WASHINGTON, Dec 18 (Reuters) - TikTok's Chinese owner, ByteDance, signed binding agreements with three major investors to sell just over 80% of the company's U.S. assets to American and global investors to avoid a U.S. government ban, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew told employees on Thursday. Read full story

TikTok's U.S. operations will be housed in a new joint venture, according to a memo sent to employees by CEO Shou Zi Chew.

WASHINGTON, Dec 18 (Reuters) - The U.S. energy regulator on Thursday directed the largest U.S. grid operator, PJM Interconnection, to establish rules on the connection of artificial intelligence-driven data centers and other large electricity loads located next to power plants. Read full story

Plus: Lazarus Group has a brand new BeaverTail Even Amazon isn't immune to North Korean scammers who try to score remote jobs at tech companies so they can funnel their wages to Kim Jong Un's coffers.

Dec 18 (Reuters) - The U.S. Department of Energy said on Thursday it has signed agreements with 24 organizations, including tech giants such as Microsoft, Google and Nvidia, to advance the Genesis Mission. Read full story

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Tom's Hardware: A North Korean imposter was uncovered, working as a sysadmin at Amazon U.S., after their keystroke input lag raised suspicions with security specialists at the online retail giant. Normally, a U.S.-based remote worker's computer would send keystroke data within tens of milliseconds. This suspicious individual's keyboard lag was "more than 110 milliseconds," reports Bloomberg. Amazon is commendably proactive in its pursuit of impostors, ..

Oracle launches A4 Standard cloud instances with AmpereOne M cores, offering high-performance CPU configurations and emphasizing silicon neutrality for flexible deployments.

Dec 18 (Reuters) - Instacart has agreed to pay $60 million to settle the U.S. Federal Trade Commission's allegations that the online grocery delivery platform deceived consumers about its Instacart+ membership and free delivery offers, according to court documents filed in San Francisco on Thursday. Read full story

Dec 18 (Reuters) - SpaceX's Starlink said one of its satellites experienced an anomaly in space on Wednesday that created a "small number" of debris and cut off communications with the spacecraft at 418 km (259.73 miles) in altitude, a rare kinetic accident in orbit for the satellite internet giant. Read full story

Holiday shopping is in full swing, which means it's about time for the Steam Winter Sale . This go-around, Valves sale runs from December 18, 2025 through January 5, 2026, and includes discounts on some of this year's hit games, like Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 , Silent Hill f and Assassin's Creed Shadows . Clair Obscur is available for $40, down from its normal $50, Silent Hill f is 40 percent off, bringing its price down to $42, and the normally $70 Assassin's Creed Shadows is selling for ..

MEXICO CITY, Dec 18 (Reuters) - Mexico's antitrust commissionsaid on Thursday it had resolved a case over a lack of competition in the mobile operating system market stemming from business practices related to Android. Read full story

Also, the Trump administration wants to put some nuclear power reactors there, too.

The iPhone Fold is finally portrayed in the first CAD-based render, which you can see below. This was outed along with CAD drawings intended for case and other accessory makers, which reveal the device's very unusual dimensions. As previously rumored, Apple wanted to ensure that the inner screen isn't a square, and when you unfold the phone you will be in landscape mode. This might ensure compatibility with iPad apps from day one without the need for developers to make any modifications - this ..

Google's latest addition to its NotebookLM artificial intelligence research platform is a feature called Data Tables . The tool can collect and synthesize information across multiple sources into a chart that can be exported to Google Sheets. All Pro and Ultra users will have access to the feature today, and Data Tables will roll out to all users over the coming weeks. In practice, Google suggested that Data Tables can be used to organize scattered notes, create price comparison charts or ..

A new study estimates that AI systems in 2025 consumed as much electricity as New York City emits in carbon pollution and used hundreds of billions of liters of water, driven largely by power-hungry data centers and cooling needs. Researchers say the real impact is likely higher due to poor transparency from tech companies about AI-specific energy and water use. "There's no way to put an extremely accurate number on this, but it's going to be really big regardless... In the end, everyone is ..

Google loves AI content, except when it doesn't.

Microsoft moves to disable RC4 after decades of exploitation, implementing AES-SHA1 encryption, tools, and network protections for safer systems.

The toggle to hide At a Glance from the home screen has started arriving for some testers.

The latest photo dump from Democrats in the House Oversight Committee includes more famous men and upsetting Lolita quotes written on a woman's body.

Even if Mozilla is going to add an AI kill switch, that may not be enough to reassure many. Waterfox, a popular fork of Firefox, is saying nay to AI. Considering how unpopular Mozilla's plan to botify its browser has become, this could win the alternative some converts.

Subscribers will start seeing ads when selecting a user next year.

A California judge signaled support for forcing Vizio to provide the full source code for its SmartCast TV software after finding a contractual obligation under the GPL. If upheld, the case could strengthen users' rights to modify GPL-licensed software embedded in consumer electronics. The Register reports: The legal complaint from the Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC) seeks access to the SmartCast source code so that Vizio customers can make changes and improvements to the platform, something ..

IK Multimedia's small iLoud Sub promises big booms, but with accuracy

Several LG smart TV owners, including some Engadget staff, were surprised to find what looked like an unremovable Microsoft Copilot app suddenly installed on their devices earlier this week. After all the raised eyebrows, a representative from LG has reached out to say that the company "will take steps to allow users to delete the shortcut icon if they wish." According to the spokesperson, the Copilot icon is a shortcut for launching the AI chatbot in the TV's web browser rather than an ..

Apples first foldable iPhone is widely rumored to debut next year at the fall iPhone event, but a new report suggests shipments may be delayed until 2027. The iPhone Fold, which is what were calling it for now, is reportedly behind schedule, according to analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. Kuo said in a research note that Apples foldable iPhone is expected to face early-stage yield issues along with other manufacturing challenges ahead of mass production. While Apple remains on track to announce the iPhone ..

I would avoid building a PC right now, but if you can't, here's our best advice.

Chipmakers are spending more as components become more advanced and demand for AI hardware continues.

Formula 1's 2026 technical regulations bring not only smaller and lighter cars but an entirely new vocabulary that fans and commentators will need to learn before the season opens in Australia in March. The drag reduction system that has been part of F1 racing since 2011 is gone, replaced by a suite of modes governing how the new active front and rear wings behave and how the hybrid powertrain delivers power. Straight Mode lowers both the front and rear wings to cut drag on designated ..

The federal agency alleged that Instacart used a number of deceptive tactics in its subscription sign-up and "satisfaction guarantee" advertising.

Riot Games discovered a vulnerability in several motherboards that potentially allowed cheating DMA devices to run before protections kicked in after boot.

ChatGPT Apps gives you the chance to integrate your favorite apps right into the AI chatbot.

After getting Early Access to Gemini for Home started in the US, Google's making its international push.

Human review didn't stop AI from triggering lockdown at panicked middle school.

Micron said it expects the total addressable market for high-bandwidth memory to hit $100 billion by 2028.

Valuable information is rarely neat. Key facts are often scattered, making manual compilation tedious.Today, were making that simpler with Data Tables. NotebookLM now s

Once researchers turn to LLMs, paper counts go up, quality does not.

Customers in 10 of the companys 23 regions had operations fail or take an extended amount of time to complete. Snowflake pushed an update this week that caused a major outage worldwide, leaving many users unable to query data, experiencing failures when ingesting files, and receiving error messages for 13 hours, the company wrote in an impact statement.

The SPEED Act now heads to the Senate, which is in the early stages of its own permitting reform talks.