|
 This week's best Apple deals include big discounts on AirTag, AirPods Max, and Mac mini. We're also tracking great sitewide sales at Satechi, Samsung, and Best Buy, with discounts on everything from Mac-compatible monitors to TVs, headphones, and more.
|
|
 OpenAI plans to start testing ads inside of ChatGPT "in the coming weeks." In a blog post published Friday, the company said adult users in the US of its free and Go tiers (more on the latter in a moment) would start seeing sponsored products and services appear below their conversations with its chatbot. "Ads will be clearly labeled and separated from the organic answer," OpenAI said, adding any sponsored spots would not influence the answers ChatGPT generates. "Answers are optimized based on what's most helpful to you."
OpenAI says people won't see ads appear when they're talking to ChatGPT about sensitive subjects like their health, mental state of mind or current politics. The company also won't show ads to teens under the age of 18. As for privacy, OpenAI states it won't share or sell your data with advertisers. The company will also give users the option to disable ad personalization and clear the data it uses to generate sponsored responses. "We'll always offer a way to not see ads in ChatGPT, including a paid tier that's ad-free," OpenAI adds. Users can dismiss ads, at which point they'll be asked to explain why they didn't engage with it.
Users will be able to ask follow-up questions about sponsored content. OpenAI"Given what AI can do, we're excited to develop new experiences over time that people find more helpful and relevant than any other ads. Conversational interfaces create p
|
|
 Apple's foldable iPhone will share the same next-generation A20 Pro chip as the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max models when it debuts this September, according to industry analyst Jeff Pu.
|
|
You have the best chance to save on streaming services during the holiday shopping season, but throughout the year, the occasional deal pops up that's worth considering. Case in point: this new Disney deal. New and eligible returning subscribers can sign up for the Disney Hulu bundle (with ads) for $10 for one month of access. That's $3 off the usual price of the bundle for one month, and more than 58 percent off if you consider the cost of each service individually (Disney at $12 per month and, separately, Hulu also at $12 per month).
We'd be remiss if we didn't mention that this isn't quite as good as the Black Friday deal we saw last year, which offered the same bundle for $5 per month for one year. However, if you missed that offer or just want to try out Disney and Hulu for a brief period of time, this is a good way to do so.
Disney and Hulu make one of the most balanc
|
|
 Apple increasingly has to compete with other companies for chips made by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), as surging demand for artificial intelligence reshapes capacity and customer priority.
|
|
 OpenAI today announced that its lower-priced ChatGPT Go subscription tier is now available worldwide, with U.S. pricing set at $8 per month.
|
|
On this year's first episode of The MacRumors Show, we take a look at CES 2026, Apple Creator Studio, and the confirmation that Google Gemini will power the next-generation version of Siri.
|
|
You know things are messed up when a Big Tech company fights accusations of union-busting by insisting it was only AI layoffs. That's where things stand after a group of fired TikTok moderators in the UK filed a legal claim with an employment tribunal. The Guardian reported on Friday that around 400 TikTok content moderators who were unionizing were laid off before Christmas.
The workers were sacked a week before a vote was scheduled to establish a collective bargaining unit. The moderators said they wanted better protection against the personal toll of processing traumatic content at a high speed. They accused TikTok of unfair dismissal and violating UK trade union laws.
"Content moderators have the most dangerous job on the internet," John Chadfield, the national officer for tech workers at the Communication Workers Union (CWU), said in a statement to The Guardian. "They are exposed to the child sex abuse material, executions, war and drug use. Their job is to make sure this content doesn't reach TikTok's 30 million monthly users. It is high pressure and low paid. They wanted input into their workflows and more say over how they kept the platform safe. They said they were being asked to do too much with too few resources."
TikTok denied that the firings were union-busting, calling the accusations "baseless." Instead, the company claimed the layoffs were part of a restructuring plan amid its adoption of AI for content moderation. The company said 91 percent of transgressive content is now removed automatically.
The company first announced a restructuring exercise in August, just as hundre
|
|
Meta is killing the standalone Workrooms app on February 16, 2026. The company presented Workrooms as a virtual reality space where teams can meet and collaborate in an immersive environment when it launched the product. Now Meta says its Horizon platform has evolved enough to support "a wide range of productivity apps and tools," so it "made the decision to discontinue Workrooms as a standalone app."
The company recently slashed its spending on the metaverse and started the process to lay off more than 1,000 employees from its Reality Labs division. Due to those layoffs and organizational changes, it
|
|
Gone are the days in which you needed to spend a fortune to get a good smartphone. In 2026, features once exclusive to high-end smartphones - big batteries, multi-camera arrays, high refresh rate OLED displays and more - have made their way down to more affordable models. Yes, you'll still need to buy a flagship smartphone to get the best camera or fastest processor, but you don't have to make nearly as many compromises as you once did if you have a strict budget to adhere to when you go shopping for your next smartphone. If you have less than $600 to spend, let us help you figure out what features to prioritize when trying to find the best midrange smartphone.
Table of contents
Best midrange phones in 2026
What is a midrange phone?
What to consider before buying a midrange smartphone
What won't you get from a midrange phone
Best midrange phones for 2026
|
|
After a tumultuous 2025 that saw it lose around 4,000 employees, NASA finally has an operating budget for 2026, and one that largely preserves its scientific capabilities. On Thursday, the Senate passed an appropriations bill funding NASA, alongside the National Science Foundation and a handful of other federal agencies.
Going into the appropriations process, the president called for a 24 percent year over year reduction to NASA's total operating budget. As part of that plan, the White House wanted to reduce the Science Mission Directorate's funding by nearly half, a move that would have forced NASA to cancel 55 ongoing and planned missions, including efforts like OSIRIS-APEX. The bill effectively rejects President Trump's plan, reducing NASA's total operating budget by just 1.6 percent year over year to $24.4 billion.
Per the new appropriations, NASA's science budget will stand at $7.25 billion, 1.1 percent less relative to fiscal 2024, while shuffling the remaining funds to focus on different priorities. For instance, the House and Senate allocated $874 million ( 8.7 percent) for the agency's heliophysics work; planetary sciences, which oversees missions like New Horizons, was cut to $2.5 billion (-6.5 percent) compared to 2024. At the same time, NASA's STEM engagement office, which the president proposed eliminating, escaped unscathed with its funding maintained at parity.
"It's almost everything we had been asking for, and it's very encouraging to see a House and Sen
|
|
 While the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max are not expected to launch for another eight months, there are already plenty of rumors about the devices.
|
|
 A British hobbyist has applied multicopter drone thinking to radically simplify the steering and powertrain of his high-performance radio-control car - and absolutely demolished the world top speed record in the process.
Continue Reading
Automotive, Transport
|
|
What's not a given is paying full retail price. Yep, you can snag discounts on Windows 11. How much you'll save depends on your circumstances (and your stomach for hassle), but if you're lucky, you could technically get it for free. Legitimately for free, since installing Windows without ever activating it doesn't count as a full, sanctioned copy of the software. (Ahem.)
Here's how, in several different ways. These strategies often apply for Windows 10 licenses too, but that operating system got the axe on October 14. Your better bet will be Windows 11, as it'll get feature updates.
Simple upgrade: Trade up from Windows 10 to Windows 11
|
|
