is rapidly swapping out micro USB, USB 3.0 and even beloved power adapters in favor of the newer and more flexible port option.

Social media used to be so easy. You put your photos on Facebook and your definitely-not-million-dollar shower thoughts on Twitter. It was nice, simple, and stress-free. It’s not like today where you waste half of your day deciding where to post shit to. It's a classic case of too much choice. There are just too many social media platforms to post to and it's increasingly a challenge deciding what format to use.

In a matter of weeks, fidget spinners went from something almost nobody had ever heard of to the must-have toy of the season. The anxiety-reducing handheld spinners are so ubiquitous that dozens of developers are trying to cash in on the phenomenon with fidget-spinner themed mobile apps. People are into it, apparently. So into it that the top game in the iOS app store is a virtual fidget spinner that doesn't do anything but spin.

Imagine if Siri wasn't just an anonymous voice living inside your iPhone. Instead, what if the dulcet tones of none other than Jeff Goldblum asked "how can I help you?" every time you accidentally press your home button for too long? If Steve Jobs had his way, we'd be living in a world where we'd have the chance to carry around our own little piece of Goldblum in our pockets, everywhere we go. Just imagine if you could hear this all day, whenever you ask your AI assistant for some help.

The iPad mini might be on its deathbed. The 7.9-inch tablet, a recent report says, is cannibalized by the 5.5-inch iPhone 7 Plus, which is big enough for those late-night reading binges, and more powerful in some regards. On the other hand, it appears that Apple is positioning the tablet as a larger device, one that competes with your laptop. According to rumors, the next tablet Apple launches will be bigger, not smaller than the iPad, and the iPad mini will likely go into oblivion.

Personal advice from one of the biggest business icons in all of tech history is difficult to come by, but Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates is making it easy for newly minted college graduates via Twitter. On Monday, just a week before the graduation ceremonies at Harvard, the school he famously dropped out of to create Microsoft, Gates offered his pearls of wisdom to new college graduates around the country.

Friends, we've got a new kind of digital fun for you to enjoy. It's called Mashable Reels. Each one tells a complete story with vertical video—a perfect match for the mobile web. Reels deliver daily, compact, substantial multimedia-infused packages, with deep narratives that rise above the whiplash-inducing pace of your normal news feeds. Reels are intuitive, and what we consider to be the best way to watch vertical video on the mobile web.

But you're worried. Worried about missing out, struggling to stay connected, or getting left behind by the almost 2 billion users on Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's platform. It has never before been easier to completely remove Facebook from your life — not missing a single social beat in the process. And when you finally do, you'll wonder what took you so long in the first place. OK, if you're going to live without Facebook your first step should be actually deleting your account.

Is red color a new trend in smartphones? It definitely seems like it's catching on; months after Apple launched a special edition (RED) iPhone, a new leak shows a red variant of HTC's upcoming flagship, the HTC U. The phone, which is slated for a May 16 launch, was so far only seen in blue. And the photo, coming from an official HTC teaser video, wasn't the highest quality.

She loves fashion and coding. So when prom season came around, she had the perfect idea for a DIY dress. Last year, the world was awed by Zac Posen's light-up Met Gala dress for Claire Danes. Among its fans was 17-year-old Claire Smith, a homeschooled high school senior and budding engineer from Maryland. Smith was inspired by Posen's dress and decided to try to make her own version.