As if DirecTV doesn’t have enough trouble keeping customers, the satellite TV provider’s streaming devices will show AI-generated screensaver ads next year, according to an announcement today from partnering ads company Glance. People who use either of DirecTV’s two Gemini streaming devices will start seeing the ads “in early 2026,” per the announcement. DirecTV’s Gemini Air is an Android TV-powered USB device that people can plug into a TV for…

Meetings can be a real drain on productivity, but a new Gmail feature might at least cut down on the time you spend scheduling them. The company has announced “Help Me Schedule” is coming to Gmail, leveraging Gemini AI to recognize when you want to schedule a meeting and offering possible meeting times for the email recipient to choose. The new meeting feature is reminiscent of Magic Cue on Google’s…

On Tuesday, Nvidia announced it will begin taking orders for the DGX Spark, a $4,000 desktop AI computer that wraps one petaflop of computing performance and 128GB of unified memory into a form factor small enough to sit on a desk. Its biggest selling point is likely its large integrated memory that can run larger AI models than consumer GPUs. Nvidia will begin taking orders for the DGX Spark on…

Android devices are vulnerable to a new attack that can covertly steal 2FA codes, location timelines, and other private data in less than 30 seconds. The new attack, named Pixnapping by the team of academic researchers who devised it, requires a victim to first install a malicious app on an Android phone or tablet. The app, which requires no system permissions, can then effectively read data that any other installed…

Google began experimenting with conversational image editing earlier this year in the dev-focused AI studio, but the feature didn’t remain experimental for long. Over the summer, Google rolled out the “Nano Banana” image-editing model in Gemini 2.5 Flash. You can use this feature to modify images with just a prompt, and now you don’t even need to go to Gemini to use it. Google says Nano Banana is now coming…

Apple has lightly rebranded its video-on-demand streaming service. The Netflix rival that has brought us critically acclaimed shows and movies like Slow Horses and The Lost Bus has gone from Apple TV+ to Apple TV. Apple announced the name change today in a press release that was primarily about the film F1: The Movie coming to its streaming service on December 12. Unlike previous announcements, however, today’s release referred to…

The encryption protecting communications against criminal and nation-state snooping is under threat. As private industry and governments get closer to building useful quantum computers, the algorithms protecting Bitcoin wallets, encrypted web visits, and other sensitive secrets will be useless. No one doubts the day will come, but as the now-common joke in cryptography circles observes, experts have been forecasting this cryptocalypse will arrive in the next 15 to 30 years…

Amazon Echo Show owners are reporting an uptick in advertisements on their smart displays. The company’s Echo Show smart displays have previously shown ads through the company’s Shopping Lists feature, as well as advertising for Alexa skills. Additionally, Echo Shows may play audio ads when users listen to Amazon Music on Alexa. However, reports on Reddit (examples here, here, and here) and from The Verge’s Jennifer Pattison Tuohy, who owns more…

Bose will brick key features of its SoundTouch Wi-Fi speakers and soundbars soon. On Thursday, Bose informed customers that as of February 18, 2026, it will stop supporting the devices, and the devices’ cloud-based features, including the companion app, will stop working. The SoundTouch app enabled numerous capabilities, including integrating music services, like Spotify and TuneIn, and the ability to program multiple speakers in different rooms to play the same…

Microsoft is warning of an active scam that diverts employees’ paycheck payments to attacker-controlled accounts after first taking over their profiles on Workday or other cloud-based HR services. Payroll Pirate, as Microsoft says the campaign has been dubbed, gains access to victims’ HR portals by sending them phishing emails that trick the recipients into providing their credentials for logging in to the cloud account. The scammers are able to recover…