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Albanian Army attack.

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Thomas Ricker
Reddit’s teen restrictions start Wednesday.

In addition to complying with the under-16 social media ban that begins December 10th in Australia, Reddit is making changes globally for under-18s:

Teen account holders under 18 everywhere will get a version of Reddit with more protective safety features built in, including stricter chat settings, no ads personalization or sensitive ads, and no access to NSFW or mature content.

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Jay Peters
KOTOR II remake, too.

We’re still waiting for news about the remake of the first Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, but as part of a huge report digging into court filings about why KOTOR II for Switch never got its Restored Content DLC, Game File found mentions of a KOTOR II remake in development as recently as March.

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Jay Peters
Nick Thompson, The Atlantic’s CEO, has six takeaways from a lunch with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.

In a TikTok video, Thompson, former editor-in-chief at Wired and a friend of The Verge, touches on things like the gap between AI’s capabilities and its impact, OpenAI competing with Apple on hardware, memory as OpenAI’s biggest moat, and more.

Here are the best Apple Watch deals available right nowHere are the best Apple Watch deals available right now
Tech
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Sheena Vasani and Brandon Widder
Starlink made ‘work from home’ possible from anywhere — now, I’m ready for a change

Competition is coming, but it might never catch up.

Thomas Ricker
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Jay Peters
Google pushes back on a report saying ads are coming to Gemini.

EXCLUSIVE: Google Tells Advertisers It’ll Bring Ads to Gemini in 2026

But according to Google VP of Global Ads Dan Taylor:

This story is based on uninformed, anonymous sources who are making inaccurate claims. There are no ads in the Gemini app and there are no current plans to change that.

The best iPad deals you can get right nowThe best iPad deals you can get right now
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Tech
Brandon Russell and Brandon Widder
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Justine Calma
AI reasoning models are even more energy intensive.

They used 30 times more electricity on average than other models according to research by the AI Energy Score project that included responses to 1,000 written prompts. “We should be smarter about the way that we use AI ... Choosing the right model for the right task is important,” Hugging Face research scientist Sasha Luccioni tells Bloomberg.

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Richard Lawler
Trump AI EO.

There’s some kind of news coming from the White House this week about AI regulations, after a post from the president to Truth Social saying, “You can’t expect a company to get 50 Approvals every time they want to do something. THAT WILL NEVER WORK!”

Trump post on Truth Social: “There must be only One Rulebook if we are going to continue to lead in AI. We are beating ALL COUNTRIES at this point in the race, but that won’t last long if we are going to have 50 States, many of them bad actors, involved in RULES and the APPROVAL PROCESS. THERE CAN BE NO DOUBT ABOUT THIS! AI WILL BE DESTROYED IN ITS INFANCY! I will be doing a ONE RULE Executive Order this week. You can’t expect a company to get 50 Approvals every time they want to do something. THAT WILL NEVER WORK!”
Screenshot: Truth Social
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Emma Roth
Nvidia may soon be able to sell its powerful H200 chips in China.

The White House is planning to give Nvidia the green light to begin exporting its H200 AI GPU chips to China, according to reports from Semafor and the WSJ. As noted by the WSJ, the H200 chip is more powerful than the scaled-down H20 GPU that China has cracked down on, but it still doesn’t rival Nvidia’s Blackwell GPUs.

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Emma Roth
Doppl’s new discovery feed adds more outfits for your AI self to try on.

Google’s experimental clothing try-on app now lets you scroll through a “discovery” feed of AI-generated videos with outfits you might like. The app curates the looks — which contain real products — based on the “style preferences you share with Doppl and the items you interact with.”

Image: Google
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Lauren Feiner
Congress includes funding to go after cybercriminals in year-end bill.

Draft text of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) includes funding through 2028 for the Protect Our Children Act. The 2008 bill created a nationwide task force of law enforcement agencies skilled in investigating crimes against children facilitated by the internet. Tech industry group NetChoice applauded the provision.

Welcome to the big leagues, Netflix

WB has a checkered history of acquisitions, but joining forces with Netflix would elevate it to a new level of prominence.

Charles Pulliam-Moore
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Jay Peters
Some new features for the Galaxy XR headset:
  • “PC Connect,” which lets you connect a Windows PC to your headset
  • “Likeness” avatars, which are similar to Apple’s Vision Pro personas
  • Travel mode

They’re available “starting today,” Google says. And system-level “autospatialization,” which turns 2D content into 3D, is coming next year, Google announced during its Android Show presentation.

<em>PC Connect, showing a user playing </em>Cities: Skylines II<em>.</em>
<em>A Likeness avatar on a Google Meet call.</em>
<em>Travel mode.</em>
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PC Connect, showing a user playing Cities: Skylines II.
Image: Google
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Charles Pulliam-Moore
Paramount’s hostile bid for Warner Bros. might backfire.

Since Netflix announced that it was the frontrunner to buy Warner Bros., David Ellison’s Paramount Skydance has been getting more hostile in its bids to own the legacy studio. But Semafor reports that Paramount’s tactics have raised eyes in Washington, where some think Ellison is banking on favoritism from Trump’s Justice Department.

The future of country music is here, and it’s AI

Nashville’s writing rooms will never be the same.

Charlie Harding
Anthropic is bringing Claude Code to SlackAnthropic is bringing Claude Code to Slack
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Lauren Feiner
The FTC is convening experts to examine age verification technology.

The agency announced a new workshop on January 28th where it will host academics, industry reps, and advocates to discuss age verification. It comes as Congress and many states have weighed or passed laws meant to protect kids online that would require companies to adopt these kinds of technologies.

It’s ugly, it’s beautiful, it’s how you know a game might be a classic

Square Enix’s HD-2D titles have evolved to encompass a new philosophy for gaming graphics.

Joshua Rivera
One day, AI might be better than you at surfing the web. That day isn’t today.

Five different AI browsers have the same problem.

Victoria Song
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Lauren Feiner
SCOTUS weighs rubber stamping Trump’s firing of a consumer protection official.

The court is hearing arguments in a case where it could overturn decades of precedent over the president’s firing of a Federal Trade Commissioner. While conservative justices worry about letting Congress’ authority run wild, liberal justices like Elena Kagan warn of creating “a president with control over everything.”

HP OmniBook 5 14 review: an OLED is almost enough

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Verge Score

A $700 laptop with a great screen and fantastic battery life? What’s the catch?

Antonio G. Di Benedetto
It’s their job to keep AI from destroying everything

Spoiler: the nine-person team works for Anthropic.

Hayden Field
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Andrew J. Hawkins
GTA now has its own badly behaved robotaxis.

As spotted by TechCrunch, the new expansion to Grand Theft Auto Online, dubbed “A Safehouse in the Hills,” includes a fictionalized version of Waymo called “KnoWay.” The cars are recognizable as autonomous thanks to their rooftop lidar sensors and their Waymo-esque logos. But the similarities end there, as the vehicles are shown in a trailer for the game dangerously swerving all over the road and even crashing through a billboard. The expansion is available starting December 10th.

“KnoWay” robotaxis are Rockstar’s answer to Waymo.
“KnoWay” robotaxis are Rockstar’s answer to Waymo.
Screenshot: Rockstar Games
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Richard Lawler
Apple hardware vp Johny Srouji reportedly tells staff “I don’t plan on leaving anytime soon.”

After a string of exec departures from Apple, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reported a few days ago that Srouji, who oversees the chips that have helped iPhones, Macs, and other devices lead their categories, had discussed leaving for another company.

Today, Gurman reports the exec sought to calm employees, sending a message to his division that said “I love my team, and I love my job at Apple, and I don’t plan on leaving anytime soon.”

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Andrew J. Hawkins
Roughly 1 in 3 cars with safety recalls don’t get fixed.

The Wall Street Journal found that the rate is the same for serious recalls, such as faulty brakes, engine fires, or defective air bags. The failure to address recalls has lead to a number of preventable deaths: the Journal found at least 12 people who were killed in crashes in which the air bag failed to deploy.

The AI boom is based on a fundamental mistake

Cutting-edge research shows language is not the same as intelligence. AI companies are ignoring it.

Benjamin Riley
The best budget smartphone you can buyThe best budget smartphone you can buy
Tech
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Elizabeth Lopatto
Oh look, CoreWeave is issuing $2 billion more debt.

In the story I wrote about CoreWeave, analyst Gil Luria told me the company has “to keep borrowing more and more because they spend more money than they can get, structurally. They have to continue to borrow to pay interest on the last loan.” Aren’t you glad Nvidia helped them go public?

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Stevie Bonifield
You’ll soon be able to work out with your favorite K-Pop music in Apple Fitness Plus.

It’s part of an expansion to Apple’s workout service coming on December 15th that will not only add K-Pop as an option in the workout music genres (the KPop Demon Hunters soundtrack is probably a good choice), but it’s also bringing new digital dubs of Fitness Plus videos in Spanish, German, and Japanese.

Apple Fitness Plus will also be available in 28 new markets, including Chile, Hong Kong, India, the Netherlands, and more.

An image of an iPhone with the Apple Fitness Plus music genre options on screen
Image: Apple
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Emma Roth
David Ellison pitches Paramount’s $108 billion hostile bid for WBD as “pro consumer.”

After launching a hostile bid for the entertainment giant, Paramount’s Ellison told CNBC that Netflix’s deal to buy part of WBD would create a company with “unprecedented market power:”

When you combine the number one streamer with the number three streamer, that creates a company that has unprecedented market power, north of 400 million subscribers. The next largest competitor is Disney, with just under 200 million. That’s bad for Hollywood, that’s bad for the creative community, that’s bad for consumers.

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