Astronauts leave space station in NASA’s first medical evacuation
The four returning astronauts are aiming to splash down on Thursday evening (AEDT) in the Pacific near San Diego. ⌘ Read more

Unions score rare win over AI rollout with Microsoft agreement
The deal follows a wave of AI-linked job cuts at major Australian employers including CBA, Atlassian and WiseTech. ⌘ Read more

McKinsey Asks Graduates To Use AI Chatbot in Recruitment Process
McKinsey is asking graduate applicants to “collaborate” with an AI tool as part of its recruitment process, as competence with the technology becomes a requirement in competing for top-level jobs. From a report: The blue-chip consultancy is incorporating an “AI interview” into some final-round interviews, according to CaseBasix, a US company that helps … ⌘ Read more

Global Tech-Sector Layoffs Surpass 244,000 In 2025
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Network World: The global technology sector eliminated some 244,851 jobs in 2025, according to a report from RationalFX. The U.K.-based financial services company says the worldwide downsizing reflects how companies in 2025 restructured their operations to focus on efficiency, profitability, and AI-driven productivity. The RationalFX … ⌘ Read more

Signal Creator Marlinspike Wants To Do For AI What He Did For Messaging
Moxie Marlinspike, the engineer who created Signal Messenger and set a new standard for private communications, is now trialing Confer, an open source AI assistant designed to make user data unreadable to platform operators, hackers, and law enforcement alike. Confer relies on two core technologies: passkeys that generate a 32-byte encry … ⌘ Read more

Apple’s Gemini deal a win for Google, but will it make your iPhone smarter?
Apple has been extremely cautious when it comes to using AI and is hoping Google’s raw resources will help it close the gap on its rivals. ⌘ Read more

Your colleague that’s happy to do the mundane parts of work: AWS announces frontier AI agents
In Las Vegas, AWS’s re:Invent 2025 conference showcased AI that doesn’t just assist, but acts autonomously, highlighting a profound shift in enterprise technology. ⌘ Read more

China Tests a Supercritical CO2 Generator in Commercial Operation
“China recently placed a supercritical carbon dioxide power generator into commercial operation,” writes CleanTechnica, “and the announcement was widely framed as a technological breakthrough.”

The system, referred to as Chaotan One, is installed at a steel plant in Guizhou province in mountainous southwest China and is designed to recover … ⌘ Read more

Cory Doctorow: Legalising Reverse Engineering Could End ‘Enshittification’
Scifi author/tech activist Cory Doctorow has decried the “enshittification” of our technologies to extract more profit. But Saturday he also described what could be “the beginning of the end for enshittification” in a new article for the Guardian — “our chance to make tech good again”.

There is only one reason the world isn’t bu … ⌘ Read more

From trifold phones to singing lollipops: the best and worst gadgets of CES
From the world’s biggest consumer tech show, here are the best pocketable gadgets, potentially useful future tech, and the products awarded worst in show. ⌘ Read more

In Trump’s America, smart robots and AI mask an uncomfortable future
The world’s largest gadget show promised a future in which technology handles everything. Outside the Las Vegas bubble, reality had other plans. ⌘ Read more

Inside CES 2026: Giant TVs, robots unveiled in Las Vegas
From robots to giant TVs, technology expert Trevor Long reveals the latest household gadgets being unveiled at the 2026 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Trevor Long travelled to Las Vegas with support from Hisense, LG, Reolink, LEGO and Samsung. ⌘ Read more

The Gap Between Premium and Budget TV Brands is Quickly Closing
The long-standing hierarchy in the TV market – Sony, Samsung and LG at the top, TCL and Hisense fighting it out in the midrange – is eroding as the budget brands close the performance gap and increasingly lead on technology innovation, The Verge writes. Hisense debuted the first RGB LED TV last year, and TCL’s X11L announced at CES 2026 … ⌘ Read more

Samsung Hit with Restraining Order Over Smart TV Surveillance Tech in Texas
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has secured a temporary restraining order against Samsung, blocking the company from continuing to collect data through its smart TVs’ Automated Content Recognition technology.

The ACR system captured screenshots of what users were watching every 500 milliseconds, according to the state’s la … ⌘ Read more

How Did TVs Get So Cheap?
A 50-inch TV that would have set you back $1,100 at Best Buy during Black Friday 2001 now costs less than $200, and the price per area-pixel – a metric accounting for both screen size and resolution – has dropped by more than 90% over the past 25 years. The story behind this decline is largely one of liquid crystal display technology maturing from a niche product to a mass-manufactured commodity.

LCDs represente … ⌘ Read more

LEGO Says Smart Brick Won’t Replace Traditional Play After CES Backlash
LEGO has responded to concerns that its newly announced Smart Brick technology represents a departure from the company’s foundation in physical, non-digital play, a day after the official reveal at CES drew criticism from child development advocates. Federico Begher, SVP of Product, New Business, told IGN the sensor-packed bricks are “an a … ⌘ Read more

The new TVs vying for your living room (and wallet) in 2026
From pencil-thin OLEDs to screens the size of a small car, there are some genuinely impressive displays coming – albeit at somewhat terrifying prices. ⌘ Read more

From dishwasher to world’s ninth-richest man: Nvidia boss faces his future
Jensen Huang has a simple lesson from running the world’s most valuable company: “Don’t get fired, and don’t get bored”. ⌘ Read more

Nvidia’s New G-Sync Pulsar Monitors Target Motion Blur at the Human Retina Level
Nvidia’s G-Sync Pulsar technology, first announced nearly two years ago as a solution to display motion blur caused by old images persisting on the viewer’s retina, is finally arriving in consumer monitors this week. The first four Pulsar-equipped displays – from Acer, AOC, Asus and MSI – hit select retailers on W … ⌘ Read more

Travelling to America? Here’s how to protect your privacy in phone searches
US Customs and Border Protection agents have broad authority to look through travellers’ phones, laptops and other electronic devices. Here’s what you need to know. ⌘ Read more

Lego releases the smart brick but how does it work?
Tom Donaldson, head of Lego’s Creative Play Lab, unveils the smart brick at a news conference ahead of the CES tech show in Las Vegas. ⌘ Read more

Lego unveils their new Smart Brick
Touted as changing how kids play with Lego, the Smart Brick is revealed in Las Vegas, and will be sold as part of three new Star Wars Lego sets. ⌘ Read more

Lego unveils ‘Smart Bricks’, its biggest innovation in 50 years
Eight years of development have produced a computer small enough to fit inside a classic 2x4 brick. But do kids really need a microphone and speaker chip inside it? ⌘ Read more

Google’s ‘chess master’ is working on AI’s killer app
A product breakthrough has long eluded Demis Hassabis, but that could change in 2026. ⌘ Read more

Why a groundbreaking new TV show disappeared without a trace
Choosing high-profile tech boffin James Curran as co-host proved to be disastrous. ⌘ Read more

Salt Typhoon hackers ‘almost certainly’ in Australia’s critical infrastructure
China’s hacking campaign is one of the most effective long-term espionage moves ever seen, a top cybersecurity figure says. ⌘ Read more

Cyber expert gets rare Australian visa by hacking the government
The self-taught British security researcher found a unique way to beat 99 per cent rejection odds for the elite visa. ⌘ Read more

A billion chatbot users can’t be wrong … or can they? Let’s ask a human
It’s a job description for the 21st century: human-AI relationship coach. But this job is all about the humans. ⌘ Read more

‘2025 Was the Year of Creative Bankruptcy’
PC Gamer argues that 2025 was a year full of high-profile AI embarrassments across games and entertainment, with Disney and Lucasfilm serving as the “opening salvo.” From the report: At a TED talk back in April, Lucasfilm senior vice president of creative innovation Rob Bredow presented a demonstration of what he called “a new era of technology.” Across 50 years of legendary innovat … ⌘ Read more

I was wrong about Elon. But he was wrong too
A year ago, I predicted that Musk would quit Tesla. He predicted our newspaper would ‘bore its audience to death’. We were both mistaken. ⌘ Read more

‘I Switched To eSIM in 2025, and I am Full of Regret’
Google’s Pixel 10 series arrived this year as the company’s first eSIM-only lineup in the United States, forcing users who wanted to review or buy the new phones to abandon their physical SIM cards entirely. Ryan Whitwam, a senior technology reporter at Ars Technica, made the switch and now regrets it, he says. “In the three months since Google forced me to give up my phys … ⌘ Read more

LG Launches UltraGear Evo Gaming Monitors With What It Claims is the World’s First 5K AI Upscaling
LG has announced a new premium gaming monitor brand called UltraGear, and the lineup’s headline feature is what the company claims is the world’s first 5K AI upscaling technology – an on-device solution that analyzes and enhances content in real time before it reaches the panel, … ⌘ Read more

AI Chatbots May Be Linked to Psychosis, Say Doctors
One psychiatrist has already treated 12 patients hospitalized with AI-induced psychosis — and three more in an outpatient clinic, according to the Wall Street Journal. And while AI technology might not introduce the delusion, “the person tells the computer it’s their reality and the computer accepts it as truth and reflects it back,” says Keith Sakata, a psychiatrist at the Uni … ⌘ Read more

Challenges Face European Governments Pursuing ‘Digital Sovereignty’
The Register reports on challenges facing Europe’s pursuit of “digital sovereignty”:

The US CLOUD Act of 2018 allows American authorities to compel US-based technology companies to provide requested data, regardless of where that data is stored globally. This places European organizations in a precarious position, as it directly clashes with … ⌘ Read more

Waymo Updates Vehicles to Better Handle Power Outages - But Still Faces Criticism
Waymo explained this week that its self-driving car technology is already “designed to handle dark traffic signals,” and successfully handled over 7,000 last Saturday during San Francisco’s long power outage, properly treating those intersections as four-way stops. But while during the long outage their cars some … ⌘ Read more

Driverless Future Gains Momentum With Global Robotaxi Deployments
The global push to put autonomous taxis on public roads is accelerating as ride-hailing companies and technology firms advance from pilot programs toward limited commercial rollouts in cities across China, the United States, Europe and the Middle East.

WeRide and Uber launched Level 4 fully driverless robotaxi operations in Abu Dhabi in Novemb … ⌘ Read more

Indian IT Was Supposed To Die From AI. Instead It’s Billing for the Cleanup.
Two years after generative AI was supposed to render India’s $250 billion IT services industry obsolete, the sector is finding that enterprises still need someone to handle the unglamorous plumbing work that large-scale AI deployment demands. Less than 15% of organizations are meaningfully deploying the new technology, accordin … ⌘ Read more

China Launches $21 Billion Venture Capital Funds To Invest in ‘Hard Technology’
An anonymous reader shares a report: China on Friday launched three venture capital funds to invest in “hard technology” areas, state broadcaster CCTV reported. The capital contribution plans for the funds have been finalised, each with more than 50 billion yuan ($7.14 billion), according to the report. The funds will primar … ⌘ Read more

Silicon Valley’s billionaire elite can’t engineer our consent
A decade after Peter Thiel backed Donald Trump, the ascent of the “tech right″⁣ has made billionaire founders “evil geniuses” in the eyes of many. ⌘ Read more

Christmas mess? This robot vacuum trick is a game-changer
Previous mop pads had a tendency to drag muck around your floor, but a new innovation may have fixed that. ⌘ Read more

How a Power Outage In Colorado Caused US Official Time To Be 4.8 Microseconds
Tony Isaac shares a report from NPR: The U.S. government calculates the country’s official time using more than a dozen atomic clocks at a federal facility northwest of Denver. But when a destructive windstorm knocked out power to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) laboratory in Boulder on Wednesd … ⌘ Read more

The U.S. Could Ban Chinese-Made Drones Used By Police Departments
Tuesday the White House faces a deadline to decide “whether Chinese drone maker DJI Technologies poses a national security threat,” reports Bloomberg. But their article notes it’s “a decision with the potential to ground thousands of machines deployed by police and fire departments across the US.”

One person making the case against the drones is … ⌘ Read more

Trump Admin to Hire 1,000 for New ‘Tech Force’ to Build AI Infrastructure
An anonymous reader shared this report from CNBC:

The Trump administration on Monday unveiled a new initiative dubbed the “U.S. Tech Force,” comprising about 1,000 engineers and other specialists who will work on artificial intelligence infrastructure and other technology projects throughout the federal government.

Participants wi … ⌘ Read more

Is America’s Tech Industry Already Facing a Recession?
America’s unemployment rate for tech jobs rose to 4% in November, and “has been steadily rising since May,” reports the Washington Post (citing data from the IT training/certifications company CompTIA).

Between October and November, the number of technology workers across different industries fell 134,000, while the number of people working in the tech industry decline … ⌘ Read more

I liked my boyfriend and his man-bun, but had to end it. He didn’t understand public ridicule
Naomi would still be up at 3am without understanding how ridiculous the situation was. Nigel had much more in common with me, apart from his lack of an actual body. ⌘ Read more

Does AI Really Make Coders Faster?
One developer tells MIT Technology Review that AI tools weaken the coding instincts he used to have. And beyond that, “It’s just not fun sitting there with my work being done for me.”

But is AI making coders faster? “After speaking to more than 30 developers, technology executives, analysts, and researchers, MIT Technology Review found that the picture is not as straightforward as it might seem…”
… ⌘ Read more

2025 Was the Beginning of the End of the TV Brightness War
The television industry’s brightness war may have hit its inflection point in 2025, the year TCL and Hisense released the first consumer TVs capable of 5,000 nits under specific settings – a figure that would have seemed absurd not long ago when manufacturers struggled to reach 2,000 nits. LG introduced Primary RGB Tandem OLED technology, moving fr … ⌘ Read more

Independent report released by Optus shines light on serious issue
An independent report released by Optus shines a light on a serious issue with our modern mobile-reliant communications systems and the Triple Zero Emergency line. ⌘ Read more

Trump’s Social Media Business Is Merging With a Nuclear Fusion Company
Tony Isaac shares a report from CNN: President Donald Trump’s social media and crypto company is making a huge bet on a far different industry – nuclear fusion, a potentially lucrative albeit commercially unproven energy technology that could help power a suddenly electricity-starved economy. Trump Media and Technology Group Thursday … ⌘ Read more

MIT Grieves Shooting Death of Renowned Director of Plasma Science Center
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Guardian: The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) community is grieving after the “shocking” shooting death of the director of its plasma science and fusion center, according to officials. Nuno FG Loureiro, 47, had been shot multiple times at his home in the affluent Boston subu … ⌘ Read more