Tech

Disney’s extraordinarily expensive Star Wars hotel isn’t coming back. The building that housed the Galactic Starcruiser is being converted into office space, scuppering hopes that it could be reborn or repurposed into a new interactive attraction. The Wrap reports that the hotel will be converted into an office for Walt Disney Imagineering, the creative arm […]

Midnight Society, the game studio co-founded by Dr Disrespect (real name Herschel “Guy” Beahm) has shut down, killing the first-person shooter title it was developing. The studio made “significant” layoffs in September after terminating its relationship with the controversial streamer in June due to “inappropriate” messages he exchanged with a minor.  Within hours of the […]

Google announced Thursday that the Gemini app is getting its Gemini 2.0 Flash AI model. The upgraded model “delivers fast responses and stronger performance across a number of key benchmarks, providing everyday help with tasks like brainstorming, learning or writing,” the company said in a post. The change is rolling out to Gemini’s web and […]

Moments after Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s all-hands comments to employees were widely leaked, a company executive warned in an internal memo that leakers will be fired. “We take leaks seriously and will take action,†Meta’s chief information security officer, Guy Rosen, said in an internal memo I’ve seen. “When information is stolen or leaked, there […]

Amazon has raised the price of its Music Unlimited service in the US, Canada, and the UK, as reported by The Hollywood Reporter. In an update on its website, Amazon says it’s raising the price for Prime members from $9.99 to $10.99 per month (or $99 to $109 / year), while the plan for non-Prime […]

Federal Communications Chair Brendan Carr has ordered investigations into NPR and PBS with the goal of slashing the money given to the government-funded organizations, The New York Times reports.  The investigations are ostensibly about PBS and NPR’s member stations’ sponsorships, according to a letter from Carr obtained by the Times. “I am concerned that NPR […]

LG is adding Google Cast support to its range of hotel TVs, making it easier to stream content from your phone or other devices. Cast joins existing support for Apple Airplay, and LG is the first manufacturer to offer both options on its hotel TVs. If you stay in a hotel room with a compatible […]

The Authors Guild — one of the largest associations of writers in the US — has launched a new project that allows authors to certify that their book was written by a human, and not generated by artificial intelligence. The Guild says its “Human Authored” certification aims to make it easier for writers to “distinguish […]

Nearly everyone seems to be suddenly freaking out about the rise of DeepSeek. Meta isn’t worried, though. That was CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s message to investors during his company’s fourth-quarter earnings call on Wednesday. During the Q&A portion of the call with Wall Street analysts, Zuckerberg fielded multiple questions about DeepSeek’s impressive AI models and what […]

Kia’s electric vehicles will get Tesla Supercharger access “sometime in March 2025,” the company announced in a statement. Kia EVs, including the EV6 and EV9, were scheduled to get Supercharger access in January using NACS to CCS1 adapters, but that has been delayed. Kia’s sister company, Hyundai, is beginning to ship new 2025 model year […]

Garmin has shared new ways to fix its smartwatches that are stuck on the “blue triangle of death,†and says it has resolved the underlying issue causing a boot-up error that’s been stopping owners from using their watches. The steps should get more watches working again — but some models will lose data in the process. […]