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 Apple is reportedly preparing to begin trial production of the iPhone 18 after Chinese New Year, according to Weibo-based leaker Fixed Focus Digital.
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 Italy's Competition Authority (AGCM) has imposed a €98.6 million ($116 million) fine on Apple over its App Tracking Transparency feature.
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Paramount Skydance isn't giving up on obtaining Warner Bros. Discovery just yet. The company has amended its $108 billion offer to include Larry Ellison's "irrevocable personal guarantee" equaling $40.4 billion. Ellison is the founder or Oracle and a backer of Skydance, created by his son David Ellison, Paramount Skydance's CEO.
On December 17, WBD formally recommended shareholders reject Paramount's offer. WBD had already accepted an $82.7 billion offer from Netflix, set to close some time next year following regulatory approval. "[The board] has unanimously determined that the tender offer launched by Paramount Skydance on December 8, 2025 is not in the best interests of WBD and its shareholders and does not meet the criteria of a 'Superior Proposal' under the terms of WBD's merger agreement with Netflix announced on December 5, 2025," WBD stated.
The Paramount deal included backing by sovereign wealth funds in places like Saudi Arabia and Qatar. But the Ellisons previously said that, if the other funders dropped out, they would "backstop the full amount of the bid." That wasn't enough of a guarantee for WBD.
Now, Paramount has returned with the irrevocable personal guarantee and an agreement tha
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Instacart has announced it will be ending price testing on its platform. This comes after a study published earlier this month revealed pricing experiments that led to some customers seeing higher prices than others and the FTC saying last week it would be investigating the grocery delivery app.
"Effective immediately, Instacart is ending all item price tests on our platform. Retailers will no longer be able to use Eversight technology to run item price tests on Instacart," an Instacart spokesperson shared with Engadget. The blog post called out "misconceptions and misinformation," maintaining that these price experiments wer
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Vinylly seeks to rebuild the dating playbook by revealing what music you listen to and how it can bring people together in meaningful ways.
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Several of Waymo's autonomous vehicles were seen stuck in the middle of San Francisco streets following a significant power outage that took out the city's traffic lights. Waymo responded to the power outage by suspending its ride-hailing services in the city, but images and videos on social media showed the self-driving taxis stopped at intersections with hazard lights on.
"We have temporarily suspended our ride-hailing services in the San Francisco Bay Area due to the widespread power outage," Suzanne Philion, a spokesperson for Waymo, told Engadget in an email. "Our teams are working diligently and in close coordination with city officials, and we are hopeful to bring our services back online soon."
The power outage was attributed to a fire at one of Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E)'s substations. The incident began sometime on Saturday morning, which PG&E said affected approximately 130,000 customers. As of Sunday morning, the Californian power company said its crews have restored power to about 110,000 of those customers, while working on the remaining 21,000 customer
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OpenAI gave its AI chatbot a professional makeover with the latest GPT-5.2 release, and some users are already complaining about its tone. For anyone who's finding ChatGPT rude or sassy, OpenAI has some welcome news since it's letting users further customize its personality with extra warmth or enthusiasm.
Now available in your "Personalization" settings. pic.twitter.com/7WSkOQVTKU
— OpenAI (@OpenAI) December 19, 2025
In a post on X, OpenAI revealed that users can adjust characteristics under new Warm, Enthusiastic, Header & Lists and Emoji options found in the Personalization settings. Between the four options, you can choose between more, less or default to fine-tune exactly how you want ChatGPT to sound in its responses. These new characteristics come about a month after OpenAI added Professional, Candid and Quirky options to
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The Roku Pro Series (2025) is better than before in some respects, less so in others.
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 It's the last week before Christmas, which means that the holiday shopping season is quickly wrapping up. With this in mind, we're recapping all of the best last-minute deals you can find online this week, but be warned that guaranteed delivery by December 25th is going to be increasingly difficult to find over the next few days.
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Warner Bros. Discovery's board has formally rejected the $108 billion takeover bid from Paramount Skydance, the company announced. WBD said it remains committed to its $82.7 billion deal with Netflix, which would close some time next year, pending regulatory approval.
"[The board] has unanimously determined that the tender offer launched by Paramount Skydance on December 8, 2025 is not in the best interests of WBD and its shareholders and does not meet the criteria of a "Superior Proposal" under the terms of WBD's merger agreement with Netflix announced on December 5, 2025," the studio said in the press release.
Paramount's offer was funded in part by sovereign wealth funds from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Abu Dhabi, so it could have triggered a national security review by the US government. However, Paramount said that even if those entities dropped out, the company's owners (the Ellisons) would "backstop the full amount of the bid."
However, the board said that Paramount "has consistently misled WBD shareholders that its proposed transaction has a 'full backstop' from the Ellison family. It does not, and never has," adding that "the terms of the Netflix merger are superior." WBD explained that Paramount is relying on an "opaque revocable trust" for said backstop which is "no replacement for a secured commitment by a controlling shareholder." WBD's board also noted that Paramount expects to achieve $9 billion in cost synergies from the merger, and that "would make Hollywood weaker, not stronger."
In a
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 In line with previous rumors, The Information today reported that Apple is planning to release a special 20th-anniversary iPhone less than two years from now.
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 There has been a whirlwind of rumors over the last few days, sourced from leaked internal software designed for the iPhone and the Mac, and news sites like The Information. Below, we have a quick recap of everything we've heard this week, which serves as a guide to Apple's product plans in 2026 and beyond.
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 OpenAI added several new features to its flagship ChatGPT product today, introducing Apple Music support and upgraded image generation capabilities.
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