Like the wildfire conditions in Los Angeles County, my For You page on TikTok turned overnight.

I woke up last week to a phone screen filled with ravenous flames and video after video of razed homes, businesses, and other structures. Influencers broke from their regular cadence of content to film themselves packing up a suitcase for evacuation; nameless accounts shared footage from streets I didn’t recognize, showcasing the devastation; freshly created profiles asked for help locating their lost pets. Scrolling on TikTok feels like trying to keep track of 1,000 live feeds at once, each urgent and horrifying in its own way.

What all of this amounts to is a different question entirely. Even as there’s no escaping disaster content, the clips, comments, check-ins, and footage are not actually very helpful. Our feeds are awash with both too much and not enough information. Though it’s not yet clear how these fires started, scientists say that climate change will only continue to exacerbate wildfires going forward. Current weather conditions — including a severe lack of rainfall this year in Los Angeles — have created a tinderbox in the region.

Questions like “Where are the shelters?” “Should I evacuate?” and “Where can I get a mask and other supplies?” are left unanswered in favor of frightening first-person reports. And who can blame Los Angeles-area residents? That’s what you’re supposed to do on TikTok. What they can’t do is share a link to mutual aid resources or to a news story about vital, up-to-date evacuation information. They can scroll endlessly on the algorithmic For You page, but they can’t sort content to display the most recent updates first. TikTok is simply not built to disseminate potentially lifesaving breaking news alerts. Instead, it’s filled with endless clips of news crews interviewing people who have lost everything.

The wildfire content machine echoes a similar phenomenon from just a few months ago, when October’s Hurricane Milton tore through Florida, killing dozens and causing billions of dollars in damages. Some of the most visible and viral content from the storm came from influencers and other content creators who stayed behind to vlog their way through the event, racking millions of views. So far, there’s not the same risk-taking-for-viral-content dynamic at play with the fires in Southern California, but the overall experience is not that different: a random infotainment feed where a video of a person losing nearly every earthly possession is followed directly by someone testing a new makeup product. Media critic Matt Pearce put it best: “TikTok was largely indifferent to whether I live or die.”

Instagram seemed slightly more useful, but only, I suspect, if you follow people who post relevant content. In times of crisis — during the Black Lives Matter uprisings of 2020 or the ongoing bombardment of Gaza — Instagram Stories has become something of a bulletin board for resharing infographics and resources. Linking to relevant announcements and news stories is really only possible through Stories, but at least you can. Instagram search, on the other hand, is a chaotic mixture of user-generated infographics, grainy pictures of the fires that have been screenshotted and reuploaded multiple times, and distasteful selfies from bodybuilders wishing LA well.

It should go without saying that depraved conspiracy theories once again spread on X, including from billionaire owner Elon Musk and other right-wing influencers who falsely claimed DEI initiatives were responsible for the fires. Twitter, once functioning like a breaking news feed, is now overrun with crypto spam and Nazi sympathizers. Meanwhile, smaller, more specialized apps like Watch Duty, a nonprofit wildfire monitoring platform, have filled gaps. On Bluesky, an X competitor, users have the option to pin feeds based on trending topics, creating a custom landing page for LA fire content.

We are in for more, not fewer, extreme weather events like storms and heatwaves, and it’s worth asking ourselves whether we are prepared to do this all over again. Platform decay is all the more apparent in times of emergency, when users are forced to wade through astronomical amounts of garbage: video content that scares but doesn’t help us, news websites with so many pop-up ads it feels illegal, or ramblings from tech elites who are looking for someone to blame rather than a way to help. By my estimations, our feeds will return to regularly scheduled programming in five or so business days, and the devastation from these fires will get lost in a sea of comedy skits and PR unboxings. Until, of course, the next one.

John Deere’s “unfair” practices raised repair costs for farmers and kept them from being able to make repairs on tractors and other equipment they own, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) alleges in a new lawsuit.

The FTC and attorneys general for Illinois and Minnesota filed suit today in a long-running fight for the right to repair — a battle that’s become more heated as Deere increasingly incorporated software into farm equipment. The complaint accuses John Deere of “decades” of unlawful practices that forced farmers to turn to the company’s own network of authorized dealers for repairs.

“Illegal repair restrictions can be devastating for farmers, who rely on affordable and timely repairs to harvest their crops and earn their income,” FTC Chair Lina Khan said in a press release today. “The FTC’s action today seeks to ensure that farmers across America are free to repair their own equipment or use repair shops of their choice—lowering costs, preventing ruinous delays, and promoting fair competition for independent repair shops.”

Deere produced “the only fully functional software repair tool capable of performing all repairs” on its equipment, according to the FTC. It says the tool was only made available to the company’s dealers, which charged higher prices than independent shops. That unlawfully gave Deere “monopoly power” for certain repair services, the FTC alleges.

Deere says it supports customers’ right to repair equipment. The company signed a memorandum of understanding with the American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF) in January 2023 that was supposed to make its software, tools, and documentation available so that farmers and independent shops can make their own repairs.

“We have and remain committed to enabling customers to repair the products that they buy,” John Deere CTO Jahmy Hindman said in a 2021 Decoder interview.

Developing...

Though Daredevil: Born Again hit a few production snags that delayed its Disney Plus debut, Marvel has finally released the series’ first trailer ahead of its premiere in March.

When last we saw Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox), he was getting into squabbles out in Oklahoma, but Daredevil: Born Again’s new trailer sends him back to New York City where Wilson Fisk (Vincent D’Onofrio) just so happens to be running for mayor. Fisk seems to be running a strong campaign that has many people convinced he has a plan to make the city a safer place. But Murdock doesn’t need his super senses to sniff out that there’s something rotten at the core of Fisk’s political ambitions.

Along with brief shots of Murdock’s buds Karen Page (Deborah Ann Woll), Foggy Nelson (Elden Henson), and Frank Castle (Jon Bernthal), the trailer also spotlights the MCU’s new takes on Hector Ayala / White Tiger (Kamar de los Reyes) and Muse (Muse’s actor has yet to be officially revealed), a supervillain first introduced in Charles Soule’s 2016 Daredevil comics run. The sheer amount of bone crunching and blood oozing in the trailer makes it seem like Marvel is, at least aesthetically, trying to go for some of the grittiness that made Netflix’s Daredevil series feel so distinct from the rest of the MCU. We’ll find out for sure when it premieres on March 4th.

The Australian Open might look a little different this year if you’re livestreaming it on YouTube. That’s because the tournament has put an animated overlay on some of its matches to avoid broadcast licensing conflicts, making players look an awful lot like Wii Sports characters, as reported earlier by The Guardian.

The animated players follow all the same movements as their real-life counterparts as they travel across a cartoon-ish court, while the “whap” of the ball, chatter from the crowd, and commentary all remain authentic. But the animations aren’t perfect, as the players’ sneakers seem to clip into the court at some points, while Naomi Osaka’s animated tank top looked like it was ripped during her match against Caroline Garcia.

Screenshot: The Verge

With the animated livestreams, the Australian Open can air its games on YouTube without conflicting with the broadcasting agreements it sold to networks and streaming services around the world, according to The Guardian.

The technology, which the Australian Open first introduced last year, uses 12 cameras to “process the silhouette of the human in real time, and stitch that together across 29 points in the skeleton,” Machar Reid, the director of innovation at Tennis Australia, the organization behind the tournament, told The Guardian. “It’s not as seamless as it could be — we don’t have fingers — but in time you can begin to imagine a world where that comes.”

Based on the information from the sensors, the Australian Open’s systems can then create an animated version of the live events with a two-minute delay.

We’ve seen other broadcasters and sports leagues experiment with creating alternate telecasts of games as well. During the Super Bowl LVIII, CBS Sports partnered with Nickelodeon to add Spongebob Squarepants and slime animations to the big game, while the NFL aired an animated football game featuring The Simpsons last year.

Honda announced that its first original electric vehicle — that is, an EV built on its own platform and not one based on another automaker’s tech, like the Honda Prologue — will be the Acura RSX, due out in 2026.

The Acura RSX, shown above still in camouflage, is based on the Performance concept that was introduced last year. It will be the first EV to be built on Honda’s new vehicle platform and will debut the proprietary, in-house-developed Asimo operating system that was announced during CES earlier this month.

Honda’s two battery-electric vehicles in the US, the Honda Prologue and the Acura ZDX, are both based on General Motors’ Ultium vehicle platform. The Prologue, in particular, has been an early success for Honda, outselling its sister vehicles, the Chevy Blazer and Equinox EVs.

But now Honda is ready to start working on its own tech. The RSX will also be the first EV to be built at Honda’s new factory in Ohio, where production is expected to kick off in late 2025. The $4.4 billion plant is a joint venture between Honda and LG Chem, the Korean battery company.

Honda is resurrecting the RSX badge that it first used in the early 2000s as its performance brand’s version of the Honda Integra. This follows Honda’s decision to also bring back the Prelude as a sporty, two-door hybrid.

“In RSX, we turn to an Acura nameplate that communicates fun to drive performance, a great name for a sporty SUV with a coupe silhouette for our first original Acura EV,” said Lance Woelfer, VP of automobile sales at American Honda Motor Co.

The RSX will also be the first vehicle from Honda to feature its in-house-developed Asimo OS. At CES, Honda said that Asimo would be the company’s first effort at designing a software-defined vehicle, in which updatable software controls the vehicle’s core functions. The OS was named after Honda’s Asimo humanoid robot, which was retired in 2018. Asimo will also underpin the automaker’s new Honda Zero vehicles, with the first being the Honda 0 SUV.

“So it works out that Acura is once again, sort of the tip of the spear for electrification and our digital future,” said Jessica Fini, Honda’s assistant VP for communications.

TikTok will shut down entirely in the US on Sunday without intervention from the US Supreme Court, unnamed sources have told Reuters. That would go beyond the ban’s requirement for app stores to stop offering downloads of the app, but not immediately halt use of it.

If TikTok shuts down, it will show users a pop-up message pointing them to a website with information about the ban, according to the outlet's sources. The company will also reportedly let users download all of their data.

On Friday last week, a lawyer for TikTok said during a Supreme Court hearing that the app will “go dark” if the court doesn’t pause the ban. The court’s decision on the matter could come as soon as today, and a shutdown is one of the possible outcomes for TikTok, whose executives recently told employees were “planning for various scenarios,” as we reported yesterday.

There’s a general sense of doom on the TikTok feeds these days, and no wonder: it looks like the video service may be banned in the US as of January 19th. TikTok creators are offering satirical goodbyes to their Chinese spies and wondering how quickly they can download the several hundred — or thousand — videos they have up on the service.

TikTok itself apparently doesn’t like the idea of allowing its creators to bulk download their videos. You can download — in TXT or JSON format — a certain amount of your data, which, according to the support page, “may include but is not limited to your username, watch video history, comment history, and privacy settings.” When I tried it, it did not include my videos.

You can also share individual videos — the same way you can any file — but if you’ve got a library of a couple of hundred or more TikTok videos, that’s going to be quite a job. In that case, it’s a lot better to have a bulk download strategy.

To find out how to do that, I went into TikTok and waded through a group of videos offering different methods for downloading your content. I tried several of the methods and found two that worked relatively painlessly: one is easier but...

Read the full story at The Verge.

Microsoft is relaunching its free Copilot for businesses as Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat today, complete with the ability to use AI agents. Copilot Chat is Microsoft’s latest attempt to get people used to using AI at work and relying on it enough to tempt them into paying $30 per month to get the full Microsoft 365 Copilot.

“It’s free and secure AI chat that’s GPT-powered,” explains Jared Spataro, Microsoft’s chief marketing officer of AI at work, in an interview with The Verge. “You can upload files so it’s very comparable to the competition, in fact we think even at this level it bests the competition.” Spataro wouldn’t name the competition, but it’s clearly ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini.

Image: Microsoft

Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat is essentially a rebranding of what was once Bing Chat Enterprise before Microsoft rebranded it to just Copilot. It crucially now includes access to Copilot AI agents right within the chat interface — which was previously only available in the full Microsoft 365 Copilot experience — requiring a $30 per user per month subscription. These agents are designed to work like virtual colleagues and can do things like monitor email inboxes or automate a series of tasks.

You’ll be able to create and use agents using Copilot Studio, use agents that rely on web data, and even use agents grounded on work data through the Microsoft graph. The usage of agents with Copilot Chat will be priced through the Copilot Studio meter in Azure or through a pay-as-you-go option.

“The first question people ask me is ‘am I writing you a blank check?’” says Spataro, but Microsoft has built controls for how people pay for AI agent access. “The way you can control the spinning of the meters is paying in different ways. One way is pay-as-you-go, that is essentially an open account or tab that you’re burning down, but the other way to do it is through consumption packs, and when the pack runs out you’re done.”

Image: Microsoft

The pricing and consumption rates are a little complicated, though. Microsoft measures agent usage in messages, so classic answers that don’t hit large language models are priced as one message, whereas generative answers cost two messages and anything accessing the Microsoft Graph (including files stored in SharePoint) will cost 30 messages.

“A message is equivalent to 1 cent, so you can essentially convert it over to 1 cent, 2 cents, and 30 cents,” explains Spataro. “It spins an Azure meter and it burns down a customer’s MACC (Microsoft Azure Consumption Commitment).”

Microsoft provides some example cost calculations for businesses that might be tempted to use AI agents through Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat:

A hypothetical agent in Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat uses data stored in Microsoft Graph to answer employee questions about HR policies. Yesterday, the agent consumed 200 generative answers and 200 tenant Graph grounding for messages. Therefore, it would cost 6,400 messages or $64 for that day.

The actual chat experience in Copilot Chat is largely unchanged, and it uses GPT-4o for queries. You can also upload files to Copilot Chat and have it summarize Word documents or even analyze data in Excel spreadsheets. You can do the same thing directly within Word or Excel if you pay for the full Microsoft 365 Copilot, instead of having to upload files manually. Spataro says Microsoft doesn’t have any plans to enable a trial mode of Microsoft 365 Copilot, but it’s clear Copilot Chat is designed to tempt businesses into paying to get Copilot inside Office apps.

Copilot Chat is already popular among businesses that rely on Microsoft software and services. “We had Bing Chat Enterprise that we renamed, and despite the fact that the naming journey has been hard to track and it’s hard to find the product, we have a remarkable number of users on it,” says Spataro. “What we find is that when you start to use it, you become accustomed to and appreciative of the value that it can provide at work.”

With an ongoing debate over the value of a $30 per user per month subscription to Microsoft 365 Copilot, Microsoft will be hoping that Copilot Chat can help convert a lot more businesses over to its AI way of thinking.

If you wanted to use all of Google’s AI features inside Gmail, Docs, Sheets, Meet, and the rest of the Workspace suite, you previously needed to pony up another $20 per user per month for the Gemini Business plan. As of Tuesday, it’s free. Google is bringing all its AI features to its Workspace app at no extra cost as it continues to race Microsoft, OpenAI, and others to build the AI-powered office suite of the future.

There is a catch, though: as it makes this change, Google is increasing the price of all Workspace plans. Jerry Dischler, Google’s president of cloud applications, tells me companies will pay roughly $2 more per month per user for the AI-enabled Workspace than they were paying before. (The numbers aren’t exact, because companies have complicated and varying contracts, but the base subscription price was $12 a month and now it will be $14.)

Workspace AI includes things like email summaries in Gmail, generated designs for spreadsheets and videos, an automated note-taker for meetings, the powerful NotebookLM research assistant, and writing tools across apps. It also comes with access to the Gemini bot itself, which is maybe Google’s single most powerful AI tool; the bot can do standard chatbot thing but can also help you find information, search across all your stuff, and more.

Dischler points out that Google is the most vertically integrated AI product out there right now, but that only matters if people are using the whole system. Now, everyone can. “Most of the time, when we talk to companies who are using AI, their big impediment is cost reasons,” he says. “That’s why they go in so gingerly. Like, ‘wow, this is a lot of money, and let’s prove the value.’ All right, now you get the AI. You have the value.” He says the various app roadmaps are already changing, too, and that new features will begin to ship quickly.

Google’s not the only company walking back its AI up-charge: Microsoft announced in November that its own Copilot Pro AI features, which had also previously been a $20 monthly upgrade, would become part of the standard Microsoft 365 subscription. So far, that’s only for the Personal and Family subscriptions, and only in a few places. But these companies all understand that this is their moment to teach people new ways to use their products and win new customers in the process. They’re betting that the cost of rolling out all these AI features to everyone will be worth it in the long run.

Honor’s flagship Magic 7 Pro launches in the UK and Europe today, powered by the Snapdragon 8 Elite and protected by top-tier water-resistance. It also features a high resolution 200 megapixel telephoto camera.

Arriving a week after the OnePlus 13 and a week before we expect to meet Samsung’s Galaxy S25 phones, the Magic 7 Pro is among the first phones to release outside of China with Qualcomm’s new chipset inside. That makes it one of the most powerful phones on the market, especially with 12GB of RAM. It also features a sizable 5,270mAh battery built around a silicon-carbon chemistry, allowing it to pack more energy into a smaller space that keeps the Magic 7 Pro’s thickness below 9mm.

Much like the new OnePlus phone — and, unexpectedly, Motorola’s $299.99 Moto G Power, which launched in the US yesterday — the Magic 7 Pro is both IP68 and IP69-rated. That means that in addition to the usual protection from dust and submersion in water, it should survive exposure to steam and high-pressure water jets — ideal if you regularly use your phone in a jacuzzi, probably overkill for the rest of us.

Image: Honor

Also unusual is the phone’s 200 megapixel 3x periscopic camera. We’ve seen megapixel counts as high as this before, but mostly on main cameras, not zoom lenses — with the exception of Vivo’s X100 Ultra and X200 Pro. It’s bolstered by an AI Super Zoom feature that kicks in at 30x zoom for added clarity, with this and a few other camera AI modes using a combination of on-device and cloud-based large language models to fine-tune images.

There’s even more AI than that, since it ships with Android 15 and Google’s Gemini AI app, which Honor has bolstered with its own AI-powered takes on translation and notes apps.

The Magic 7 Pro launched in China last November, but this is its first appearance outside of the country. Honor is one of several Chinese smartphone manufacturers that saw growth in global market share in 2024, thanks in part to last year’s flagship Magic 6 series and the Magic V3, still the thinnest foldable phone available.

Image: Honor

For its European launch the Pro is joined by the Magic 7 Lite, a midrange handset that uses the comparatively sluggish Snapdragon 6 Gen 1 chip and arrives still running Android 14. The selling point of that phone is its enormous 6,600mAh battery, which Honor claims will run for three days. There’s no sign of the regular Magic 7, which launched alongside the Pro in China.

The Magic 7 Pro is available to order now from honor.com starting at £1,099.99 / €1,299 (about $1,340), with major retailers and local carriers set to stock it too. The Magic 7 Lite is much cheaper at £399.99 / €369, and also available now.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral on Wednesday morning carrying two private lunar landers into orbit in support of NASA’s future Artemis landing crews. The Blue Ghost and Resilience landers, built by Texas-based Firefly Aerospace and Japan’s iSpace aerospace firms respectively, aim to provide data on the Moon’s environment and test technologies that will help to one day return astronauts to the lunar surface.

The SpaceX launch and private lander contracts are the latest to fall under NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative — the first phase of the Artemis moon exploration program that’s set to launch its first crewed mission in April 2026. Following the Falcon 9’s first stage successfully separating and touching down back on Earth after launch, Blue Ghost was delivered to a lunar transfer orbit by the rocket’s second stage about 65 minutes after liftoff, with Resilience being deployed about 30 minutes later.

Blue Ghost Mission 1 will now spend approximately 45 days making its way to the Moon, where it’s then targeting to land near a volcanic feature within the 300-mile-wide Mare Crisium basin. There are 10 payloads from NASA-funded customers aboard the lander that will carry out a variety of environmental tests to study things like lunar dust, electric and magnetic fields, and satellite navigation signals.

Image: Firefly Aerospace

Resilience has a longer journey ahead. Its more energy-efficient gravity-propelled route will take the lander about 4-5 months to land on the Moon’s surface. Once there, it has six commercial payloads to deploy, including a radiation probe, water electrolyzing equipment, food production experiments, and a camera-equipped “Micro Rover” that will collect lunar samples. The collected material will be “the sole property of NASA” for use under the Artemis program, but the agency hasn’t yet determined how the samples will be retrieved.

Image: iSpace

Both of the private landers will have a full lunar day (about two weeks) to conduct their research operations before the harsh cold of lunar night is expected to render them inoperable.

“This mission embodies the bold spirit of NASA’s Artemis campaign – a campaign driven by scientific exploration and discovery,” said NASA Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy. “Each flight we’re part of is [a] vital step in the larger blueprint to establish a responsible, sustained human presence at the Moon, Mars, and beyond. Each scientific instrument and technology demonstration brings us closer to realizing our vision.”

Microsoft says it will no longer support Office apps, known as Microsoft 365 apps, on Windows 10 later this year. The support cutoff coincides with Windows 10’s end of support on October 14th, and will mean businesses and consumers that rely on Microsoft 365 apps will need to upgrade to Windows 11.

“Microsoft 365 Apps will no longer be supported after October 14, 2025, on Windows 10 devices,” says Microsoft in a blog post. “To use Microsoft 365 Applications on your device, you will need to upgrade to Windows 11.”

While support will end for Office apps on Windows 10 in October, it doesn’t mean the apps will suddenly stop working. Microsoft notes in a support document that was updated in December that “the applications will continue to function as before” after Windows 10 support ends, but that there could be “performance and reliability issues over time.”

Microsoft really wants people to stop using Windows 10 this year, and is calling 2025 “the year of the Windows 11 PC refresh.” The software maker declared at CES last week that refreshing an old Windows 10 PC will be more important than buying a new TV or phone this year.

“We believe that one of the most important pieces of technology people will look to refresh in 2025 isn’t the refrigerator, the television or their mobile phone. It will be their Windows 10 PC, and they will move forward with Windows 11,” said Yusuf Mehdi, executive vice president and consumer chief marketing officer at Microsoft.

Windows 11 adoption is still lagging behind Windows 10, and millions of machines simply can’t upgrade to the latest OS due to Microsoft’s strict hardware requirements. Microsoft recently closed the door on Windows 11 supporting older hardware, noting that its Trusted Platform Module (TPM) 2.0 requirement for Windows 11 is “non-negotiable.” Microsoft is now trying to convince Windows 10 users to buy a new PC with full-screen prompts.

While support for Windows 10 ends later this year, Microsoft is also offering Extended Security Updates to consumers for the first time ever. Consumers will be able to pay $30 for an extra year of updates, while businesses will be able to purchase up to three years of extended updates.

Drake has withdrawn the petition he raised accusing Spotify and Universal Music Group (UMG) of illegally boosting Kendrick Lamar‘s diss track “Not Like Us.” According to documents filed with the New York Supreme Court on Tuesday, the pre-action case is being discontinued with no financial cost to any of the parties involved.

The petition, or “pre-action case,” isn’t a full lawsuit — it refers to a stage of litigation that seeks information from each party and allows time for issues to be resolved before disputes are escalated to court.

The legal petition filed by Drake (real name: Aubrey Graham) in November alleged that Spotify and UMG — the parent label that represents both him and Lamar — used “bots,” discounted licensing rates, and pay-to-play agreements to artificially inflate the streaming numbers for Lamar’s song. The diss track, aimed at Drake, became a viral hit following a feud between the two artists last year that attracted significant attention.

A second legal petition was also filed by Drake in November that accused UMG of funneling payments to iHeartRadio to promote Lamar’s diss track. Drake’s lawyers said that the song, which describes Drake as a “certified pedophile,” a “predator,” and someone who should “be registered and placed on neighborhood watch,” was defamatory, claiming that the damage to Drake’s reputation should have prevented UMG from releasing it.

While the initial pre-action case against Spotify and UMG is now resolved, the second petition against UMG and iHeartRadio is still active. Spotify had previously filed an opposition against the first petition and hasn’t objected to Drake withdrawing the pre-action case. UMG — which hadn’t filed an opposition — has “reserved its position.”

Microsoft has quietly killed off its spoofed Google UI that it was using to trick Bing users into thinking they were using Google. Earlier this month you could search for “Google” on Bing and get a page that looked a lot like Google, complete with a special search bar, an image resembling a Google Doodle, and even some small text under the search bar just like Google search.

The misleading UI no longer appears on the Google search result of Bing this week, just days after it was originally discovered by posters on Reddit. Microsoft’s spoofed Google UI even automatically scrolled down the page slightly to mask its own Bing search bar that appear at the top of search results, in a blatant attempt to trick Bing users into thinking they were on Google.

Image: Tom Warren / The Verge

Microsoft refused to comment on its fake Google UI, but Google was more than happy to offer up its opinion. “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but Microsoft spoofing the Google homepage is another tactic in its long history of tricks to confuse users & limit choice,” said Google Chrome boss Parisa Tabriz in a post on X last week. “New year; new low Microsoft.”

Microsoft has a habit of using a variety of tricks to convince people to keep using the defaults of Bing and Microsoft Edge in Windows, including modifying Chrome download sites and using malware-like popups to get people to ditch Google. Microsoft has even previously had to reverse pop-up ads inside Google Chrome to address “unintended behavior.”

Worldwide smartphone sales grew in 2024 following two consecutive years of decline according to reports from Counterpoint, Canalys, and IDC. The bulk of the growth came from Chinese manufacturers including Xiaomi and Vivo, though Apple and Samsung are still holding strong as the undisputed market leaders.

Counterpoint reports a 4 percent growth in phone sales across 2024, with IDC and Canalys each reporting 6-7 percent increases in global shipments, though that’s relative to a 2023 that saw the lowest sales figures for a decade. That growth is predicted to continue through 2025.

“2024 was a year of recovery and normalization after a difficult 2023,” says Counterpoint research director Tarun Pathak. “The market started showing signs of recovery from Q4 2023 and has now grown for five consecutive quarters.”

There’s a little disagreement about who sits on top, with Counterpoint reporting that Samsung led by market share for the year, while IDC and Canalys each claim that Apple took the crown. All three agree that Xiaomi is sitting solid in third though, with a 12 percent increase in unit sales according to Counterpoint, making it the fastest growing of the major players. Counterpoint pegs Xiaomi at 14 percent market share for the year, catching up to Apple’s 18 percent.

Image: Counterpoint

Oppo (including OnePlus), Vivo, and the Transsion group — which includes brands Tecno and Infinix — take up the next few spots, helped by strong sales in Asia and growth across Europe, Africa, and Latin America.

Both Counterpoint and IDC attribute some of 2024’s relatively bullish performance to the introduction of phones positioned as AI devices, with AI replacing foldable screens as the hot new thing.

“We have seen a decreased demand for foldables in the market, despite intensified promotions and marketing,” says IDC research director Anthony Scarsella. Manufacturers are now “prioritizing new AI advancements at the expense of foldables,” with Counterpoint predicting that by 2028 nine out of ten smartphones above $250 will include generative AI.

Microsoft’s former head of design for Windows and devices has started a new role at Amazon this week. Ralf Groene was responsible for the design of Microsoft’s Surface tablet, and worked closely with former Windows and Surface chief Panos Panay on a line of Surface devices over the past decade. The pair are now reunited at Amazon, working on devices again.

Groene — who left Microsoft in April 2024, less than a year after Panay departed for Amazon — will lead design for Amazon’s devices and services business. Groene left Microsoft shortly after the company named Pavan Davuluri as its new Windows and Surface chief.

Groene, alongside Panay, was instrumental in the creation of the Surface line of products. The original Surface tablet started off life in Groene’s sketchbook, with a set of doodles about kickstands that formed the basis of months of 3D-printed prototypes that were held together with string. Microsoft went on to launch the Surface RT tablet in 2012, and the Surface Pro has had a lasting effect on hybrid laptop designs over the past 10 years.

Amazon’s hiring of Groene comes just months after Xbox cofounder J Allard joined Panay’s devices and services team to work on “new ideas.” Allard departed Microsoft in 2010, following his work on the company’s canceled Courier tablet.

Groene and Allard aren’t the only notable recent former Microsoft hires for Amazon, though. Former Windows Cloud executive Aidan Marcuss also joined Amazon this week, leading the Fire TV, ads, and AppStore teams.

Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter has resulted in a federal lawsuit by the Securities and Exchange Commission alleging that he broke securities laws with a late disclosure, and saved $150 million in the process.

Before Musk agreed to buy Twitter for $44 billion, before he tried to back out of that deal, before he was forced to go through with it, and before he changed its name to X, he started by acquiring a substantial stake in the company but didn’t reveal that fact until weeks later.

The only problem, as the SEC pointed out then, is that by the time he disclosed that stake, it was outside the agency’s required 10-day window. They claim that he should’ve filed his paperwork by March 24th, 2022, instead of when he actually did, on April 4th (and then again on April 5th). During that period, they say he purchased more than $500 million in shares of the company.

However, with only a few days left before the Trump administration takes over and installs a new head of the SEC (along with Elon Musk reportedly snagging an office in the White House complex), it’s unclear how far the lawsuit will go.

The SEC claims Musk cost investors at least $150 million due to the late disclosure and that he harmed any investors who sold stock between March 25th, 2022, and April 1st, 2022. Its lawsuit is seeking the money Elon made as a result of holding off on the disclosure, as well as a civil penalty and other punishments.

For over a decade, you couldn’t easily fly a DJI drone over restricted areas in the United States. DJI’s software would automatically stop you from flying over runways, power plants, public emergencies like wildfires, and the White House.

But confusingly, amidst the greatest US outpouring of drone distrust in years, and an incident of a DJI drone operator hindering LA wildfire fighting efforts, DJI is getting rid of its strong geofence. DJI will no longer enforce “No-Fly Zones,” instead only offering a dismissible warning — meaning only common sense, empathy, and the fear of getting caught by authorities will prevent people from flying where they shouldn’t.

In a blog post, DJI characterizes this as “placing control back in the hands of the drone operators.” DJI suggests that technologies like Remote ID, which publicly broadcasts the location of a drone and their operator during flight, are “providing authorities with the tools needed to enforce existing rules,” DJI global policy head Adam Welsh tells The Verge.

But it turns out the DJI drone that damaged a Super Scooper airplane fighting the Los Angeles wildfires was a sub-250-gram model that may not require Remote ID to operate, and the FBI expects it will have to “work backwards through investigative means” to figure out who flew it there.

DJI voluntarily created its geofencing feature, so it makes a certain degree of sense that the company would get rid of it now that the US government no longer seems to appreciate its help, is blocking some of its drone imports, calls DJI a “Chinese Military Company,” and has started the countdown clock on a de facto import ban.

“The FAA does not require geofencing from drone manufacturers,” FAA spokesperson Ian Gregor confirms to The Verge.

But former DJI head of global policy, Brendan Schulman, doesn’t seem to think this is a move for the better. Here are a few choice phrases he’s posted to X:

This is a remarkable shift in drone safety strategy with a potentially enormous impact, especially among drone pilots who are less aware of airspace restrictions and high-risk areas.

There was substantial evidence over the years that automatic drone geofencing, implemented using a risk-based approach, contributed significantly to aviation safety.

Interesting timing: Ten years almost to the day after a DJI drone infamously crash-lands on the White House lawn, DJI has removed the built-in geofencing feature that automatically impedes such an incident, replacing it with warnings that the user can choose to ignore.

Here are the questions we sent DJI, and the company’s answers:

1) Can you confirm that DJI no longer prevents its drones from taking off / flying into any locations whatsoever in the United States, including but not limited to military installations, over public emergency areas like wildfires, and critical government buildings like the White House?

Yes, this GEO update applies to all locations in the U.S and aligns with the FAA’s Remote ID objectives. With this update, prior DJI geofencing datasets have been replaced to display official FAA data. Areas previously defined as Restricted Zones (also known as No-Fly Zones) will be displayed as Enhanced Warning Zones, aligning with the FAA’s designated areas.

2) If it still does prevent drones from taking off / flying into some locations, which locations are those?

Not applicable.

3) Did DJI make this decision in consultation with or by direction of the US government or any specific government bodies, agencies, or representatives? If so, which? If not, why not?

This GEO update aligns with the principle advanced by aviation regulators around the globe — including the FAA — that the operator is responsible for complying with rules.

4) Did DJI run any risk analysis studies beforehand and if so, did it see a likelihood of abuse? What likelihood did it see? If not, why not?

The geofencing system that was in place prior was a voluntary safety measure introduced by DJI over 10 years ago when mass-produced small drones were a new entrant to the airspace, and regulators needed time to establish rules for their safe use.

Since then, the FAA has introduced Remote ID requirements, which means that drones flown in the U.S. must broadcast the equivalent of a “license plate” for drones. This requirement went into effect in early 2024, providing authorities with the tools needed to enforce existing rules.

“This update has been in development for some time, following similar changes successfully implemented in the E.U. last year, which showed no evidence of increased risk,” says Welsh. However, last year’s changes reportedly kept mandatory no-fly zones around UK airports.

Here in the United States, Welsh seems to suggest its apps won’t go that far. “To be clear: DJI flight apps will continue to voluntarily generate warnings if pilots attempt to fly into restricted airspace as designated by the FAA, provided that pilots keep their flight apps up to date,” he tells The Verge.

Chinese officials are reportedly exploring a backup plan for TikTok after the Supreme Court appeared unlikely to save it from a US ban. With TikTok’s legal options nearly exhausted, multiple news outlets are reporting that China is considering an option it previously said it wouldn’t: letting ByteDance sell the app.

The kicker? China is reportedly mulling having President-elect Donald Trump’s favorite tech billionaire, Elon Musk, act either as broker or buyer in the arrangement. Reports from the Financial Times, Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg — all citing unnamed sources — indicate that Chinese officials are at least discussing the option of a sale. TikTok spokesperson Michael Hughes has called the reports “pure fiction.” The Chinese embassy in the US and Musk’s existing social media company, X, did not respond to requests for comment.

Plenty of people have expressed interest in buying TikTok at this point, from ”Shark Tank” celebrity Kevin O’Leary to YouTuber Mr. Beast. The problem has not been a lack of buyers — though obvious ones like Meta and Google would likely be barred by antirust authorities — but reluctant sellers. The new reporting suggests that the Chinese...

Read the full story at The Verge.

Instead of wallowing in misery about potentially losing access to their favorite short-form video app, many TikTokers are flocking to RedNote, a Chinese social media platform also called Xiaohongshu. I’ve decided to spend some time on the platform myself, and it looks like so-called “TikTok refugees” are excited about interacting with a community mainly comprised of Chinese-speaking users — and vice versa.

Launched in 2013 as a shopping platform, RedNote has grown into one of China’s most popular social apps featuring photos, videos, and written content. Now it’s seeing another spike in users from another part of the globe, with more than 700,000 users joining RedNote in just two days, according to a report from Reuters. The number is still small, at just a fraction of the 150 million Americans TikTok reported were already using the app in early 2023.

As noted by CNN, the name Xiaohongshu translates to “little red book,” which “could be seen as a tongue-in-cheek reference to a red-covered book of quotations from the founding father of Communist China, Mao Zedong.” Many US users seem to be using the Chinese platform out of spite of the US government’s plan to ban TikTok — but in a deeply unserious way.

Screenshot: The Verge

Amongst all the Chinese-language posts depicting sleek fit checks, mouthwatering food videos, and memes I don’t quite understand yet, is content from TikTok expats. Many joke about their sudden appearance on the app, with one user wondering what Chinese users might think after seeing an influx of US-based users and another showing their gradual transformation from a gun-wielding, Buc-ee’s merch-wearing American into a Chinese-speaking RedNote user. Others are simply saying “hello” to their new community — some of whom have written captions in what I’d assume is machine-translated Chinese.

Even more interesting though, are all the RedNote users welcoming TikTokers with open arms. Several RedNote users are eager to introduce the app while also sharing some tips and tricks on how to navigate it. One creator says, “now’s the perfect time to dive into Chinese culture” through RedNote with the Chinese New Year coming up, adding that users on the platform are “obsessed with Luigi, Trump, and Squid Game.” Some even offer to teach their new community members Chinese.

But many TikTokers are equally curious about RedNote users in China, too. “Chinese friends, post pictures of your meal or snacks for today! Curious to see what you typically eat,” one user writes. Another asks, “I’m American. Do y’all like us? We know y’all not the enemy. Can we all be friends?”

The trend is actually kind of wholesome, and I’m here for it, but I’m not confident it will actually last. If these apps grow in popularity, they could potentially face a ban, too. But the migration to RedNote is likely just a trend — and trends only last as long as it takes for another to replace it.