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 The iOS 26.2.1 update that Apple released today further addresses an issue preventing some older mobile phones from being able to make emergency calls.
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Google has agreed to a $68 million settlement regarding claims that its voice assistant inappropriately spied on smartphone users. Plaintiffs claimed that the company's Google Assistant platform began listening to them after it misheard conversations that sounded like its wake words. The suit argued that private information that Google Assistant shouldn't have heard was then used to deliver those individuals targeted ads.
Reuters reported that Google denied wrongdoing in the suit, but according to court papers, the company agreed to a settlement in order to avoid the risk and costs of litigating the issue. The preliminary class action settlement was filed on Friday and now awaits approval from U.S. District Judge Beth Labson Freeman.
Google has been transitioning away from the Google Assistant platform in the past year, replacing it with its Gemini tool. Not that AI chatbots should be trusted as paragons of privacy either.
Apple faced a very similar allegations around its Siri voice assistant in 2019; that class-action suit ended in a $95 million settlement in January 2025. Not sure if a reward of
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If your TikTok feed has felt a little off lately, it's not just you. TikTok says it's working to fix its service in the US following a power outage at one of its data centers that's caused widespread issues in the app. TikTok users have reported problems logging in and uploading videos, as well as with the app's "for you" algorithm.
"Since yesterday we've been working to restore our services following a power outage at a U.S. data center impacting TikTok and other apps we operate," the company wrote in a statement Monday. "We're working with our data center partner to stabilize our service. We're sorry for this disruption and hope to resolve it soon."
— TikTok USDS Joint Venture (@tiktokusdsjv) January 26, 2026
The issues come just days after TikTok finalized a deal to spin off its US business into a separate entity largely controlled by US investors. That timing hasn't gone unnoticed by users, many of whom are already suspicious of the company pushing a terms of service and privacy policy in the hours after the deal was finalized.
The problems affecting the app's recommendation algorithm have also raised questions about TikTok USDS Joint Venture's plans to "retrain" TikTok's central feature. Since Sunday, users have reported seeing a wave of generic videos flood their feeds, which are typically hyper-personalized. Other users have reported
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TikTok users said their videos about federal immigration enforcement were being suppressed days after a deal to spin off the U.S. business to new investors was finalized.
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 Since March 2025, ChatGPT has been capable of generating images. Following a period where it briefly wasn't available to free users, you now don't even pay for one of OpenAI's subscriptions to use this feature. And while making images inside of ChatGPT is easy, there are some nuances worth explaining. For example, did you know you can ask ChatGPT to edit photos you've taken? It's more powerful than you might think. Here's everything you need to know about generating AI images with ChatGPT.
How to create images with ChatGPT using text prompts To begin making an image in ChatGPT, you can start by typing in the prompt bar. Igor Bonifacic for EngadgetYou can start generating images in ChatGPT simply by typing in the prompt bar what you want to see. There's no need to overthink things; as long as you have some version of "generate an image" followed by a description of your idea, ChatGPT will do the rest.
Depending on the complexity of the prompt and whether you pay for ChatGPT, it may take a minute or two for the chatbot to complete your image request. Sometimes the process can take longer if Ope
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