Tech Roundup: Instagram Your Algorithm, Netflix WBD Purchase & More

[A recurring feature on the latest in Science & Technology.]

• Substack reverts a feature that forced subscribers to download the app to read full newsletters after receiving complaints.
• Sam Altman's Tools for Humanity updates World to make it a "super app" with encrypted chat integration and a Venmo-like tool for sending and requesting cryptocurrency.
• Google's YouTube launches an option for U.S.-based creators to receive payouts in PayPal's stablecoin, PYUSD; YouTube TV plans to launch over 10 genre-specific, cheaper YouTube TV Plans in early 2026.
• A U.S. appeals court says Apple can charge reasonable commissions on external links to apps outside of the App Store that covers its necessary costs and intellectual property; can also restrict developers from making external links more prominent than in-app purchase options. (Epic Games has said that it will never agree to share revenue with Apple for external purchases linked from iOS apps.)
• OpenAI launches GPT-5.2, its "best model yet," in Instant, Thinking, and Pro variants, with significant improvements in writing, coding, and reasoning, and says GPT-5.2 Thinking hallucinates less than GPT-5.1 and has improved reliability for agentic AI needs; plans ChatGPT's "adult mode" for release in Q1 2026 once improved age prediction controls are in place.
• Epic Games' Fortnite returns to the Google Play Store in the U.S. following a U.S. district court injunction; comes after the two companies announced a settlement.
• Meta rolls out new missed call messages in WhatsApp, letting users leave voice or video notes in chats in the event the persona on the other end doesn't answer the call.
• Dutch payments group Mollie agrees to acquire London-based fintech GoCardless for €1.5 billion.
• Google brings Gemini to Chrome for iOS and iPadOS, after debuting on desktop and Android earlier in 2025, starting in the U.S. in English for signed-in users; says Gemini was Google's top trending search term in 2025.
• Uber launches its B2B logistics service Uber Direct in India with ONDC integration, starting in Bengaluru with grocery deliveries for Zepto and KPN Farm Fresh.
• Chipmaker Intel loses an a €376 million regulatory fine levied by the European Commission in connection with an antitrust case dating back to 2009 over allegations that the company used illegal hidden rebates to push rivals out of the PC processor market and paid manufacturers to delay or stop production of AMD-powered products, but manages to get the amount reduced to €237 million.
• Reddit starts a limited test of verified profiles, an opt-in feature that places a gray checkmark beside the usernames of notable people or businesses.
• ChatGPT becomes 2025's most downloaded free app in the U.S. iOS App Store, up from No. 4 in 2024, followed by Threads, Google, TikTok, WhatsApp and Instagram.
• Amazon brings same-day perishable grocery delivery to over 1,300 U.S. markets, upping the total service area to more than 2,300 locations, and expands the service's grocery offerings by more than 30% since its August launch.
• Google launches highlighted links from users' news subscriptions; pilots AI-powered overviews on some publications' Google News pages and says it's planning to update its AI-powered search feature, AI Mode, to include more in-line links to the sources it's pulling information from.
• Spotify begins testing a feature that lets a user write a prompt for a playlist and receive a unique set of songs based on the user's earlier behaviour.
• A number of U.S. states send a letter to Meta, Microsoft, Google, Apple and others warning their chatbots' "delusional outputs" could be violating state laws.
• Sei partners with Xiaomi to pre-install its crypto wallet and discovery app on all new Xiaomi phones sold outside mainland China and the U.S., starting in 2026.
• India's Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade releases a proposed framework that would give AI companies access to all copyrighted works for training in exchange for paying royalties to a new collecting body composed of rights-holding organizations.
• Google unveils Emergency Live Video, similar to iOS' Emergency SOS Live Video, letting U.S. users on Android 8 or later to share live video with 911 responders.
• NVIDIA rebuts a report from The Information that Chinese AI startup DeepSeek has been using smuggled Blackwell chips to develop its upcoming model; says it hasn't seen any substantiation. (There are also reports that NVIDIA has developed location verification technology that could determine which country its AI chips are operating in to address such concerns.)
• Google launches fully managed, remote MCP servers that allow AI agents simply plug into its tools, starting with Maps and BigQuery, with an aim to simplify integrations.
• Cursor launches Visual Editor, a vibe-coding product for designers that integrates professional design controls with natural language editing via Cursor's agent.
• Amazon plans to let authors offer their DRM-free ebooks in the EPUB and PDF formats through Kindle Direct Publishing, starting January 20, 2026.
• ByteDance TikTok launches a podcast series called TikTok in the Mix, featuring four 30-minute episodes streamed live on the platform; announces Shared Collection, to organise and share saved videos, and plans to launch Shared Feed, a daily curated selection of 15 videos, globally
• Figma adds more Photoshop-like AI tools for image editing, allowing users to quickly remove objects from an image, isolate objects so they can be repositioned and extend images beyond their previous dimensions.
• Meta's Instagram launches Your Algorithm, which shows users an AI analysis of their activity to let them customise the topics shaping their Reels recommendations.
• Google launches a cheaper AI Plus plan in India, costing ~$2.21 per month for the first six months and ~$4.44 thereafter, to compete with ChatGPT Go; unveils Workspace Studio, a no-code tool to create, design, manage, and share AI agents, for users on Business and Enterprise Workspace plans.
• Adobe launches free ChatGPT-integrated Photoshop, Acrobat, and Express apps on desktop, the web and iOS, after OpenAI added ChatGPT app integrations in October.
• Australia's under-16 social media ban currently excludes Discord, GitHub, LEGO Play, Roblox, Steam, Google Classroom, Messenger, WhatsApp and YouTube Kids.
• A new report from the Tech Transparency Project reveals that Apple's App Store and Google's Play Store host dozens of apps for U.S.-sanctioned companies; Google removes 17 and Apple removes 35 apps following disclosure.
• Google adds a long-overdue feature to Maps for iOS that automatically recognises where users parked their vehicle and saves the location for 48 hours.
• The U.K. government says porn traffic has now settled at a "lower level" since the start of age checks, adding VPN users rose to a peak of 1.4 million in mid-August and now stand at 900,000.
• The European Commission touts the benefits of the Digital Markets Act (DMA) after Apple and Google make it easier for users to switch between iPhone and Android smartphones, adding an option to transfer data from another smartphone during the device setup process.
• Google plans to release its AI-powered glasses next year, giving users screen-free assistance, turn-by-turn directions, communicate with Gemini and take photoes.
• The European Commission says it's investigating Google over its AI summaries; says it's examining if the company may have breached competition laws by using content from websites without compensating owners to generate answers for its AI summaries that appear above search results.
• Mistral launches Mistral 3 and Devstral 2 coding model, that latter of which is optimised for software engineering tasks; releases Mistral Vibe, a command-line interface (CLI) agent designed to allow developers to call the models up directly within their terminal environments.
• OpenAI agrees to buy Poland-based Neptune, which makes tools for analysing progress during AI model training, in an all-stock deal; tests training LLMs to produce "confessions," or self-report how they carried out a task and own up to bad behaviour, like appearing to lie or cheat.
• Russia's Roskomnadzor blocks access to Roblox, claiming that it is "rife with inappropriate content" and distributing extremist materials and "LGBT propaganda"; also blocks FaceTime in Russia, claiming the service is being used to organise and "carry out terrorist attacks in the country."
• Amazon adds an Alexa+ feature to Fire TV that lets Prime Video users skip to movie scenes using natural language descriptions, character names, or famous quotes.
• Reddit says the company is "moving away" from r/popular, the default feed for new users, and will replace it with more personalised feeds; launches new safety features globally for under-18s, like stricter chat settings, ahead of Australia's social media ban for under-16s from December 10, 2025.
• The European Commission opens an antitrust investigation into Meta's move to ban other AI companies from using WhatsApp's business tools to offer their own AI chatbots to users.
• Google rolls out Gemini 3 Deep Think to Google AI Ultra subscribers in the Gemini app, after saying in November it needed "extra time for safety evaluations"; tests merging AI Overviews with AI Mode.
• Ofcom fines AVS Group, which runs 18 adult sites, over £1 million under the OSA, the largest penalty so far, for not having robust age checks and failing to respond to information requests, and threatens action against a "major social media company."
• Meta launches a centralised support hub for Facebook and Instagram, with AI-powered search and an AI assistant to answer queries, in its iOS and Android apps.
• Google's cloud division partners with Replit to expand the use of Google's cloud offerings and AI models and to jointly support AI use cases for enterprise customers.
• Google debuts Titans, an architecture combining RNN speed with transformer performance for real-time learning, that's able to scale effectively to a 2 million context window.
• News studies suggest AI chatbots can shift political views more effectively than TV campaign ads, especially by presenting many claims, regardless of accuracy.
• Spotify rolls out music videos to Premium subscribers in the U.S. and Canada, following a beta launch in nearly 100 markets last year.
• Anthropic, OpenAI, Block, Google, AWS, Microsoft and others launch the Agentic AI Foundation to build open-source agent standards under the Linux Foundation.
• Google adds new pinch and wrist gestures to the Pixel Watch 4; says Watch 3 and Watch 4 will now use an on-device Gemma-based AI model for Smart Replies.
• Samsung's Galaxy XR gets beta support for Google's realistic avatar system for video calls, a Travel Mode and a built-in PC remote desktop feature.
• Anthropic and Accenture sign a three-year deal to sell AI services to businesses.
• Google Photos launches new video editing tools, including specialized templates with preset music and text overlays, as well as a redesigned video editor.
• The European Commission says Meta agreed to change its "pay or consent" model, including ad-light Instagram and Facebook versions, but emphasises "the case is not closed."
• Meta acquires Limitless, which makes a pendant-style AI wearable that records and transcribes real-world conversations.
• The E.U. fines X €120 million for breaching online content rules, the first fine under the DSA, citing issues like its deceptive blue checkmarks, after a two-year probe; X accuses the European Commission of trying to deceptively amplify the reach of its post about its €120M fine on X and its ad account.
• Netflix announces plans to to acquire Warner Bros Discovery's studios and streaming business in an $82.7 billion cash-and-stock deal; quietly removes support for casting from its mobile app to most modern TVs and streaming devices, including Chromecasts, regardless of subscription tier
• Anthropic launches a Slack integration for Claude Code, expanding on the existing Claude app for Slack; acquires development tool maker Bun, marking its first ever purchase.
• Uber launches Uber Intelligence, an insights platform that lets advertisers tap into Uber's data about customer trips and deliveries.
• OpenAI and Instacart launch a grocery shopping experience inside of ChatGPT, letting customers brainstorm meal ideas and check out via OpenAI Instant Checkout.
• Cloudflare says it blocked 416 billion AI scraping attempts in five months and warns that AI is reshaping the internet's economic model.
• The New York Times and Chicago Tribune sue Perplexity, claiming the AI startup violated their copyrights by unlawfully copying stories to power its tools; comes as Meta strikes commercial AI data deals with news publishers, including CNN, Fox News and The Daily Caller, to provide real-time answers in its Meta AI chatbot.
• TikTok rolls out a Nearby Feed to display local content in select countries to display even more relevant content to its users.
• Ireland investigates TikTok and LinkedIn over concerns that their illegal content reporting tools are hard to access and don't allow anonymous CSAM reporting.
• Bending Spoons acquires Eventbrite for about $500 million in an all-cash deal, following its $1.38 billion acquisition of Vimeo in September and its pending acquisition of AO.L
• Google debuts Android 16 QPR2, a minor update expanding features for notifications, icons and calling screens, marking the end of annual Android releases; tests AI-generated headlines in its Discover feed for Android devices and brings AI-powered notification summaries to more Android devices.
• Spotify releases Wrapped 2025, which adds features like Wrapped Party, its first live interactive experience, Top Song Quiz, Listening Age and Wrapped Clubs; YouTube launches Recap, which lets users review their most notable video habits over the past year.
• Uber partners with Avride to launch robotaxi rides in Dallas, marking Uber's fourth U.S. city to offer autonomous ride options, after Phoenix, Austin and Atlanta.
• Amazon launches Trainium3, saying the AI chip is 4x faster than Trainium2 and can cut AI training and operating costs by up to 50% compared to equivalent GPUs; AWS launches DevOps Agent, an AI-enabled tool designed to help clients quickly identify root causes of outages and implement fixes.
• Amazon launches second generation of its Nova AI models, including Nova Lite, Nova Pro, Nova Sonic and Nova Omni, a fully multimodal reasoning model; unveils Nova Forge, a $100,000/year service allowing clients to customise Amazon's AI models at various stages of training and refine open-weight models.
• Amazon launches AWS AI Factories, which lets customers deploy AWS infrastructure, including AWS Trainium chips and Nvidia GPUs, in their existing data centers; showcases three frontier agents, Kiro autonomous agent, AWS Security Agent and AWS DevOps Agent, each focused on a different aspect of software development.
• AWS and Google Cloud announce a jointly built multi-cloud networking solution and a new open interoperability spec; AWS plans a rollout with Azure later in 2026.
• Discord lets users buy, wishlist and gift in-game cosmetic items directly within its platform, starting with a store within Marvel Rivals' Discord server.
• Chinese short-video company Kuaishou launches Kling Video O1, claiming it is the first multimodal AI model to unify video generation, editing and post-production.
• Samsung unveils the Galaxy Z TriFold with a 6.5" outer screen, a 10" inner screen, a Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy SoC and a 3.9mm body at its thinnest point.
• DeepSeek releases DeepSeek-V3.2 and DeepSeek-V3.2-Speciale, which it calls "reasoning-first models built for agents."
• China's central bank reaffirms its stance on crypto, calling virtual currency activity illegal and saying stablecoins fail KYC and anti-money-laundering rules.
• New York becomes the first U.S. state to require that retailers disclose using algorithmic pricing tied to personal data.
• Apple announces availability of Tap to Pay on iPhone in Hong Kong and Singapore; adds Klarna as a buy-now, pay-later option when using Apple Pay in France and Italy, after bringing it to the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Denmark, Spain and Sweden.
• Meta confirms it's using AI to generate titles for Instagram posts that appear in search engine results to help "people better understand the content that was shared" without their knowledge or explicit consent.
• OpenAI says it's disabled ad-like app promotions in ChatGPT following outcry;
• Adobe launches content creation hub in Premiere mobile for YouTube Shorts creators, as YouTube expands tool that lets all creators with access to advanced features to test how different titles perform on their videos.
• A U.S. court rules Google must renegotiate annually any contract that makes its search engine or AI app the default on smartphones and other devices as the antitrust case moves to the remedies phase.
• Fairphone updates its over ear Fairbuds XL headphones with better sound.
• iFixit announces the launch of a new iFixit app that's available to download from Apple's App Store, offering repair guides in a format that's more suited for mobile devices and AI AI repair buddy called FixBot.
• Google extends free repairs to cover known Pixel 9 Pro and Pro Fold issues; adds the option to schedule message in Google Chat.
• Klarna launches KlarnaUSD, its first stablecoin, running on Stripe and Paradigm's Tempo blockchain, aiming to "reduce costs" in international payment.
• The E.U. Parliament backs a report that sets a 16+ age limit for accessing social media without parental consent and holds CEOs personally liable for violations.
• Steam adds support for Google's now-discontinued Stadia gamepad, allowing users to turn into a controller when playing games.