The Department of Transportation under President Donald Trump is moving to reverse more of the climate policies that had been enacted by President Joe Biden. Under a proposed rulemaking by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, fuel efficiency standards for cars and light trucks in model year 2031 will be reduced to an average of 34.5 miles per gallon, down from the standard of 50.4 miles per gallon that was part of Biden's plans to encourage more adoption of electric vehicles ..

Alan Dye, Apple's Vice President of Human Interface Design, has been poached by Meta, Bloomberg reports . The designer played a pivotal role in the look and feel of Apple's products since Jony Ive left the company in 2019 , and now hell be taking his talents to Meta. Dye will reportedly work under Chief Technology Officer Andrew Bosworth as the head of a new studio that will oversee the design of hardware, software and AI products. The studio will also include former Apple designer Billy ..

Bungie and Sony Interactive Entertainment appear to have settled the plagiarism scandal that rocked Marathon before the game was indefinitely delayed in June 2025. Fern Hook, an artist who goes by the name Antireal online, posted on X that her issues with Bungie using her work without credit in Marathon have been resolved to her "satisfaction." Marathon 's distinct art style is one of its charms, but as Hook claimed on X and Bungie later confirmed , a portion of the assets and textures featured ..

In a lot of social media use, the algorithm is an intangible entity, silent and all-powerful in controlling what we see in our feeds. And like supplicants to a deity, sometimes we may find ourselves calling into the void, hoping to receive aid from that mighty being. Seems that for Threads users, at least, those prayers have been heard. Many people on the Threads platform have taken to writing posts with the phrase "dear algo," politely asking the network algorithm to show them more of what ..

Earlier this year, Apple launched a new tool that makes it easier to read anything on your devices screen. Designed for people with visual disabilities, Accessibility Reader provides a full-screen view of any on-screen text. (Its a bit like Safaris Reader Mode, only for any app.) The feature also lets you listen to your text read aloud. Accessibility Reader is available for iPhone, iPad, Mac and Vision Pro. Your device will need to be on iOS 26, iPadOS 26, macOS 26 Tahoe or visionOS 26. Its a ..

OpenAI announced today that it is working on a framework that will train artificial intelligence models to acknowledge when they've engaged in undesirable behavior, an approach the team calls a confession. 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. The new training model tries to encourage a secondary response from the model about what it ..

The developer of Cozy Grove and Alphabear is leaving Netflix. Spry Fox is being sold back to its original founders, Game File reports , and will continue to work on its upcoming "cooperative village life sim" Spirit Crossing as an independent company. Unlike other shuttered Netflix games studios Team Blue and Boss Fight Entertainment , Netflix will remain involved with the studio as Spirit Crossing 's publisher on mobile. As part of the arrangement, Spry Fox founders David Edery and Daniel Cook ..

India will no longer require smartphone makers to preinstall the Sanchar Saathi "security" app . 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. India's Ministry of Communications framed the U-turn as a result of strong voluntary adoption. The nation said 14 million users (around 1 percent of the ..

Tencent has agreed to stop promoting and publicly testing Light of Motiram as a lawsuit with Sony works its way through the courts, according to a report by TheGamePost . This is Tencent's game that looks suspiciously similar to Sony's Horizon franchise, so much so that Sony sued the publisher. Sony wants the court to block the game from sale entirely, but as the case continues Tencent has agreed to keep Light of Motiram out of the spotlight. The company submitted a court filing that says there ..

Micron Technology is winding down its consumer-facing Crucial brand to focus on providing RAM and other components to the AI industry, The Wall Street Journal reports . The company plans to continue shipping Crucial RAM and storage through February 2026, and will honor warranty service and support for its existing Crucial products even after it stops selling directly to consumers. "The AI-driven growth in the data center has led to a surge in demand for memory and storage. Micron has made the ..

Russia has blocked the popular gaming platform Roblox , according to a report by Reuters . The country's communications watchdog Roskomnadzor accused the developers of distributing extremist materials and "LGBT propaganda." The agency went on to say that Roblox is "rife with inappropriate content that can negatively impact the spiritual and moral development of children." This is just the latest move the country has taken against what it calls the "international LGBT movement." It recently ..

Amazons Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales might be over, but the company is still running a deal on its premium music streaming service. Right now, you can get three months of Amazon Music Unlimited for free if youre a new subscriber. As with most offers of this nature, your subscription will auto- renew for the full price of $12 per month (or $11 for Prime members) after your three months are up. But you can cancel whenever you like and wont be charged a penny if you do so before the trial ..

Indie studio Santa Ragione is facing more strife after claiming its latest game has been blocked on another major storefront. The developer previously said it was at risk of closure after Valve banned Horses from Steam, noting that it would be very difficult to recoup its investment without access to the worlds largest PC gaming storefront. The situation became more dire this week after Epic Games blocked Horses as well. Santa Ragione said Epic notified the studio of its decision just 24 hours ..

Zillow has dropped its climate risk score program just one year after it started, according to a report by TechCrunch . It has removed climate risk scores from over one million listings after real estate agents complained that the data was misleading and leading to lost sales. In their place, listings now feature a small link to data sourced from climate risk startup First Street , which is the organization that provided the original assessment. The startup isn't too happy about this move, with ..

Waymo is adding four new US cities to the gradual rollout of its robotaxi service. As reported by TechCrunch , the company said it has already started trialling self-driving cars in Philadelphia, albeit with a human safety monitor, and that it will now commence similar manual tests in Baltimore, St. Louis and Pittsburgh. After the initial supervisory and data-collecting stage, the plan is to deploy fully autonomous vehicles, as Waymo recently did in Miami , ahead of launching in five new cities ..

Video used to be an afterthought for Nikon, but since the company purchased RED last year, content creators are now high on its priority list. A perfect example of that is Nikons new $2,200 ZR : a full-frame mirrorless model that stands up against dedicated cinema cameras for a fraction of the price. Its the first consumer camera to capture video using REDs 12-bit RAW format, but unlike REDs Hollywood cameras , it has a fast and accurate autofocus system. It also comes with a huge display, pro ..

Amazon is rolling out a new Alexa+ feature on Fire TV that can take you to a specific moment in a given movie on Prime Video based on a natural language voice command. The company says that, when you describe a certain scene, quote or character action, Alexa+ can start playing that part of the film. The company previewed this feature at its Devices and Services event in September. According to Amazon, you can say something like Jump to the card scene in Love Actually " or Jump to the Ozdust ..

Amazon appears to have quietly removed its terrible AI-generated English dubs for several anime shows currently streaming on Prime Video, following widespread ridicule from viewers and industry professionals. AI dubs were recently added to Banana Fish , No Game , No Life and Vinland Saga , where they were labeled "AI beta" in the Languages section of the app. As shows that previously only offered English subtitles, the option of a dub for those who prefer it could have been seen as a win for ..

Superhuman, the AI-powered mail app, is heading in a more agentic direction with its latest update. Its "write with AI" feature, which you could previously activate when drafting an email, now works across your inbox, calendar, and the web. This means it can now pull in information from other emails or research a topic online. The AI will think for as long as it needs before responding to a prompt and will open its Ask AI tool if it needs clarification. Ask AI now lives in a left sidebar when ..

It's that time of year again, when all of our favorite streaming platforms start dropping personalized lists of what we've been consuming. Spotify Wrapped is perhaps the biggest of the bunch and it's available for perusal right now. As always, users can access Wrapped to find their most listened-to genres, artists, songs, albums and podcasts from the past year. This information is shareable via social media if you want random bald eagle avatars to comment on your music taste, but there's a new ..

Uber has made a big push to offer robotaxis as an option for its rideshare services in more markets this year. Starting today, the company is offering autonomous vehicles as an option for customers in Dallas. The move is in partnership with Avride. At the start, the AVs providing rides will have a person in the front seat, but Uber plans to have fully driverless operation "in the future." The company will have a small fleet of Avride's Hyundai Ioniq 5 vehicles to start, but it plans to ..

Are you tired of feeling safe and happy all the time? Is your daily life overrun by feelings of security, contentment and peace? Do you want an escape from all of the oppressive niceness around you? Well, look no further these are the games for you. Here, weve collected more than a dozen of the most evocative and disturbing horror games in recent memory. These selections cover a wide range of genres and styles, but each one comes with at least a tinge of unsettling terror. So take a peek, find ..

One of the iPhones many accessibility features is something Apple calls "Magnifier," which uses the smartphone's cameras to magnify and identify objects in the world around you. For Global Accessibility Awareness Day in May this year, Apple brought Magnifier to the Mac, opening up even more places the assistive tool can be used, like classroom or work environments where you might already have a MacBook pulled out. Magnifier requires macOS 26 Tahoe and can work with a built-in webcam, a ..

Artificial intelligence is showing up everywhere in Google's services these days, whether or not people want them and sometimes in places where they really don't make a lick of sense. The latest trial from Google appears to be giving articles the AI treatment in Google Discover. 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 ..

You can tell a lot about a company by what they're willing to sue over. Take Instacart, which just filed a lawsuit against New York City. Its beef? The company 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. Reuters reports that Instacart's suit targets Local Law 124, which mandates that grocery delivery workers receive the same minimum pay as restaurant delivery workers. ..

ExpressVPN, one of the best VPNs , is launching two brand-new features that sound confusingly like things it already does. Users on Android, Mac and iOS (but apparently not Windows, Linux or smart TVs) can now use Fastest Location to automatically pick the VPN server with the fastest download speed and lowest latency. Mac users are also getting an overhauled ExpressVPN app designed to work natively with MacOS. If you've used ExpressVPN before, your first reaction probably went something like ..

Elon Musk's Grok continues to do humanity a solid by (accidentally) illustrating why AI needs meaningful guardrails. The xAI bot's latest demonstration is detailed in a pair of reports by Futurism . First, Grok applied twisted, Musk-worshipping logic to justify a second Holocaust. Then, it may have doxxed Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy. Last month, xAI's edgelord chatbot was caught heaping sycophantic praise on its creator . Among other absurd claims, it called Musk "the single greatest ..

Neon Genesis Evangelion fans: Here's a chance to live the series, so to speak. Pixelity, developer of an upcoming XR game trilogy based on the classic anime , will hold on-site focus group tests this month. The playtests will take place in Japan from December 19 to 21, and in California on December 19. Pixelity says it will use the same number of players at each venue. If youre near either location, you can apply for access today on Pixelity's X account . The XR trilogy, Evangelion: Cross ..

Ireland's media regulator, Coimisin na Men, has announced investigations into both TikTok and LinkedIn for possible violations of the European Union's Digital Services Act, Reuters reports . The investigations are focused on both platforms' illegal content reporting features, which might not meet the requirements of the DSA. The main issue appears to be how these platforms reporting tools are presented and implemented. Regulators found possible "deceptive interface designs" in the content ..

Raspberry Pi is raising prices on many single-board computers , with increases going into effect immediately. The Raspberry Pi 4 and 5 modules are shooting up by $5 to $25, depending on the model and the included amount of RAM. The 16GB memory variants of the Compute Module 5 are going up by $20 and now start at $140. This is a bummer and we know who to thank. It's the ultimate memory hog of all time, the AI industry. "The current pressure on memory prices, driven by competition from the AI ..

Android 16 first came out in June but, in a change from its usual yearly update schedule, a second iteration is now on the way. Android has announced new features ranging from AI-powered notification summaries to built-in parental controls. As usual, the update will roll out to eligible Pixel devices first. Anyone who has used Apple Intelligence , will find some of these Android 16 features familiar. Such is the case for new notification tools, like AI-powered message summaries and a ..

Google has announced a slew of new accessibility features coming to Android ahead of International Day of Persons with Disabilities on Wednesday. Advanced voice dictation, expanded support for an external mouse and improved expressive captions are just some of the features aiming to make Android a more accessible mobile experience. A more advanced dark theme is now available for devices running Android 16 that will automatically darken most apps even when those apps lack their own native dark ..

Ball x Pit is a fiendishly good time. The frenetic blend of Breakout and Vampire Survivors is easily one of the best games of the year . Its immensely replayable. However, one reaches a point (after 36 hours in my case) where there isnt much left to do other than run through New Game+ modes and so it becomes time to step away. But this darned game is about to dig its hooks into me again in 2026, as developer Kenny Sun and his collaborators have lined up three free updates for Ball x Pit . The ..

If you've ever wanted to hear the drummer coughing on your favorite songs or the actors chewing in your favorite shows, Cyber Monday is the time to upgrade your audio. Some of the best speakers our audiophiles have ever tested are down to as low as we've seen them all year, or ever, in the case of some older models. The deals on this list range across brands, with offerings from Ultimate Ears, Bose, Beats , plus Sonos and Amazon Echo smart speakers and soundbars from Sony and JBL. We've been ..

Were you a Lego set kid or a giant-bucket-of-Legos kid? I was a sets kid all the way I loved, and still love, the zen feeling of building something incredible a little bit at a time. Also, every time I tried to build something from the giant bucket, it fell apart immediately, but let's not dwell on that. We've just finished trawling the net for the best Cyber Monday deals on Lego sets. While the day is over, the Lego sales aren't; some sets are still up to 50% off. We've gathered them all on ..

We've known there was a film adaptation of Helldivers coming for a while , but we now have a director and writer. Justin Lin will helm the movie and Gary Dauberman is writing the script, according to The Hollywood Reporter . Justin Lin is a great choice here. He directed many of the more beloved Fast & Furious entries and helmed the criminally underrated Star Trek Beyond . Helldivers is kind of a mix of both. It has outer space stuff, but also stylish action that occasionally borders on satire. ..

Cyber Monday has ended ; The deals party is over. But like any party, there are still a few stragglers not ready to go home just yet. This list once housed over 75 stellar Black Friday deals under $50 each. Today, we've found around 30 or so that are still within a couple bucks of their sales event low. You can get wall chargers, Roku streaming sticks, stocking-stuffer Lego sets, Bluetooth trackers and a couple of small speakers at a discount. This is still stuff Engadget has tested and ..

Cyber Monday has come and gone, but if youre still hoping to make a living room upgrade for the holidays, a handful of the better TV deals from the past week are still available. Weve scoured the web and picked out the best of what's left below. The offers include a few well-reviewed OLED TVs from Samsung, Sony and LG. as well as a couple noteworthy budget models from Hisense. If you're happy with your current TV, some discounts on streaming gear are still live too. Best Cyber Monday TV deals ..

A lot of people think Cyber Monday subscriptions are just about streaming, but that's not true. Although there are some incredible discounts to be had on the likes of Stars ( Outlander and Spartacus ) and Paramount+ ( Yellowjackets and Star Trek ), there's more to the story. We've also found great deals on exciting learning platforms like MasterClass and Rosetta Stone, cord-cutting services like DirecTV and Fubo and useful privacy services like Proton VPN and ExpressVPN. Read on to see which ..

When it comes to holiday video game gifts, Nintendo gear is often at the top of the list for kids and adults like. This year likely more so than ever thanks to the launch of the Switch 2 back in the spring. But if you were hoping to save money on the console with Cyber Monday gaming deals still live , you may be disappointed. The Nintendo Cyber Monday sale was announced a few weeks ago, and unsurprisingly, there are a scant few real "deals" to be had. This is typical of Nintendo, though actual ..