Australia's ban on under-16 social media users takes effect, as Meta, YouTube, and others remove users; platforms that don't comply risk up to AU$49.5M in fines
Accounts held by users under 16 must be removed on apps that include TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, X, YouTube, Snapchat, Reddit, Kick, Twitch and Threads under ban
The US CBP proposes vetting five years of social media history for travelers from the UK, France, Germany, and more; the current system only requires basic info
Even visitors from countries like Britain and France, whose citizens don't need visas, would have to share five years' worth of social media.
Sources: this fall, Alexandr Wang told people that he disagreed with top Meta execs like Chris Cox and Andrew Bosworth, including on using Instagram data for AI
When Mark Zuckerberg revamped Meta's artificial intelligence operations this year, he recruited a new leader — Alexandr Wang …
Australia eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant says under-16s slipping through the cracks of the social media ban will be “booted off” the platforms in time
Albanese says commencement of ban a ‘proud day’ for him as prime minister, while eSafety commissioner unconcerned by reports of children bypassing restrictions
Sources: DeepSeek is developing its new AI model using several thousand Nvidia Blackwell chips, which were smuggled into China via third-party countries
DeepSeek, the Chinese AI startup, has been developing its next major model using several thousand Nvidia's state-of-the-art Blackwell chips …
McDonald's Netherlands pulls an AI-generated Christmas ad, made by ad agency TBWA\NEBOKO with film production company The Sweetshop, after social media backlash
There's just one issue: pretty much everybody hates it. — This year, McDonald's decided to get in on the corporate slopfest …
Sources: Nvidia has privately demonstrated its unreleased location verification tech in recent months, which could show the country its chips are operating in
Nvidia (NVDA.O) has built location verification technology that could indicate which country its chips are operating in …
Study: 193 Instacart users across four US cities saw different prices for the same items from the same store at the same time; Instacart says it's running tests
The findings are the latest example of how the notion of a single price is breaking down in the digital age, a trend economists say could be pushing up some prices.
Sources: China added AI chips from Chinese groups to its government-approved list of suppliers for the first time, before Trump's move to allow Nvidia exports
Zijing Wu / Financial Times :
Australia's under-16 social media ban currently excludes Discord, GitHub, LEGO Play, Roblox, Steam, Google Classroom, Messenger, WhatsApp, and YouTube Kids
Bloomberg :
Amazon plans to invest $35B+ in India's cloud and AI sector by 2030, adding to the nearly $40B it has invested in India, and expects to create 1M more jobs
Amazon on Wednesday committed to investing over $35 billion in India's cloud and artificial intelligence space by 2030, as hyperscalers race to get a foothold in the market.
As Australia bans under-16s from social media platforms, TikTok-powered video app Lemon8, friends-only photo app Yope, and others climb Apple's App Store charts
Alternative social media platforms have surged in popularity in Australia Wednesday, as the nation's landmark ban for under-16s drives children to non-restricted apps.
Sources: Meta's new AI model, codenamed Avocado, may launch in spring 2026 as a “closed” model, and was trained using Google's Gemma, OpenAI's gpt-oss, and Qwen
Meta Platforms Inc.'s Mark Zuckerberg, months into building one of the priciest teams in technology history …
Adobe launches free ChatGPT-integrated Photoshop, Acrobat, and Express apps on desktop, the web, and iOS, after OpenAI added ChatGPT app integrations in October
Just describe your edits to ChatGPT, and the Photoshop, Acrobat, and Express apps will do it for you or surface the tool you need.
Nvidia says that it hasn't seen “substantiation or received tips” about chip smuggling via data centers outside of China, after The Information's DeepSeek story
Chinese artificial intelligence startup DeepSeek has relied on Nvidia Corp. chips that are banned in the country …
President Trump letting Nvidia sell AI chips to China reverses decades of the US' tech restrictions on its adversaries, giving China a boost in the AI race
David E. Sanger / New York Times :
A survey of 1,458 US teens: 64% use AI chatbots, and 28% use them daily; 59% say they use ChatGPT, 23% use Gemini, 20% Meta AI, 14% Copilot, and 9% Character.ai
Roughly 1 in 5 U.S. teens say they are on TikTok and YouTube almost constantly. At the same time, 64% of teens say they use chatbots …
The Tech Transparency Project: Apple's App Store and Google's Play Store host dozens of apps for US-sanctioned companies; Google removed 17 and Apple removed 35
Watchdog finds firms and organizations in Apple and Google stores that were banned for issues including human rights abuses in China and facilitating war in Ukraine.
The European Commission says Apple and Google's Android-iPhone data transfer tool, which will be available globally, is an example of the benefits of the DMA
Yesterday, Apple and Google announced that they have teamed up to make it easier to switch between Android and iPhone devices.
The RSL Collective, backed by Ziff Davis, Yahoo, and others, launches RSL 1.0, which lets publishers set licensing and compensation rules for AI web crawlers
RSL 1.0 helps publishers outline how AI companies should pay for the content they scrape across the web.
Documents and former US government officials detail the DHS' digital surveillance capabilities, amid a drive to deport 1M people in President Trump's first year
The US is pulling in vast amounts of personal information in its drive to deport 1mn people this year
Geothermal energy company Fervo, which aims to power data centers and more, raised $462M from Google and others, taking its total funding to $1.5B since 2017
The company, also backed by Bill Gates's Breakthrough Energy Ventures, has emerged as a leader in advanced geothermal energy
Sources: Lip-Bu Tan's dual roles as Intel CEO and tech investor cause consternation in the industry and at Intel; four ex-Intel execs say it caused them to exit
Lip-Bu Tan, who was appointed chief executive of Intel in March, is also a longtime venture capitalist. His dual roles have caused some consternation.
Shopify launches Product Network, an ad tool that lets merchants recommend and advertise products on other merchants' storefronts
Shopify is taking a big step forward in its much-watched advertising business. The e-commerce firm is formally rolling out a product that allows its merchants …
Slack CEO Denise Dresser, who has been in the role since November 2023, is leaving the company and joining OpenAI as the startup's Chief Revenue Officer
Another fantastic success story for a long-time Salesforce / Slack leader now helping shape the next chapter of AI at scale. … Denise Holland Dresser : After 14 incredible years, it's time for me to s...
Coupang CEO Park Dae-jun resigns after the company incurred South Korea's largest-ever data breach, in which the personal data of 30M+ people was compromised
Coupang Chief Executive Officer Park Dae-jun resigned over his failure to prevent South Korea's largest-ever data breach …
Instagram launches Your Algorithm, which shows users an AI analysis of their activity to let them customize the topics shaping their Reels recommendations
In the battle for your attention, Instagram is betting that more control over the algorithm could keep you scrolling on Reels.
Google adds new pinch and wrist gestures to the Pixel Watch 4 and says the Watch 3 and Watch 4 will now use an on-device Gemma-based AI model for Smart Replies
Here's What They Can Do Ivan Jovin / Gadgets & Wearables : Pixel Watch 4 gets new gestures as Google rolls out Wear OS 6.1 Nina Raemont / ZDNET : Google took notes from Apple with its latest Pixel Wat...
YouTube TV plans to launch over 10 genre-specific, cheaper YouTube TV Plans in early 2026, including a Sports Plan featuring ESPN Unlimited and Fox Sports 1
YouTube TV's base package currently costs $82.99 per month. But early next year, the streaming service will roll out a range …
Amazon Kindle Scribe Colorsoft review: the $630 pen-enabled e-reader is a tough sell for most people, even with its big 11" display and productivity features
Review: Amazon's $630 pen-enabled device is a tough sell for most people. — Amazon.com Inc.'s new Kindle Scribe Colorsoft …
Cambridge, UK-based Nu Quantum, which builds networking infrastructure to link and scale quantum computers, raised a $60M Series A led by National Grid Partners
Nu Quantum, a British startup that builds networking infrastructure to link and scale quantum computers, raised $60 million …
Chinese AI startup Z.ai releases its GLM-4.6V open-weight vision models, with support for native function calling, available in 106B- and 9B-parameter versions
The release includes two models in “large” and “small” sizes: — GLM-4.6V (106B), a larger 106-billion parameter model aimed at cloud-scale inference
Nintendo's shares slid as much as 4.7% on December 10, their lowest level since May, amid concerns that rapidly rising memory chip prices will erode its profit
Nintendo Co.'s shares slid as much as 4.7% Wednesday to their lowest level since May, weighed down by concerns that the surging price …
Bloomberg: SpaceX is expected to make ~$15B in revenue in 2025, increasing to between $22B and $24B in 2026, with the majority of sales coming from Starlink
In a series of lawsuits, Intel, AMD, Texas Instruments, and Berkshire were accused of failing to keep their tech out of Russian-made weapons used in Ukraine
Microchip manufacturers Intel Corp., Advanced Micro Devices Inc. and Texas Instruments Inc. were accused in a series of lawsuits …
Ofcom: UK porn traffic has now settled at a “lower level” than before age checks began; VPN users rose to a peak of 1.4M+ in mid-August and now stand at 900K
The Guardian :
Bengaluru-based e-commerce platform Meesho's stock opened up 54% in its debut, giving the company an ~$8.4B market cap after raising ~$603M in its India IPO
Bloomberg :
A survey of UK adults in 2025: on average, they spend 4.5 hours per day online, up 10 minutes on 2024, and 50%+ of time is on Google- and Meta-owned services
## Half of all time online [by people in the UK] is now spent on Alphabet and Meta-owned services — Wow. What a stark, depressing, picture. — ## Adults now spend an average of four and a half hou...
Amazon plans to let authors offer their DRM-free ebooks in the EPUB and PDF formats through Kindle Direct Publishing, starting January 20, 2026
Amazon says it will allow authors to offer their DRM-free ebooks in the EPUB and PDF formats through its self-publishing platform, Kindle Direct Publishing.
Boom modifying its supersonic engine to power AI data centers is another example of some key industrial input being repurposed to serve the AI supply chain
Thesis: That which can be repurposed to serve the AI supply chain will be repurposed to serve the AI supply chain.
Stellantis partners with Estonia-based ride-hailing service Bolt, which serves 200M+ riders in 50+ countries, to test Level 4 driverless vans in Europe in 2026
Romolo Tosiani / Reuters :
TikTok launches a podcast series called TikTok in the Mix, featuring four 30-minute episodes streamed live on TikTok; the first episode stars Demi Lovato
TikTok is launching a brand-new live podcast series called “TikTok in the Mix,” a four-episode season of conversations with major artists.
Starcloud, which launched a satellite with a Nvidia H100 chip in November, says the satellite is running and querying responses from Google's Gemma
Nvidia-backed startup Starcloud trained an artificial intelligence model from space for the first time, signaling a new era for orbital data centers … X: @philipjohnston X: Philip Johnston / @philipjo...
The EU's General Court reduces a 2023 EU antitrust fine on Intel to €237.1M, down from €376.36M; the EU fined Intel a record €1.06B in 2009, then overturned
Samuel Stolton / Bloomberg :
Chinese state-backed chipmaker Hygon, which makes server CPUs, calls off merger with its top shareholder and server maker Sugon; the merger was announced in May
Wataru Suzuki / Nikkei Asia :
Nexperia's former CEO Frans Scheper says Wingtech, which bought the Dutch chipmaker in 2019, quickly plotted to send Nexperia's research and IP to China
New York Times :
Microsoft Research, Providence, and UW develop the GigaTIME AI model, which they say can analyze tumors in a fraction of the time and cost of existing methods
a breakthrough AI tool for population-scale cancer research, published in the journal Cell. … Satya Nadella : Today in Cell, we published new research showing how AI can help accelerate cancer discove...
How President Trump's tariffs ended China's monopoly on making US game consoles, boosting Vietnam, whose exports jumped from $30M/month in 2024 to $400M in May
Bloomberg :
Sources: at a November meeting in the Oval Office, Jensen Huang told President Trump that a flurry of state AI laws could cause the US to lose the AI race
passed at the state level with bipartisan support.” Senator Amy Klobuchar / @klobuchar.senate.gov : AI holds immense promise, but it also enables scams and deepfakes that harm Americans. States are l...
How US startups like Oakland-based Brimstone are racing to develop sources of raw materials that the US needs for tech, an industry China has long dominated
Startups and venture capital are joining the nationwide push to develop new sources of metals the U.S. desperately needs
Google launches a cheaper AI Plus plan in India, costing ~$2.21 per month for the first six months and ~$4.44 thereafter, to compete with ChatGPT Go
Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch :
An interview with Tencent Games Global CEO Michelle Liu, whose hands-on dealmaking approach generated $10B in international gaming revenue over the past year
Bloomberg : X: @business X: @business : This year, Tencent's gaming business scored record sales, defying an industry slowdown with international hits like zombie horror Dying Light: The Beast. The s...
Betting exchange Matchbook plans to launch a prediction market platform in the UK in January 2026 as a “road test” before a planned US launch as early as March
Justina Lee / Bloomberg :
Shopify: Revolutionizing Commerce with Winter Edition '26
Over 150+ new features transform how merchants build, design, and grow—with technology that amplifies creative vision.
Email fatigue is real: Here's how smart email tools help you regain control
Picture this: It's Monday morning. You walk into the office feeling energized and ready to take on the week.
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data
Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Box data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.