Technology News

Microsoft updated the Xbox PC app for Xbox Insiders on Thursday, with launches up to 60 percent faster according to its internal testing. Home, Store and Game Pass pages each load up to 50 percent quicker, and windows open up to 65 percent faster. Search now covers games, installed titles, people and add-ons, while Friends moves into the main navigation. Microsoft said its refreshed Xbox web experience, previewed in January, will soon roll out to more players.

Today, OpenAI said its new cybersecurity model, ChatGPT Cyber, will be offered to the top tier of users in its Daybreak Red program. Earlier, the company said the model had identified 948 potential Linux kernel issues and 81 "novel" vulnerabilities in Firefox. Max Justicz, chief technology officer of Charge Robotics, used an OpenAI model to find a severe Ubuntu flaw in two hours and reported it to the Debian Project, which issued a patch.

Pew Research Center polled more than 3,400 U.S. adults in June and found they accept AI handling scheduling and patient notes but want humans involved in diagnosis. Almost half said they do not want AI deciding whether to accept or reject an insurance claim, and 41% oppose AI making a diagnosis on its own. Pew's Galen Stocking said 46% of respondents do not know whether AI has ever been used in their care.

Meta has made Muse Voice, which lets users call and video chat with its consumer AI agent Muse, available to everyone in the U.S., the company announced on Thursday. The feature was first introduced at Meta's Connect developer conference in September and is powered by Muse Realtime Avatar and Muse Realtime Voice models. Meta says the animated avatar, nicknamed Jolly, will use subtle expressions and gestures matching the conversation's tone, and users can customize its appearance.

NASA on Wednesday unveiled its newest experimental aircraft, the X-70 Fractal, at the UP.Summit at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The crewed research platform can carry up to 2,000 pounds of experimental payloads and has a takeoff weight of 10,000 pounds, with a design cruise speed of Mach .75 and altitudes of up to 45,000 feet. NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said he expects its first flight under the NASA banner within the next two years.

The U.S. government encouraged grocery stores, healthcare facilities and other businesses that use commercial refrigeration to tighten their security measures on Thursday following a series of cyberattacks that remotely changed the temperatures of commercial freezers and fridges across Europe.Five federal agencies issued a joint notice, warning of "ongoing cyber threat activity" that could target refrigeration systems used across healthcare, agriculture, transportation and other U.S. industries.

Google said on Tuesday that K-12 schools which block AI will also lose access to Google Search for their students. Its education vice president, Chris Phillips, said Search and AI are deeply integrated, so affected students will see a message that Search is unavailable. Gemini, Gemini Notebook and Search will be off by default for K-12 student accounts, and school administrators can turn each one on separately. The changes followed educator concerns that students use AI to shortcut schoolwork, and they are expected to roll out in early 2027. Senator Bernie Sanders called the policy extortion, and former FTC chair Lina Khan accused Google of using its search dominance to coerce schools. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani said no corporation should dictate how children are taught. Google says roughly 150 million students and teachers use its Classroom platform.

The New York Times reported Tuesday that some AI data centers are using rebuilt jet engines to generate their own power. Rystad Energy analyst Audun Martinsen said such units can get a facility running in 24 months, versus about seven years to hook up 100 megawatts to the grid in Northern Virginia, according to the International Energy Agency. The engines are less efficient and pollute more than conventional gas turbines, the Times said.

Google is making it easier for schools to restrict its A.I. tools for students, but schools that block A.I. entirely will lose student access to its search engine. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and other critics accuse Google of trying to pressure U.S. schools to use AI. After elected officials voiced outrage over search being turned off at schools that ban AI, the company said search can be turned back on with AI Overviews.

In an NPR interview, former Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer explained that her AI assistant Dazzle is for everyone, not only women. A New York Times profile published last week drew backlash over a Dazzle anecdote, though Mayer said context was missing. She said Dazzle accurately described her identical twins from photos, pulling up kindergarten projects from five years earlier.

Apple has released beta 1 of tvOS 27.3 to developers today, alongside the watchOS and iPadOS betas. Devices opted in to developer betas will see the new releases in the Software Update section of Settings, and public beta versions are not yet available. Apple shipped iOS 27.2, iPadOS 27.2 and macOS 27.2 to the public last week, and the watchOS 27.3 beta is expected to add Audio Intelligence features such as Siri Recap and Live Rewind for compatible Watch models.

In addition to the release of macOS 27.3 beta 1, Apple is also rolling out the first release candidates of macOS Sequoia 15.8.3 and macOS Tahoe 26.7.3. Here are the details.

Apple's iOS 27.3 beta 1 launched today with Reachability for iPhone Duo, after some owners complained the extra-wide outer display was hard to use one-handed. Unlike the downward shift on other iPhones, the Duo version moves the screen left or right after a short swipe, once enabled under Settings, Accessibility, Reachability. Apple has said iOS 27.3 will reach all users next month, with mid-December the most likely window.

Netflix is adding an experimental “AI Discover” tab to its TV app, offering themed recommendations such as “Something Light,” “Family Movie Night” and “Quick Watches.” The tab, which appears as “Discover” along the top menu, is gradually rolling out in the US to members who use Netflix in English on supported TVs.

On Tuesday, CrowdStrike unveiled a tool in its Falcon Guardian platform that cuts off rogue internal AI agents' network access and blocks them from relaunching. It does not delete agent code but uses connected AI gateways to cut access to the AI models that influence decisions, the company said. Chief Business Officer Daniel Bernard told CNBC that a human must still decide to cut an agent off.

In its annual financial filing on Tuesday, Apple said AI agents could threaten its business by exposing it to lawsuits or harming its reputation. The disclosure follows rogue agents breaking out of their sandboxes, including the Hugging Face incident, which has drawn renewed attention from policymakers in Washington, D.C. On Monday's earnings call, CEO John Ternus said Apple had 'real room' to expand Siri and cannot access users' private data on its devices.

Nvidia is notifying users this week that its RTX 50 Series graphics cards will rise in price again, as an AI-driven global memory shortage continues. The flagship RTX 5090 gets the biggest hike, a nearly $500 increase on an already $6,000 price tag at Best Buy, while the lower-end 5050 and 5060 rise by $50-60. Earlier RTX 40 and RTX 30 series cards are not directly affected, but AMD and Intel have made no immediate changes.

Apple today announced that any app can create Siri AI integrations for the first time, arriving in iOS 27.3 and macOS 27.3 and aligned releases. New app skills let apps teach Siri to coordinate complicated multi-step actions, such as a flight tracking app mapping the right app intents. With the 27.3 update, users often need not name the app, and the OS releases are in developer beta now.

Anthropic's message threads, on by default for most Claude Code users, make the tool a tad more responsive, according to ZDNET. Logs of roughly 980 turns showed Claude usually began responding about 3 seconds after each mid-task request in contexts of 500,000 tokens and up. Using Anthropic's reported 35% median time-to-first-token cut, the author estimated savings of 2 to 4 minutes per four-hour session, with no token-cost savings.

Adobe announced a partnership with Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group that lets Premiere mobile users add popular music to their videos in the app. Users can add up to 60 seconds of a track, which will be licensed for personal, non-commercial use, Adobe said. Adobe Stock Audio will stay available for commercially licensed projects, and no launch date has been given.