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 We have our first Apple product announcement of 2026, and it's a software subscription known as Apple Creator Studio featuring Apple's video, audio, and image editing apps, as well as some AI-powered features and premium content for iWork apps and Freeform.
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California Attorney General Rob Bonta has sent a cease and desist letter to xAI, days after his office launched an official investigation into the company over reports that Grok was generating nonconsensual
If you'll recall, xAI and Grok have been under fire for taking images of real individuals and putting them in revealing clothing like bikinis upon random users' requests.
Bonta's office demands that xAI immediately cease and desist from creating "digitized sexually explicit material" when the depicted individual didn't consent to it or if the individual is a minor. It also demanded that xAI stop "facilitating or aiding and abetting the creation… or publication of digitized sexually explicit material" of nonconsenting individuals and persons under 18 years of age.
X changed its policies after the issue broke out and prevented the Grok account from being able to edit images of real people into revealing clothing. xAI also moved Grok's image-generating features behind a paywall and geoblocked paying users' ability to edit images of real people into bikinis, but only in regions where it's illegal.
In his announcement, Bonta said xAI developed a "spicy mode" for Grok to generate explicit content and used it as a marketing point. The California AG also said that Grok-generated sexual images are being used to harass both public figures and ordinary users. "Most alarmingly, news reports hav
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In another attempt to reduce our attention spans to mush, TikTok has released the PineDrama app, which offers serialized drama series that are roughly a minute per episode. As first spotted by Business Insider, the app is designed exactly like TikTok, but instead of trendy dance videos, you can scroll through and watch "micro dramas."
For those new to the category, micro dramas are bite-sized TV shows shot in vertical video and available in minute-long episodes. Don't expect any nominations for Best Original Screenplay with series like The Officer Fell For Me or Married to my past life's nemesis, since they typically offer soap opera vibes with cliffhangers that keep users scrolling to the next episode. The app is designed to keep people on it with a Discover tab, a place to save favorites and the ability to react in real time alongside other viewers.
Right now, the micro dramas on PineDrama are all free to watch and don't have any ads. It's unclear if TikTok will introduce any costs or ads to the app, since other micro drama options like DramaBox or ReelShort have a paid structure. Late last year, TikTok also introduced a way to watch micro dramas within its own app, with a section called
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We now have some idea of what's at stake in the longstanding feud between Elon Musk and OpenAI. As first reported by Bloomberg, the latest filing, as part of a lawsuit that accuses the AI giant of abandoning its non-profit status, claims that Musk is owed anywhere between $79 billion and $134 billion in damages from the "wrongful gains" of OpenAI and Microsoft.
Musk claimed in the filing that he's entitled to a portion of OpenAI's recent valuation at $500 billion, after contributing $38 million in "seed funding" during the AI company's startup years. Along with providing "roughly 60 percent of the nonprofit's seed funding," Musk offered recruiting of key employees, introductions with business contacts and startup advice, according to the filing. The monetary estimate comes from C. Paul Wazzan, a financial economist who's serving as Musk's expert in the case. According to Wazzan's calculations, OpenAI earned between $65.5 billion and $109.43 billion in wrongful gains, while Microsoft saw between $13.3 billion and $25.06 billion.
The lawsuit between Elon Musk and OpenAI dates back to March 2024, when the xAI CEO first filed a legal action claiming that OpenAI violated its non-profit status. Musk later added Microsoft as
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Commentary: It's a young category, but foldable phones are sure to make a bigger impact this year.
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 Apple recently announced that its environmental chief Lisa Jackson would be retiring this month, and today she was removed from the company's leadership page.
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NEW RESOURCES New-to-me, from Maps Mania: War Atlas: Mapping 3,500 Years of Conflict. "War Atlas is an interactive, web-based map that visualizes 8,500 historical battles spanning from around 1500 BC to the […]
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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.
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 Last year, the Unicode Consortium previewed some of the new emoji that are expected to be added to the iPhone with iOS 26.4 in March or April.
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 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.
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As part of a new agreement, films from Sony Pictures Entertainment will stream on Netflix first, the companies announced via a joint statement. The new deal expands on the exclusive rights Netflix had to Sony films in the US, and means the service will be the first place people will be able to stream upcoming projects like the live-action adaptation of The Legend of Zelda, and a quartet of biopics about The Beatles.
Sony's films will stream worldwide on Netflix in what's called "Pay-1," the first window of availability after a movie's theatrical and VOD releases. As part of the deal, Netflix is also licensing an undisclosed number of films and television shows from the Sony Pictures back catalog to help fill out its library. Netflix says the new arrangement "will roll out gradually" as licensing rights become available throughout the year, with full availability happening sometime in 2029. Neither company shared how long this new setup will last, but did describe the deal as a "multi-year agreement."
Netflix and Sony's partnership has been fruitful so far. Films like Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, Uncharted and Anyone But You have had popular second lives on the streaming service. In the
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 Apple is confronting a newly intensified supply-chain challenge for future chips as the AI boom has created a global shortage of a key material, Nikkei Asia reports.
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 2026 could be a bumper year for Apple's Mac lineup, with the company expected to announce as many as four separate MacBook launches. Rumors suggest Apple will court both ends of the consumer spectrum, with more affordable options for students and feature-rich premium lines for users that seek the highest specifications from a laptop.
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AI will play a significant role in enterprise IT in the coming year, and the influence of generative AI will permeate other tech trends on the horizon. Smart robots, a rise in employee unionization, and growing power-availability concerns are among the top predictions for 2024 and beyond from research firm Gartner, which is hosting its annual IT Symposium/Xpo this week.
"This is the first full year with generative AI (GenAI) at the heart of every strategic decision, and every other technology-driven innovation has been pushed out of the spotlight," said Leigh McMullen, distinguished vice president analyst at Gartner. "GenAI has broken the mold and has kept building more excitement."
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