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 Apple is working on a smart home hub that will rely heavily on the more capable version of Siri that's coming next year. We've heard quite a bit about the hub over the last two years, but a recent iOS 26 code leak provides additional insight into what we can expect and confirms rumored features.
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This morning Disney and OpenAI announced a three-year licensing agreement: Starting in 2026, ChatGPT and Sora can generate images and videos incorporating Disney IP, including more than 200 characters from the company's stable of Star Wars, Pixar and Marvel brands. To say these companies make for strange bedfellows is an understatement.
The agreement brings together two parties with very different public stances on copyright. Before OpenAI released Sora, the company reportedly notified studios and talent agencies they would need to opt out of having their work appear in the new app. The company later
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 Apple today released new firmware designed for the AirPods Pro 3 and the prior-generation AirPods Pro 2. The ?AirPods Pro 3? firmware is 8B30, up from 8B25, while the AirPods Pro 2 firmware is 8B28, up from 8B21.
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OpenAI's "code red" response to Google's Gemini 3 Pro has arrived. On the same day the company announced a Sora licensing pact with Disney, it took the wraps off GPT-5.2. OpenAI is touting the new model as its best yet for real-world, professional use. "It's better at creating spreadsheets, building presentations, writing code, perceiving images, understanding long contexts, using tools, and handling complex, multi-step projects," said OpenAI.
In a series of 10 benchmarks highlighted by OpenAI, GPT-5.2 Thinking, the most advanced version of the model, outperformed its GPT-5.1 counterpart, sometimes by a significant margin. For example, in AIME 2025, a test that involves 30 challenging mathematics problems, the model earned a perfect 100 percent score, beating out GPT-5.1's already state-of-the-art score of 94 perfect. It also achieved that feat without turning to tools like web search. Meanwhile, in ARC-AGI-1, a benchmark that tests an AI system's ability to reason abstractly like a human being would, the new system beat GPT-5.1's score by more than 10 percentage points.
OpenAI says GPT-5.2 Thinking is better at answering questions factually, with the company finding it produces errors 30 percent less frequently. "For professionals,
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 The AirTag 2 will include a handful of new features that will improve tracking capabilities, according to a new report from Macworld. The site says that it was able to access an internal build of iOS 26, which includes references to multiple unreleased products.
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Why have one Star Wars game announcement at an edition of The Game Awards when you can have two? Star Wars: Galactic Racer is a podracing (and speeder racing) game from Fuse Games, a studio established in 2023 by former Burnout and Need for Speed developers. It's scheduled to hit PS5, Xbox Series X/S and PC in 2026.
The action here is set after the fall of the Empire. With the galaxy in rebuild mode after dealing with that whole mess, an unsanctioned, underground racing circuit called the Galactic League comes into being in the Outer Rim. Here, according to the game's Steam page, "syndicates bankroll chaos and champions are forged."
Star Wars: Galactic Racer is run-based, so if your podracer blows up, it might be game over. The action takes place across well-known Star Wars planets in addition to some new ones. The races have branching routes and you'll unlock new abilities on each run.
There's a story-driven, single-player campaign, as well as PvP modes. The vehicles are customizable too. Dig it. Where do I sign up, Watto?
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/star-wars-galactic-racer
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 Google is rolling out Gemini integration for its Chrome browser on iPhone and iPad, a move that brings AI feature parity with its web and desktop versions.
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Epic Games has spent a lot of time in court over the past several years, but it seems the company's litigious era may be winding down. The company announced today that its game Fortnite is back on the Google Play mobile store in the US. Fortnite's return to Android devices means Epic's popular hit is now available on just about every gaming platform following five years of arguing antitrust lawsuits.
Epic took both Google and Apple to court over their policies for mobile payment systems back in 2020. The gaming company has been successful on the whole in its challenges, most recently reaching a settlement with Google in November. The companies agreed to a modified version of the order US District Judge James Donato originally placed on Google regarding fees charged to developers and handling of in-app payments and third-party billing systems.
The same saga unfolded earlier this year with Apple. US Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers also sided with Epic Games in May, ordering Apple to stop collecting commissions on purchases made outside its own App Store. After a bit of back and forth, Fortnite finally
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This year at The Game Awards, if your game wasn't melodramatic, mechanically innovative, beautifully presented and aggressively French, it didn't stand a chance. The Game Awards 2025 wrapped up on the evening of Thursday, December 11 with a record-breaking showing by Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 from Sandfall Interactive. The game received the most nominations and wins in the show's 12-year history.
But, we know that's not really why you're here. Between the award presentations and musical numbers, there were heaps of new game trailers, announcements and updates, and we've collected them all for you right here. The award winners are also there.
NewsCapcom's Pragmata is coming your way on April 24
Bradley the Badger looks like Wreck-It Ralph as a real video game
Star Wars: Fate of the Old Republic is a new action RPG from the director of Mass Effect and KOTOR
Larian Studios is returning to the Divinity series with... Divinity
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Apple and Samsung have put plenty of health and fitness features into their latest flagship watches. Here is how they compare.
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If the system holds out long-term, it could significantly boost AI development in China.
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NEW RESOURCES Scientific Data: Mapping Climate Extremes and Infrastructure Vulnerability: A New Database for U.S. Railroads . "The resulting dataset provides railroad segment-level assignments of hazard exposure across the continental U.S. from […]
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Many of the big announcements at The Game Awards are for completely new projects, some of which are total surprises (if you had an Okami sequel on your bingo card last year, you're either in the know or probably used up all your luck for the next few years). We'll often get updates on games that were previously announced too. The trailer for Order of the Sinking Star is something a little different, as it's a game that Braid designer Jonathan Blow has been working on fairly openly since releasing The Witness in 2016.
The trailer revealed some new details, including confirmation of the expected title and a release window (2026 on Steam, with more platforms to be announced). Ahead of The Game Awards, Blow gave Engadget a preview of the game and explained some of its many complexities.
Fundamentally, Order of the Sinking Star is a grid-based puzzle game in which you'll move blocks around to complete an objective. You might know of this as a Sokoban game, named after the series Hiroyuki Imabayashi created about pushing boxes around a warehouse.
But this is a Jonathan Blow game, so nothing stays too simple for very long. Blow and his team took
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 Apple is actively testing under-screen Face ID for next year's iPhone 18 Pro models using a special "spliced micro-transparent glass" window built into the display, claims a Chinese leaker.
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