Technology

Project Rene is now described as a mobile-first, social multiplayer life-sim and is not The Sims 5; Maxis says it will coexist with The Sims 4 and that single-player foundations remain.

Delta Air Lines will resume flights to Greater Binghamton Airport in spring 2026 after a planned pause; the airport credited outreach by Gov. Kathy Hochul, Sen. Chuck Schumer and others for the reversal.

Alphabet briefly reached a $4 trillion market capitalization after shares rose on reports that Apple will use Google's Gemini to power new iPhone AI features; it is the fourth company to reach that level.

A Samsung-backed survey reported 90% of U.S. respondents use some form of AI on their phones but only 38% realize it. Samsung says it is developing 'ambient AI' that runs across phones, TVs and appliances and expects to reach about 800 million AI-enabled devices by the end of the year.

Europe and China are reported to be close to an agreement that would remove EU tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, and Geely's Polestar and Zeekr are expanding sales and presence across Europe.

Anthropic launched Claude for Healthcare and is adding beta integrations that let U.S. Claude Pro and Max subscribers connect phone and wearable metrics, including Apple Health, so the assistant can analyze those data. The company says users must opt in, can control permissions, and that health data will not be used to train its models.

The article says assembling external drives from an M.2 NVMe SSD and an external enclosure can be cheaper and more flexible than buying pre-built external SSDs. It notes some enclosures offer up to 10Gbps transfer speeds.

Apple announced a multi-year partnership to use Google's Gemini models and cloud technology for its future foundational models and to power an AI-enhanced Siri arriving this year.

Samsung has released a free Stranger Things theme and five wallpapers for Galaxy phones; the items are available in 186 countries through the Galaxy Store and require downloading or launching the Netflix app to claim them.

The UK will publish its first under-5 screen time guidance in April, focusing on reducing passive viewing after research linked heavy screen use in some two-year-olds to smaller vocabularies.

The author reinstalled Windows 8.1 from an archived ISO and found it installed in about five minutes; he reports the interface mixes Windows 7 visuals with the Metro UI, creating an incohesive experience and locking many Metro apps behind a Microsoft account.

Hypixel says early access for Hytale begins January 13 and is asking users to download the game launcher ahead of that date; the studio estimates over 1 million players on launch day based on preorder interest.

A Wall Street Journal profile describes Gwynne Shotwell, the longtime president of SpaceX, as a central leader who often acts as a translator and defender for Elon Musk ahead of the company's potential IPO.

Mattel's Fashionistas line adds an autistic Barbie designed with flexible joints for stimming, sensory-friendly clothing and accessories including noise-canceling headphones and a tablet with communication apps; the doll debuts Jan. 12 at Mattel Shop and Target with a Walmart rollout in March.

Malaysia and Indonesia temporarily blocked access to Elon Musk’s Grok after regulators said the chatbot was used to generate non-consensual and sexually explicit images. xAI has limited image-generation features to paying subscribers and officials have requested clarifications.

Google introduced the Universal Commerce Protocol to let Gemini and AI Mode display purchase buttons that open in‑app checkout using Google Pay and single‑click Google Account login.

A U-Haul truck drove into a crowd at a Los Angeles rally supporting Iranian protesters on Jan. 11; two people were evaluated at the scene and both declined transport to a hospital.

A shortage of memory chips driven by strong demand from AI data centers has pushed mobile DRAM and NAND prices higher, and smartphone prices have risen about 10–25% in several markets.

Logistical strain and budget pressure after the Israel–Hamas war have left arming for some IDF reservist units uneven, officials say procurement of tens of thousands of M4 rifles and other weapons is underway, and replacing older sharpshooter night sights with T75 systems is expected to take several months.

Launched Jan. 11, 2026, NASA's Pandora telescope will monitor host stars' brightness and color changes to reduce stellar contamination in exoplanet transit measurements.

This article lists ten mostly free software tweaks—such as malware scans and disabling unneeded startup apps—that can improve performance on older Windows laptops.

Google introduced an experimental AI Inbox for consumer Gmail that shows AI-generated to-dos and topics instead of a standard email list; the feature is currently limited to trusted testers and does not support Workspace accounts.

Meta said it fixed an issue that allowed external parties to request password reset emails and stated there was no breach of its systems; a dataset reported to contain 17.5 million Instagram account records was posted to a dark web forum around the same time, and Instagram's support material notes two-factor authentication is available and enabled by default for creator accounts.

The proposal would impose a one-time 5% tax on residents worth more than $1 billion and is reported to be retroactive to Jan. 1, 2026 if voters approve it in November; some wealthy Californians have moved entities out of state while others have voiced support or indifference.

Viral posts claimed Microsoft renamed Office to "Microsoft 365 Copilot" and that 400 million users had become "AI users," while Microsoft responded that Word, Excel and PowerPoint remain unchanged and that only the Office hub was renamed earlier.

NetBlocks reported that Iran implemented a near‑total internet shutdown during nationwide protests, and rights groups reported dozens killed and thousands arrested. Undetermined at this time.

Morgan Stanley analyst Andrew Percoco told clients that Tesla retains a multi‑year advantage in autonomy despite Nvidia's CES demonstrations of Alpamayo, AlpaSim and related simulation and dataset tools aimed at speeding OEM development.

A How-To Geek writer reports that installing an Arch-based Linux distro (CatchyOS) and a tiling window manager revived an older PC, which now idles with low resource use and quiet fans; he also says he runs daily rolling updates with pacman to keep software current.

Malwarebytes reported that data linked to about 17.5 million Instagram accounts reappeared on a hacking forum in January 2026 and said the set traces back to a 2024 misconfigured Instagram API; Meta had not commented as of January 11, 2026.

A Public Interest Research Groups report found some chatbot-enabled toys gave inappropriate responses, prompting a temporary sales pause and software updates; exhibitors at CES emphasized careful design and privacy work.