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2026 will bring new chips and further software improvements. But competition is heating up too.
Several polls from Gallup and Pew reveal that voters overwhelmingly view the rise of AI as a net negative:
There is hardly any issue that polls lower than unchecked AI development among Americans. Gallup polling showed that 80 percent of American adults think the government should regulate AI, even if it means growing more slowly.
And much like their MAGA populist counterparts, Democrats are beginning to take notice.
In case you missed it over the holiday weekend, our friends over at MKBHD put together a cool explainer on transistors, semiconductors, Moore’s Law, and how remarkably tiny our electronics have become. It’s all useful info, but the production quality is just *chef’s kiss.* (The Epic Spaceman video Marques shouts out at the end is also very much worth a watch.)
The company has added five sneakers to its Minecraft collection that launched alongside the movie, earlier this year. The new additions include Minecraft themed versions of the Adidas Samba XLG, Campus 00s, Superstar II, Handball Spezial, and Adilette slides which are all available now in youth sizes for $40 to $95.
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As Framework announces its second price hike tied to rising RAM costs, it’s worth taking a moment to give Apple its dues — it was hiking up memory prices long before it was cool.
Akarain8:
If this carries on Apple’s RAM pricing will start to look merely ‘overpriced’.
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We love a good robot-kicking video here at The Verge. One example from EngineAI had so many people convinced of CGI fakery that the Chinese robotics company released “BTS footage” and a video of its CEO being kicked by the robot to prove it’s real. I’m entertained, but unconvinced.
Nvidia has built an empire on circular deals for chips. Can anything knock it down?
When Microsoft was first developing the Surface Duo, it was originally intended to run a Windows 10-based OS code-named Andromeda that looked a lot like Windows Phone. Of course, the company ended up canning those plans, opting to make the Duo Android-based instead.
But you can now get your hands on an unstable build of Andromeda and see what might have been.
James Moylan passed away on December 11th at the age of 80. Moylan spent 34 years at Ford, where, according to Jalopnik, he came up with the “Moylan Arrow” in April 1986. The tiny arrow that helps you avoid pulling up on the wrong side of the fuel pump is so simple that it seems like it could have been there from the start, but it actually made its debut on the 1989 Ford Escort and Mercury Tracer.
The robot. His groin. It works on so many levels. Roll it again.
In June, the New York state legislature passed a bill requiring social media companies to display warnings about the potential mental health harms of using their products. Now the governor has officially signed the bill into law. The announcement of the signing says that:
To combat the mental health risks of using harmful features of social media platforms that prolong use, this legislation will require social media companies to display warning labels on their platforms when a young user initially uses the predatory feature and periodically thereafter, based on continued use.
[Governor Kathy Hochul]
There’s a proposal making the rounds in California to levy a 5 percent wealth tax on anyone worth more than $1 billion. The proposal isn’t guaranteed to make it to the ballot next year. Just like when Zohran Mamdani was elected mayor of New York, lots of the ultra-wealthy are having a hissy fit. But it seems highly unlikely that Larry Page is going to take his $258 billion (more than the GDP of most countries) and leave his longtime home for the corn fields of Nebraska. The New York Times points out that:
The potential wealth tax is under debate as the income divide in the United States becomes increasingly stark. Recent data from the Congressional Budget Office showed that income inequality increased over a 33-year period ending in 2022, with the share of wealth held by families in the top 10 percent at around 69 percent, while the share held by families in the bottom 50 percent at just 3 percent.
Just like writing cursive, it seems that reading an old-school analog clock is the sort of skill that has fallen by the wayside in our smartphone age. That lapse was revealed when NYC public schools instituted a smartphone ban. The education department says students are taught to read a clock in first and second grade, but if it’s not a skill they’re using regularly, it could atrophy. According to Gothamist:
Kris Perry, executive director of Children and Screens: Institute of Digital Media and Child Development, said it makes sense that teens who have grown up in a fully digital environment haven’t had to practice analog clock-reading. She said the question is whether the shift amounts to a “a cognitive downgrade or just a replacement.”
She noted that brain scans have shown that holding books and handwriting generally lead to more brain activity than reading and typing on screens.
Samsung’s three-panel foldable phone won’t be officially available in the US until next year, but it’s already hit the YouTuber’s durability test table. Its thin frame (that’s different sizes across all three sections) doesn’t deal well with being bent the wrong way, even if Samsung’s hinge technology is pretty resilient, but... it didn’t explode.
Press play for a peek at the test results and a look at all three internal battery cells.
John Madden, that is, filling the shoes of the legendary NFL coach and commentator, in David O. Russell’s upcoming biopic for Prime Video. There’s only the briefest still of a video game shown in this short teaser trailer, and a quick glimpse of John Mulaney as EA exec Trip Hawkins.
Madden is scheduled for release on Thanksgiving Day, 2026.
On Thursday, Trust Wallet announced a “security incident” affecting version 2.68 of its Chrome extension. Binance founder Changpeng Zhao confirmed that Trust Wallet “will cover” the losses and that the team is investigating the hack.
Most of us have been rolling our eyes at the (likely illegally) renamed The Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts. But Toby Morton, a comedian who has written for Mad TV and South Park, saw the move coming and snatched up trumpkennedycenter.org and trumpkennedycenter.com a while back. Morton told the Washington Post:
“As soon as Trump began gutting the Kennedy Center board earlier this year, I thought, ‘Yep, that name’s going on the building.’”
A report from The Washington Post reveals Meta’s recent push to attract more teens to Instagram, which reportedly involved setting up a “living museum” inside its offices “to help employees internalize the lifestyles of their teenage targets:”
In at least one case it featured photos of top teen hangout places — a fast-food restaurant and a mall — and instructions on how to take wacky, teen-style selfies, according to photos of the exhibit.
[The Washington Post]
According to Not A Tesla App, one owner shared a service message saying there’s an Engineering Investigation ongoing, and some service staff have said a third revision of the wiper is in testing.
The extra-long blade apparently has issues with improper stowage at high speeds, contact issues that leave the windshield dirty, and problems spraying wiper fluid, even after a software update. Also, Bloomberg reports NHTSA is expanding its investigation into passenger-trapping Tesla door handles to include Model 3 vehicles, along with the Model Y.
[Not a Tesla App]
