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CES AMA

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Tina Nguyen
Give me your tired, your poor, your parasocial followers yearning for content:

Thanks to Donald Trump’s hardline immigration policies, it’s much harder for high-skilled tech workers to apply for the American H-1B visa these days. But a new type of tech worker visa is on the rise: Onlyfans creators and influencers are increasingly applying for (and receiving) O-1 visas, which were once reserved for individuals with “extraordinary ability or achievement” in fields such as the arts, motion pictures, television, sciences, education, business, or athletics.

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Sean Hollister
The Lego Smart Brick debate has been brewing for decades, David and I agree.

That’s me on The Vergecast, debating the finer points of our CES 2026 Best in Show: the Lego Smart Brick. Why is it smart, and is it an affront to the imagination? Spoiler: my wife isn’t convinced! And did David make the pew-pew sounds when he was a kid? Tune in.

Mercedes temporarily scraps its Level 3 ‘eyes-off’ driving featureMercedes temporarily scraps its Level 3 ‘eyes-off’ driving feature
Transportation
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The Verge
Verge Staff
The Verge’s CES crew is hosting an AMA for subscribers today.

Now that they’re returned from and processed CES 2026, they’ll be fielding your questions starting at 3PM ET. Stop by!

Tim Cook and Sundar Pichai are cowards

X’s deepfake porn feature clearly violates app store guidelines. Why won’t Apple and Google pull it?

Elizabeth Lopatto
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Jay Peters
Leon!

Capcom will show off more about Resident Evil Requiem, which will co-star a grizzly Leon Kennedy, in a new Resident Evil showcase on January 15 at 5PM ET. The game is launching soon, on February 26th.

Dreame brings 8K video to compact action camerasDreame brings 8K video to compact action cameras
Tech
What we learned from CES 2026What we learned from CES 2026
Tech
Tech
Thomas Ricker
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Stevie Bonifield
Warhammer publisher Games Workshop has banned its staff from using AI in content and designs.

GW won’t be making AI-generated Warhammer products any time soon, the Financial Times reports.

“We will be maintaining a strong commitment to protect our intellectual property and respect our human creators,” GW CEO Kevin Rountree says, adding that, among its senior managers, “none are that excited about [AI] yet.”

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Charles Pulliam-Moore
Something huge is coming to Monarch: Legacy of Monsters season 2.

A mysterious kaiju is stirring up trouble in this new teaser for season 2 of Monarch: Legacy of Monsters. The new creature seems bigger than King Kong and more menacing than Godzilla, but we’ll have to wait for the season’s premiere on February 27th to learn the monster’s name.

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Stevie Bonifield
The creator of Signal Messenger is taking on ChatGPT next.

The latest project from Moxie Marlinspike is Confer, an AI chatbot that claims to offer end-to-end encryption, as spotted by Ars Technica. It looks like ChatGPT, but it works like Signal — the platform’s developers can’t access, sell, or share user data, or even train the AI on it.

How Lego’s Smart Brick worksHow Lego’s Smart Brick works
Podcasts
Podcasts
David Pierce
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The Verge
Emma Roth
Slackbot is more like an AI assistant now.

An update rolling out today will allow Slackbot to do things like summarize information across multiple channels, help you sort through messages, and find time to schedule meetings with colleagues. The updated Slackbot is coming to Business Plus and Enterprise Plus customers following last year’s test.

The best robot vacuums we’ve tested for 2026The best robot vacuums we’ve tested for 2026
Tech
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Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
Snatching Maduro was all about the spectacle

Real people died while Trump treated war like a meme stock.

Elizabeth Lopatto and Sarah Jeong
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Jay Peters
Brazil’s competition regulator is investigating WhatsApp’s new terms that block rival AI chatbots.

ChatGPT and Copilot will be removed from WhatsApp in Brazil because of the terms, which go into effect on January 15th. The terms will be suspended in Brazil for now, according to a machine translation of CADE’s announcement.

Meta is excluding Italy from the ban because of an order from its antitrust watchdog.

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Elizabeth Lopatto
Here’s another thing AI is ruining: St. Louis’ hunt for loose monkeys.

An unknown number of vervet monkeys are “at large” in St. Louis, the AP reports. They’ve been on the lam since Thursday. And multiple people have claimed to have caught them, even using AI image generators to post “proof,” which has complicated the search efforts.

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Justine Calma
Data center projects are dropping like flies.

At least 25 were canceled last year in the US, according to an analysis by Heatmap Pro. It’s a significant increase from 2024 as local opposition to energy and water-intensive data centers grows across the nation.

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Sean Hollister
The definition of overkill: liquid-cooled gaming portable.

What’s more powerful than an AMD Strix Halo handheld? One with liquid cooling! OneXPlayer brought the Apex handheld and the Super X tablet to CES, both of which attach to this external liquid cooler. (They’re still technically portable once you disconnect.) Nelly has the best look and some benchmarks; I only had time to snap these photos.

<em>OneXPlayer says the “Frost Bay” external cooler lets it deliver 120W of cooling to Strix Halo chips, rather than the 80W it can do on air.</em>
<em>Here’s the magnetic locking hose adapter plugged into the Super X tablet. </em>
<em>The Apex handheld hides its cooling port underneath the magnetic cover with the company’s logo. And yes, this handheld has a detachable external battery.</em>
<em>The front of the Apex handheld</em>
<em>The specs on the screen of the Super X tablet.</em>
<em>OneXPlayer also has a new OneXGPU 3 external GPU, with a 16GB 9070 XT built in, and up to 180W TDP. USB-4 and OCuLink connectivity.</em>
<em>The OneXGPU 3’s specs. </em>
<em>Lastly, OneXPlayer has a tiny laptop/handheld hybrid with hidden gaming controls, like the GPD Win Max.</em>
<em>Here it is with the magnetic keyboard deck attached. It’s powered by an HX 370 chip.</em>
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OneXPlayer says the “Frost Bay” external cooler lets it deliver 120W of cooling to Strix Halo chips, rather than the 80W it can do on air.
Photo by Sean Hollister / The Verge
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Ash Parrish
“Seven ninety nine, that’s five bucks, right?”

In an interview with Game File, the developers of Peak discussed their pricing strategy for the game. At first blush, it seemed like an elaborate way to say “2+2 = 5” but actually makes upsettingly perfect sense the longer you sit it. Six bucks is not five bucks but it is five bucks, know what I mean?

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Stevie Bonifield
All 49 seasons of ‘Survivor’ will be free on Pluto TV ahead of ‘Survivor 50.’

If you have a few hundred hours to spare, you can watch every episode of Survivor for free starting January 24th, as reported by TheWrap.

Episodes will be available on-demand and air in order on a 24/7 Survivor channel before Survivor 50 premieres on February 25th on CBS and Paramount Plus.

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Stevie Bonifield
Amy Poehler snagged the first Golden Globe for Best Podcast.

The new awards category debuted at the 83rd annual Golden Globes on Sunday night, where Good Hang with Amy Poehler became its first winner.

Good Hang was up against Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard, Call Her Daddy, The Mel Robbins Podcast, NPR’s Up First, and SmartLess, which is co-hosted by Poehler’s ex-husband Will Arnett.

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