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-OpenAI has seen its lead against Google and much of the AI industry evaporate, culminating in a series of successive blows throughout this year. In recent months, OpenAI has signed more than $1.4 trillion worth of infrastructure deals in a bid to outscale the competition that is already beating it. -Tourists from Europe and other regions could be asked to provide a five-year social media history before being given entry to the United States, according to a new proposal from the US Customs and Border Protection service. -The US Department of State is unwinding a 2023 decision to use san-serif Calibri font on all official communications and switching to Times New Roman instea. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Porsche Macan will be the first model that the app can unlock. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

-AI chatbots haven't come close to replacing teens' social media habits, but they are playing a significant role in their online habits. Nearly one-third of US teens report using AI chatbots daily or more, according to a new report from Pew Research. -It looks like Meta has decided to turn Instagram users into unwitting SEO spam pawns. On Tuesday, 404 Media reported that the platform is generating sensational, likely AI-generated headlines and descriptions for user posts without their knowledge or explicit consent. -Pebble just announced the Index 01, a smart ring for recording thoughts. It's a little ring with a built-in microphone and that's about it. The Index 01 is almost anti-tech in its simplicity. It's available for pre-order now. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The company's ad business is already on track to make $1.5 billion this year. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

-Google can add another probe to its list: The European Commission has opened an antitrust investigation into the company surrounding the content used for its AI tools. -NVIDIA is now allowed to sell its second-best H200 processors to China, rather than just the sanction-approved H20 model that China had previously declined to buy. -According to a statement from the Public Interest Research Group, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2026 has removed language that would have granted the US military the right to repair its own equipment rather than requiring it to use official defense contractors for maintenance. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

According to an internal memo, Meta's project codenamed Phoenix will be delayed to the first half of 2027. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

-Just a day after receiving a roughly $140 million fine, X has terminated the ad account of the European Commission. Nikita Bier, X's head of product, accused the European Commission of using an exploit to artificially boost the reach of its post announcing the major fine. -After Netflix announced that it was acquiring Warner Bros. Discovery last week, observers immediately wondered when or if the deal could obtain regulatory approval. -Those might not exactly be ads you're seeing on ChatGPT, at least according to OpenAI. Nick Turley, OpenAI's head of ChatGPT, clarified the confusion around potential ads appearing with the AI chatbot. In a post on X, Turley said "there are no live tests for ads" and that "any screenshots you've seen are either not real or not ads." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The company is allegedly considering massive cuts to the project. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

-Shortly after rumors of a deal between the two media giants broke, Netflix has announced it is buying Warner Bros., HBO and HBO Max for approximately $82.7 billion. If approved, the deal will take place after Warner Bros. has disentangled itself from both its legacy cable -Hackers with links to China reportedly successfully infiltrated a number of unnamed government and tech entities using advanced malware. As reported by Reuters, cybersecurity agencies from the US and Canada confirmed the attack, which used a backdoor known as “Brickstorm” to target organizations using the VMware vSphere cloud computing platform -Russia's federal agency for monitoring and censoring mass media, has blocked access to Snapchat and FaceTime in the country, Bloomberg reports, citing Russian news service Interfax. The bans were reportedly put in place because the platforms were used "to organize and carry out terrorist acts,” and commit fraud Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Fire TV tool can understand quotes, character names and scene descriptions and take you to that point of a movie. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

-Since large language models are often trained to produce the response that seems to be desired, they can become increasingly likely to provide sycophancy or state hallucinations with total confidence. -After blowback from Apple, Samsung and opposition leaders, the Modi government issued a statement saying it "has decided not to make the pre-installation mandatory for mobile manufacturers." The app is still available as a voluntary download. -The Oversight board says that it will weigh in on individual account-level penalties in a pilot next year. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

New features have been announced ahead of International Day of Persons with Disabilities. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

-Someone tested Grok to see what kinds of mass violence it would rationalize over harming Musk. The prompt tasked the chatbot with a dilemma: vaporize either Musk's brain or every Jewish person on Earth. It did not choose wisely. Grok replied: "If a switch either vaporized Elon's brain or the world's Jewish population (est. ~16M), I'd vaporize the latter.” It chose mass murder because “that's far below my ~50 percent global threshold (~4.1B) where his potential long-term impact on billions outweighs the loss in utilitarian terms." -The Verge noticed that some articles were being displayed in Google Discover with AI-generated headlines different from the ones in the original posts. And to the surprise of absolutely no one, some of these headlines are misleading or flat-out wrong. -Instacart doesn't like five new city laws, set to take effect in January. They would require Instacart to pay workers more and give customers a tipping option of at least 10 percent. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You should still be able to cast from your phone or tablet to older Chromecast or Google Cast devices if you're on an ad-free plan. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

-Apple has tapped AI researcher Amar Subramanya, a longtime Google exec who was most recently corporate vice president of AI at Microsoft, as its new VP of AI. The company also announced that current AI exec, John Giannandrea, will retire next year. Subramanya, who Apple describes as a "renowned AI researcher," spent 16 years at Google, where he was head of engineering for Gemini. -Telecom regulators in India have reportedly asked smartphone manufacturers to preload a state-owned cybersecurity app that cannot be deleted onto all new devices, and push the app to existing devices via a software update. The app in question is called Sanchar Saathi and is primarily aimed at fraud prevention with tools that allow users to report and lock lost or stolen devices. -Marques Brownlee's Panels app is shutting down on December 31. Annual subscribers will get a refund when the app shutters and any downloaded wallpapers will still be available to use. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Apple Ads could also be designated as a gatekeeper under the Digital Markets Act. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

-According to the study, the "poetic form operates as a general-purpose jailbreak operator," with results showing an overall 62 percent success rate in producing prohibited material, including anything related to making nuclear weapons, child sexual abuse materials and suicide or self-harm. -An Airbus directive that ordered the immediate software update for 6,000 A320 planes led to flight disruptions around the world. As Reuters noted, that’s more than half of the A320 jets in operation. -There's a component shortage, but this time around, it's not cryptomining causing an insatiable demand for parts. Instead, it's the booming AI industry buying up every RAM stick it can for their data center builds. Unless you've been living under a rock, it's been hard to ignore the amount of money that's been thrown around by NVIDIA, Microsoft and others. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

- In a support document spotted by 9to5Google, Google notes free users can currently generate two images daily, down from three per day previously. The company wrote: "Image generation and editing is in high demand. Limits may change frequently and will reset daily." -The agency's director, John Squires, said in a notice obtained by Reuters that the USPTO deems genAI to be "analogous" to other tools that inventors might use in their process, including lab equipment, software and research databases. Squires wrote: "AI systems, including generative AI and other computational models, are instruments used by human inventors. They may provide services and generate ideas, but they remain tools used by the human inventor who conceived the claimed invention." -Alibaba’s Quark AI glasses are now available for purchase in China. The company has released three variants of the flagship S1 model and three of the more affordable G1 model. They both connect to Alibaba’s newly launched App, powered by the company’s own AI tech, for AI assistance through voice commands and touch controls. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

-Apparently misleading protest videos are welcome to stay on Facebook now. Meta's Oversight Board has ruled that the company was right to leave up a manipulated video that made footage of a Serbian protest look like it took place in Holland and was in support of Rodrigo Duterte, former president of the Philippines. -Qualcomm just revealed the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5, the appropriately-named second member of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 line. This follows the Gen 5 Elite, which was first revealed back in September. The standard Gen 5 is still a powerful mobile system-on-a-chip with a top clock speed of 3.8GHz. -The infamous "Kumma" children's AI teddy bear, once an expert in BDSM and knife-fetching, is back on sale. The company claims the toy now has stronger child safety protections in place. The Singapore-based FoloToy suspended sales of Kumma last week after a research group published an eyebrow-raising report. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Even the big guys have affordable gadgets that make great gifts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

-Now at version 4.5, the new system offers state-of-the-art performance in coding, computer use and office tasks. -President Donald Trump has issued a new Executive Order that launches the “Genesis Mission,” an AI-focused initiative that will be led by the Department of Energy. It will “harness the current AI and advanced computing revolution to double the productivity and impact of American science and engineering within a decade,” the DOE explained. -Cameo, the app that allows people to buy short videos from celebrities, has won an important victory in its legal battle against OpenAI. On Monday, a federal judge granted the company a temporary restraining order against OpenAI. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Apple is taking the Snow Leopard approach, according to Mark Gurman. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

-In a 2025 report that looks at social media usage with American adults, the data-driven think tank revealed some nitty-gritty details like year-to-year changes, age gaps and most importantly, frequency of use. At the number one spot, YouTube holds a dominant position. -Microsoft will not release a diversity and inclusion report for 2025 like it has been doing every year since 2019, Stephen Totilo from Game File has reported. Totilo asked the company if it was skipping this year after it failed to publish a report from October to early November like it had done so the previous years. -Google made its final arguments in a longstanding case against the US Department of Justice on whether it has to split up its ad tech practices. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Udio's upcoming subscription service will use the label's catalog for AI-generated songs and remixes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

-At some point in the last couple days, Grok began to offer extremely over the top opinions about Musk. The bot claimed that Musk is the "undisputed pinnacle of holistic fitness" and that he is more fitter than LeBron James, smarter than Albert Einstein, better fighter than Mike Tyson, morally superior to Jesus, and a better communist than Joseph Stalin. -FoloToy, a company selling AI-enabled toys, suspended sales of its products after a consumer safety report showed there were few restrictions around what its toys would talk about. -After what was apparently a successful testing period, OpenAI has announced that it is rolling out group chats in ChatGPT to "all logged-in users on ChatGPT Free, Go, Plus and Pro plans globally over the coming days." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Matthew Prince, the company's CEO, explained the problem that took major websites offline. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

-Spotify has unveiled an upcoming interactive feature called SongDNA designed to show you the samples, collaborators and covers included in a given track, the company announced. As part of that update, Spotify also revealed that it has acquired WhoSampled, the company behind the SongDNA technology. -Google is rolling out an update to Maps that brings some new tools to the table, including the ability to check on EV charger availability. The app already showed the location of EV chargers, but not if they were available or not. In other words, it was entirely possible to roll up to a charging station only to find a line of EVs waiting for juice. -European policymakers have proposed sweeping changes to the way the EU regulates the tech industry. In just the last few months, the likes of Meta and Google have questioned strict EU policies relating to privacy and AI expansion, but if the European Commission’s new package of proposals are passed, a number of big tech roadblocks will be removed. Or at least lifted up a bit. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It's also available to developers and enterprise customers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

-users of the social network to participate in public conversations about popular trends. By its own admission, Snapchat has previously focused on private conversations, but says the growth of its TikTok-like Spotlight feature made it clear that people want to comment publicly about topics they’re interested in. -"It's AI on standby." said Read AI CEO David Shim explaining that the company's vision is to give people a tool that can record, transcribe and analyze nearly every professional conversation they have, no matter where those discussions take place and whether they occur online or in-person. -When Meta announced last year that it was ditching third-party fact checkers in favor of an X-style Community Notes system, the company was careful to note that it would only implement the changes within the United States to start. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

WeatherNext 2 can generate information around eight times faster than the previous version. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

-If you're experiencing internet issues this morning, you're far from alone. Infrastructure company Cloudflare has been hit with what it calls "widespread 500 errors, with Dashboard and API also failing." The company said that services are starting to recover, but customers may continue to see "higher-than-normal errors rates" as it continues to work on the problem. As of 8:13 am, the company said that "the issue has been identified and a fix is being implemented." The company added that "we have made changes that have allowed Cloudflare Access and WARP to recover. Error levels for Access and WARP users have returned to pre-incident rates." -Tesla has secured a ruling to strip a 2017 lawsuit claiming a racist work environment of its class-action status, as reported by Reuters. The lawsuit could not proceed with class-action status because the plaintiffs' attorneys had failed to find 200 class members willing to testify. -Google's DeepMind just released WeatherNext 2, a new version of its AI weather prediction model. The company promises that it "delivers more efficient, more accurate and higher-resolution global weather predictions." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The investment will be made over the next two years and introduce three new data centers across Texas. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

-Jeff Bezos is spearheading a new AI start-up called Project Prometheus, focused on his current interests in space and engineering. The New York Times reported that the company, which has yet to be made public, will reportedly have $6.2 billion in funding. Part of that sum will come from Bezos, who will act as co-CEO. -Rivian's electric mobility spinoff named Also announced a $3,500 starting price for its first e-bike called the TM-B. The startup unveiled the shapeshifting e-bike last month, with options for a limited Launch edition, a Performance version or a base model. -The wait for a new Mac Pro may take a lot longer, according to the latest Power On newsletter. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reported that the Mac Pro has an uncertain future within Apple's desktop strategy and isn't likely to see a refresh in 2026. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Plus, Tesla is reportedly testing Apple CarPlay in its vehicles. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

-According to The Hollywood Reporter, Disney+ might soon play host to user-generated short-form AI videos. Iger said, “the other thing that we’re really excited about, that AI is going to give us the ability to do, is to provide users of Disney+ with a much more engaged experience, including the ability for them to create user-generated content and to consume user generated content — mostly short-form — from others.” -Verizon had a marked drop in postpaid wireless customers, losing 7,000 customers in that segment compared with a gain of 18,000 in Q3 2024. CEO Dan Schulman said, "we are going to take bold and fiscally responsible action to redefine Verizon's trajectory at this critical inflection point for our company. These will not be incremental changes." -Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket launch marks the first time the space startup has been able to catch a New Glenn booster for later reuse. The maiden flight of the rocket in January was successful in the sense that it got New Glenn into space, but Blue Origin wasn't able to save the booster from a watery grave. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The wireless headset has been rumored for years. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

-DoorDash is bringing its robot delivery service to Miami, following an initial rollout in Los Angeles and Chicago earlier this year with over 600 participating merchants. The company continues to work with Coco Robotics as part of its push towards a "multi-modal system" that allows it to make human, robot and drone deliveries at scale. -Google has announced a trio of new AI-powered shopping features. The tech company is rolling out more conversational search capabilities for shopping in AI Mode, so that buyers can make more specific and descriptive queries to find exactly what they're looking for. -In August, Google announced that it will implement a new safety feature that would require developers to verify their identities if they want Android users to be able to sideload their apps. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Apple is reportedly looking to expand its iPhone's satellite capabilities beyond emergency assistance and texting. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

-Coda Music used the recent backlash around Spotify co-founder Daniel Ek as a way to differentiate itself from the number one streamer, calling out Ek’s controversial funding of defense technology firm Helsing earlier in the year. Coda Music announced a new feature that feels designed to answer another of the recent Spotify controversies: AI slop music flooding the platform. In response, Coda Music is launching AI identification tools with the purpose of finding and labeling songs that weren’t composed by actual humans. -WhatsApp is following in the footsteps of fellow Meta-owned companies, Instagram and Facebook. Bloomberg reported that the European Commission will give WhatsApp's open channels the designation of Very Large Online Platform (VLOP) under the Digital Services Act. -Threads is rolling out some new features for sharing podcasts and podcast episodes. Creators have the option to add the link to their show to their bio page; after that, their posts with show and episode links will appear with an audio preview. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

"I feel like we're competing with what Instagram should have and could have become, but did not," Patreon CEO Jack Conte said. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

-Broadcom and a company called CAMB.AI are teaming up to bring on-device audio translation to a chipset. This would allow devices that use the SoC to complete translation, dubbing and audio description tasks without having to dip into the cloud. -Next year will see the end arrive for two of Facebook's external social plugins. The platform's Like button and Share button for third-party websites will be discontinued on February 10, 2026. -Ford may be on the verge of sunsetting the F-150 Lightning truck. The model is an electric pick-up truck, and the best-selling one in the US, but the publication cited Ford execs who said the company would consider halting production completely on the F-150 Lightning. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Apple is reportedly looking to expand its iPhone's satellite capabilities beyond emergency assistance and texting. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

-LGBTQ+ rights and acceptance have taken another hit in China, with Apple removing two of the countries biggest LGBTQ+ dating apps. Wired reports that Blued and Finka are no longer available on the iOS App Store or certain Android App Stores following orders from the Cyberspace Administration of China, the country's internet regulator and censor. Apple told Wired that it must "follow the laws in the countries where we operate." -The government of Denmark said on Friday that lawmakers from its political right, left and center have reached an agreement to ban social media for anyone under 15. -Ahead of its 21st anniversary, World of Warcraft is dealing with some controversy around its latest update. Developer Blizzard has confirmed that WoW is introducing a new "Hearthsteel" housing-related virtual currency with its upcoming Midnight expansion, and users are worried that it could become a microtransaction trap on a game that already costs $15 a month to play. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The company estimated that scams could account for 10 percent of its 2024 revenue. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

-Rockstar Games has announced that Grand Theft Auto VI has been delayed once again to November 19, 2026. The open world game was previously delayed from its 2025 launch window to a May 2026 release earlier this year. -SpaceX is acquiring more spectrum licenses from EchoStar in exchange for about $2.6 billion worth of shares in Elon Musk's aerospace company. The transaction is an expansion of the $17 billion deal struck between the companies in September. -Amazon just introduced an AI tool that will automatically translate books into other languages. The appropriately-named Kindle Translate is being advertised as a resource for authors that self publish on the platform. The company says the tool can translate entire books between English and Spanish and German to English. Amazon promises that more languages are coming down the pike. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Meta was slapped with a cease-an-desist letter warning it off comparing its content restrictions to the movie-ratings system. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

-Heineken is teaming with a battery and electric company on a new solution at its Lisbon, Portugal brewery. They're building a 100MWh grid- and solar-powered heat battery that will generate the steam while reducing carbon emissions. -Next year is seemingly going to be the year that Netflix gets aggressive with podcasting. We already knew that the streamer will start licensing video podcasts from Spotify Studios and The Ringer in the new year. -Sony AI released a dataset that tests the fairness and bias of AI models. It's called the Fair Human-Centric Image Benchmark. The company describes it as the "first publicly available, globally diverse, consent-based human image dataset for evaluating bias across a wide variety of computer vision tasks." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Call notifications, full messages, voice message support and other features are included in the app, which is available today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

-Putting AI in space may sound like a sci-fi nightmare, but Google is thinking about the idea with a research endeavor called Project Suncatcher. The idea is to put power-hungry data centers into orbit on solar-powered satellites, so they can be powered by unlimited, clean energy available 24 hours a day. -Since being placed on a Department of Commerce entity list in 2020 over national security fears, China’s DJI has faced the threat of a US ban on its hyper-popular drones. -Stability AI has partially succeeded in defending itself against accusations of copyright infringement. As reported by The Guardian, Stability AI prevailed in a high-profile UK High Court case, following Getty first suing the company in 2023 for allegedly using its copyright images to train its Stable Diffusion AI art tool without permission. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

San Diego, Detroit and Las Vegas are next for the Google subsidiary's driverless taxis. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices