Meta’s popular messaging app WhatsApp is testing a new design that gives prominent space to a suite of AI chatbots. The design, currently only accessible through the app’s Android beta, adds a dedicated tab for AIs on the app’s homescreen.

WABetaInfo spotted the change, which devotes one of WhatsApp’s four tabs solely to its AI features. It includes a selection of “Popular AI characters” to talk to, along with others organized by subject matter. Other AI-powered features within WhatsApp include AI-generated images and stickers and a search tool using Meta AI.

These AI tools and chatbots aren’t new to WhatsApp, though they’re only available in the US and certain other countries, and a limited selection of languages. They’re currently accessed through the app’s primary Chats tab, but this update looks to give them more prominence.

Image: WABetaInfo

The app is also experimenting with expanding the range of AI bots by adding the option to create personalized AI characters, which WABetaInfo found in a separate beta update today. Meta already offers the ability to create custom AI bots, but only through an AI Studio on the Instagram website. Adding the option directly into an app is a significant simplification of the process.

The new AI tab replaces the existing Communities tab, though that functionality isn’t going anywhere. A previous beta version earlier this week introduced a “streamlined” version of Community creation within the Chats tab.

The WhatsApp beta is available through Google Play, though tester numbers are limited and the option to join is currently unavailable. We don’t know if or when the AI tab will be added to the app’s live build, but the change is likely to be limited only to those countries where the AI features are already available.

Today Xiaomi’s subsidiary Redmi brings its affordable Note 14 series to Europe, along with the Western debut of the Snapdragon 7s Gen 3. After launching in August 2024, the Qualcomm chip had to sit and watch while the flagship Snapdragon 8 Elite came along two months later, drew more attention, and even launched in a Western phone first in the form of this week’s OnePlus 13. But the more affordable Snapdragon chip is now getting its dues.

There are five phones in the Note 14 line, ranging from the 4G-only Note 14 up to the Note 14 Pro Plus 5G, the only phone in the series powered by the Snapdragon silicon. The entry-level chip in Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 7 series, the 7s Gen 3 is a 4nm chipset that’s most notable for making the jump to Arm’s v9 CPU architecture, with a 2.5GHz Cortex-A720 core at the heart of the processor. The other four phones use a variety of MediaTek chipsets.

Image: Redmi

Starting at £399/€499.90 (about $500), the Pro Plus is positioned as a natural competitor to Google’s $499 Pixel 8A, but outpaces it comfortably in most hardware specs, with improved IP68 water-resistance; up to 12GB RAM and 512GB storage; and a larger, brighter OLED display protected by Corning’s flagship-grade Gorilla Glass Victus 2. The big trade-off is on the software side, especially given that Google has guaranteed Android updates for the Pixel 8A until 2031.

The other Note 14 phones offer a gradual drop-off in specs and connectivity. The Note 14 Pro 5G shares the Pro Plus model’s display, 200-megapixel camera, and IP68 rating, but drops to a cheaper MediaTek 7300-Ultra chipset and slower charging. The regular Redmi Note 14 Pro is similar, but ditches 5G for 4G connectivity and is only IP64-rated. The Note 14 and Note 14 5G have reduced specs across the board — though the 4G model’s IP54 water-resistance still impresses for a phone that costs less than half of a Pixel 8A.

Image: Redmi

All four phones launched in China and then India late last year, but today go on sale in ten European countries, including the UK and Germany. Somewhat confusingly, the European models have altered specs from their Asian counterparts — the Pro Plus 5G has completely different cameras and battery, for example — which isn’t uncommon for Redmi.

The Redmi Note 14 series already has stiff competition from within the Xiaomi family, after the similarly priced Poco X7 and X7 Pro launched globally yesterday. Those phones lean on IP68 ratings and big batteries — 6,000mAh in the Pro — in the effort to draw budget buyers away from Google and Samsung.

The popular open-source VLC video player was demonstrated on the floor of CES 2025 with automatic AI subtitling and translation, generated locally and offline in real time. Parent organization VideoLAN shared a video on Tuesday in which president Jean-Baptiste Kempf shows off the new feature, which uses open-source AI models to generate subtitles for videos in several languages.

“At the same time we have automatic translation working to translate the subtitles to your own language,” Kempf says, with more than 100 languages planned for support. “What’s important is that this is running on your machine locally, offline, without any cloud services. It runs directly inside the executable.”

AI-powered subtitling has been under development for some time in the form of a plug-in using OpenAI’s speech recognition system Whisper, but this new demo appears to be built directly into the VLC app and generates translated subtitles in real time. There’s no word on when the feature will roll out.

This week, VideoLAN also celebrated hitting 6 billion downloads, with Kempf boasting, “The number of active users of VLC is actually growing, even in this age of streaming services.”

With CES 2025 still in full swing, we’ll track VideoLAN down on the show floor to see the AI subtitling in action for ourselves.

It looks like Samsung is finally ready to roll out a paid subscription for its AI-powered smartphones, but it might not look like what we were expecting.

According to ETNews, Samsung Electronics vice chair Han Jong-hee has confirmed that the company’s AI Subscription Club, which launched last December for some of Samsung’s home appliances in South Korea, will soon roll out to both Galaxy phones and the upcoming Ballie AI robot.

“We will apply the subscription service to Galaxy smartphones starting next month,” he says. “Ballie will be introduced first in Korea and the US, and we plan to supply it as a subscription in Korea.”

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

The AI Subscription Club isn’t a requirement to access the Galaxy AI features on Samsung’s phones and other devices, which the company has previously said will remain free to users at least until the end of 2025, with plans beyond that point unconfirmed.

The model currently gives Korean consumers the ability to sign up for a monthly subscription of their AI-powered TVs, refrigerators, washing machines, and more, including optional repair and maintenance services, for the sake of a lower upfront cost.

It’s not clear if the subscription model will expand beyond South Korea, but there’s a chance we’ll find out more soon. Samsung has a Galaxy Unpacked event in San Jose, California, scheduled for January 22nd, when it is expected to unveil the Galaxy S25 series.

It’s long been rumored that Nvidia is planning to break into the consumer CPU market in 2025, and we may have already had our first look at its new processor.

On Monday at CES, the company unveiled Project Digits, a $3,000 personal AI supercomputer powered by a new GB10 Grace Blackwell Superchip. Reuters reports that yesterday Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang hinted to investors and analysts that there are bigger plans for the Arm-based CPU within that chip, codeveloped with MediaTek.

“You know, obviously we have plans,” Huang said during an investor presentation, referring to the new 20-core desktop CPU but said that he would “wait to tell you” what they are.

Codeveloper MediaTek has its own ambitions, though, and Huang suggested that it may also bring the CPU to market, independent of Nvidia. “Now they could provide that to us, and they could keep that for themselves and serve the market. And so it was a great win-win,” Huang said.

Image: Nvidia

Project Digits itself isn’t a mass-market product, costing $3,000 and running on a custom Linux system designed specifically for AI developers. But Nvidia’s consumer CPU ambitions have been rumored since October 2023, when Reuters reported that the company, alongside rival AMD, was working on Arm-based chips to launch in 2025.

Qualcomm has currently cornered the market on Arm-based CPUs for Windows PCs, boosted by last year’s launch of the Snapdragon X Elite processors. Those chips provided the sort of performance and power efficiency previously only available with Apple’s MacBooks — and put real pressure on Intel and AMD’s x86 systems.

2024 was the year that Windows on Arm finally achieved its potential, and with increased competition from Nvidia and others, 2025 could mark a turning point in the battle between x86 and Arm.

iFixit has announced the Pro Tech Go Toolkit, a compact take on the popular Pro Tech kit. The Pro Tech Go is about half the size and weight but squeezes in iFixit’s most important tools for repairing everything from phones and laptops to game consoles.

The heart of the kit is a 32-bit screwdriver set, ranging from run-of-the-mill Phillips and flathead bits to specialized parts like the Pentalobe P2 and P5 security bits needed for accessing the innards of Apple hardware. They’re joined by a range of opening tools, including six picks, two pairs of tweezers, and a couple of spudgers.

Like the Pro Tech kit, the Pro Tech Go comes wrapped in a toughened fabric roll, only smaller at 160 x 100 x 52mm for added portability. Despite this, it still fits in a couple of spare tool slots, so you can add two of your own staples in case they’re not already included.

Image: iFixit

“We designed this for people who fix in the real world,” says iFixit’s lead product engineer Brett Hartt. “It’s light, it’s compact, and it’s got what you need when repairs come calling — even if you’re not at your workbench.”

It may be about half the size, but the Pro Tech Go isn’t quite half the price: $49.95 compared to the original kit’s $74.95. It’s available now from iFixit’s online store, Amazon, and Best Buy.