The top tech news stories from Disney, Paramount, DC, Andro

A former Chinese official who fled to the U.S. says Beijing has used advanced surveillance technology from U.S. companies to track, intimidate, and punish him and his family across borders. ABC News reports: Retired Chinese official Li Chuanliang was recuperating from cancer on a Korean resort island when he got an urgent call: Don't return to China, a friend warned. You're now a fugitive. Days later, a stranger snapped a photo of Li in a cafe. Terrified South Korea would send him back, Li ..

If you need to charge your EV at Mid Valley Southkey in Johor Bahru, there's now a new DC charger deployed by JomCharge. The Charge Point Operator (CPO) has deployed a DC charger with two bays at St Giles Southkey Hotel in Johor Bahru. In total, there are now 6x DC charge points around the []

A couple of days ago, Redmi officially started its teaser campaign for the upcoming Note 15 5G, revealing that it has a 108MP main camera just like its predecessor. Today, the brand has also revealed that the Redmi Note 15 5G comes with a 5,520 mAh battery. That capacity was already rumored, and it's good to see it confirmed. For what it's worth, it's 410 mAh larger than the Redmi Note 14 5G's. The battery will support 45W wired charging, and Redmi claims it will last you 1.6 days of usage, ..

DJI has released a new update which lets you control its newly launched Neo 2 drone entirely from your Apple Watch. This is made available via the device's v01.00.0500 firmware update, along with the latest 1.19.4 version of the DJI Fly app. According to the company, compatible models include the Apple Watch Series 8 and [] The post You Can Now Control The DJI Neo 2 With Your Apple Watch appeared first on Lowyat.NET .

Beyond the upcoming refresh for the Studio Display, it looks like Apple also has other refreshes in queue. Macworld reports that an unreleased iOS 26 build has references to a new HomePod mini, as well as features of the AirTag that has not been announced. For the former, the report says that the new HomePod [] The post Unreleased Apple iOS 26 Build Also Reveals Upcoming HomePod mini, AirTag Refreshes appeared first on Lowyat.NET .

Looking at data of nearly 11,000 families, researchers discovered that electronic media use among early adolescents was linked to more arguments and criticism among their families. Read full story

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Dozens of Ukrainian civilians filed a series of lawsuits in Texas this week, accusing some of the biggest US chip firms of negligently failing to track chips that evaded export curbs. Those chips were ultimately used to power Russian and Iranian weapon systems, causing wrongful deaths last year. Their complaints alleged that for years, Texas Instruments (TI), AMD, and Intel have ignored public reporting, government warnings, and shareholder ..

It's the latest in a spate of robotaxi mishaps, caught on camera and spread via social media in a ritual of public shaming. Read full story

Today Google is finally revamping Google Translate, infusing it with Gemini capabilities in order to improve translations, especially on phrases with nuanced meanings like idioms, local expressions, or slang. This, Google says, is state-of-the-art translation quality, and you can find it in Google Search and in the Translate app on iOS and Android. The update is rolling out in the US and India today translating between English and "nearly 20 languages" including Spanish, Hindi, Chinese, ..

Chandler, Arizona unanimously rejected a proposed AI data center despite heavy lobbying from Big Tech interests and former Sen. Kyrsten Sinema. Politico reports: The Chandler City Council last night voted down a request by a New York developer to rezone land to build a data center and business complex. The local battle escalated in October after Sinema showed up at a planning commission meeting to offer public comment warning officials in her home state that federal authority may soon stomp on ..

Are artificial intelligence companies keeping humanity safe from AI's potential harms? Don't bet on it, a new report card says. Read full story

Framework Computer raised DDR5 memory prices for its Laptop DIY Editions by 50% due to industry-wide memory shortages. Phoronix reports: Framework Computer is keeping the prior prices for existing pre-orders and also is foregoing any price changes for their pre-built laptops or the Framework Desktop. Framework Computer also lets you order DIY laptops without any memory at all if so desired for re-using existing modules or should you score a deal elsewhere. Due to their memory pricing said to be ..

Dec 12 (Reuters) - Bitcoin hoarding giant Strategy clung to its place in the Nasdaq 100 on Friday, continuing its year-long stint in the benchmark at a time where analysts have raised questions over its business model. Read full story

id Software employees voted to form a wall-to-wall union with the CWA, covering all roles at the Doom studio. "The vote wasn't unanimous, though a majority did vote in favor of the union," notes Engadget. From the report: The union will work in conjunction with the Communications Workers of America (CWA), which is the same organization involved with parent company ZeniMax's recent unionization efforts. Microsoft, who owns ZeniMax, has already recognized this new effort, according to a statement ..

The Xiaomi Pad 8 Pro debuted in China back in September as the successor to the Pad 7 Pro. Now, it seems that the company is preparing to launch the premium tablet internationally. The device carrying the model number 25091RP04G has appeared on the US FCC database. For reference, the Chinese version of the Pad [] The post Xiaomi Pad 8 Pro To Launch Globally With 9,000mAh Battery appeared first on Lowyat.NET .

The problem with this complaint is that almost no one makes the effort to define "AI slop." Is it anything produced with AI? Or any such content appearing in social media? Read full story

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: The U.S. government will require artificial intelligence vendors to measure political "bias" to sell their chatbots to federal agencies, according to a Trump administration statement (PDF) released on Thursday. The requirement will apply to all large language models bought by federal agencies, with the exception of national security systems, according to the statement. President Donald Trump ordered federal agencies in July to avoid buying large ..

OpenAI is in trouble, and its licensing deal with Disney ultimately isn't good for anyone except Disney CEO Bob Iger.

A deal to sell TikTok has remained elusive, despite earlier claims that a deal was done.

Apple has found itself in the crosshairs of the European Commission many times over the past few years, and now it's also being investigated by the Swiss Competition Commission (SCC). This has to do with access to NFC on iPhones. Apple started to allow third-party access to the NFC chip last year, following an initial opening up in the EU. But if you want to use the iPhone's NFC chip, you need to enter into a commercial agreement with Apple and pay the fees it requests, and that is precisely ..

The pro-Russian CyberVolk group resurfaced with a Telegram-based ransomware- as-a-service platform, but fatally undermined its own operation by hardcoding master encryption keys in plaintext. The Register reports: First, the bad news: the CyberVolk 2.x (aka VolkLocker) ransomware-as-a-service operation that launched in late summer. It's run entirely through Telegram, which makes it very easy for affiliates that aren't that tech savvy to lock files and demand a ransom payment. CyberVolk's ..

The latest Apple OS updates started rolling out to users on Dec. 12. Users can now update to iOS 26.2, macOS 26.2, iPadOS 26.2, and watchOS 26.2.

Phoebe Gates, Bill Gates' youngest daughter, has raised $30 million for the AI shopping app she built in her Stanford dorm room with classmate Sophia Kianni. The app is called Phia and is pitched as a way to simplify price comparison and secondhand shopping. "Its AI-powered search engine -- available as an app and as a browser extension for Chrome and Safari -- pulls listings from more than 40,000 retail and resale sites so users can compare prices, surface real- time deals, and determine ..

Say hello to Googles Disco, an AI tool that makes web apps from browser tabs.

AMD Radeon AI PRO R9700S offers 32GB memory, passive cooling, and high FP32 compute performance for dense AI workstation setups.

Asus ROG Strix XG27JCG combines 5K resolution, high refresh, HDR, AI motion features, and creative workflow suitability with flexible ergonomics.

PARIS/MOSCOW, Dec 12 - The administrator of Google's defunct Russian business has obtained a temporary freeze on some 110 million euros ($129 million) of the Alphabet-owned company's assets in France, official orders seen by Reuters show. Read full story

OpenAI will introduce a ChatGPT adult mode in 2026, pending the success of its age verification AI currently in testing.

Give yourself a productivity boost with this lifetime license to Microsoft Office 2024 Home and Business for Mac or PC for only $159.97 (reg. $249.99).

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Google has increasingly moved toward keeping features locked to its hardware products, but the Translate app is bucking that trend. The live translate feature is breaking out of the Google bubble with support for any earbuds you happen to have connected to your Android phone. The app is also getting improved translation quality across dozens of languages and some Duolingo-like learning features. The latest version of Google's live ..

Refresh an Apple computer with this Microsoft Office Home and Business 2019 for Mac license for only $39.97 (reg. $229).

Marking up images lets you put Gemini's attention right where you need it.

GPT-5.2 is fresh out of the box, but how does it compare to Elon Musks AI?We compare benchmark performance, price, and overall feature set.

The US permits Nvidia H200 exports to China as Huaweis Ascend 910C chips demonstrate competitive AI compute performance and potential.

Exploit hasn't been picked up by any malware detection engines, CEO tells The Reg A Microsoft zero-day vulnerability that allows an unprivileged user to crash the Windows Remote Access Connection Manager (RasMan) service now has a free, unofficial patch - with no word as to when Redmond plans to release an official one - along with a working exploit circulating online.

Samsung's Galaxy Z TriFold went on sale in Korea today, promptly selling out despite its huge price point (around $2,400 at the current exchange rate). Speaking of huge price points, we just found out how much a replacement for the inner folding screen will cost for the TriFold. In Korea, this repair will be priced at KRW 1,657,500 at the lowest level. That's approximately $1,122, which makes this officially the most expensive Samsung smartphone screen replacement in history, but given the type ..

Online retailer Coupang, often called South Korea's Amazon, is dealing with the fallout from a breach that exposed the personal information of more than 33 million accounts -- roughly two-thirds of the country's population -- after a former contractor allegedly used credentials that remained active months after his departure to access customer data through the company's overseas servers. The breach began in June but went undetected until November 18, according to Coupang and investigators. ..

"The vast majority of Codex is built by Codex," OpenAI told us about its new AI coding agent.