Comment on China and Russia could be looking for a back door to Western intelligence through the ‘soft underbelly’ of New Zealand

YouTube TV subscribers will see their membership rate increase in the new year as the company ups the price. In a post on X (formerly Twitter) the YouTube TV account shared the news, stating it has “always worked to offer the content you love, with features to enjoy the best of live TV.” The company says it is having to update monthly prices to “keep up with rising content costs,” with the new price being $82.99 a month – up from $72.99. A message for our members: we have always worked to offer the content you love, with features to enjoy the best of live TV.

OpenAI are in the holiday spirit as they include an all-new ‘Santa Mode’ into ChatGPT, alongside their other pre-Christmas celebrations. A Santa voice is being rolled out to everyone across all ChatGPT platforms from this week (December 12) in Voice Mode. With this new addition, people can speak to ‘Santa’ who will take over the voice of the chatbot.

Threads, Meta’s answer to Twitter, is bringing its own version of Bluesky’s Starter Packs to the platform. Announced by Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, the feature has received a mixed reception with some welcoming the decision and others blasting the platform. Bluesky, another competing Twitter alternative, features “starter packs”. These can be made by any user and allow for a curated list of accounts to follow.

A new social media-related study has revealed that teens in America are spending the majority of their time online, browsing platforms each day. The Pew Research Center conducted the study between September 18 and October 10, 2024, to look at how young people aged between 13 and 17 are using their smartphones and technology. Across all five platforms (YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, and Facebook) “one-third of teens use at least one of these sites almost constantly.” The share of teenagers who say they use Instagram almost constantly has increased from 8% in 2023 to 12% today. When asked about how often they go online in general, nearly half of the participants said they are online almost constantly which is a 24% increase from what was seen a decade ago. With concerns around social media usage, some people are calling for regulations to be brought in to protect children and teenagers.

Microsoft has reintroduced its artificial intelligence-powered Recall feature to beta testers, or Windows Insider users. Originally planned to be launched earlier this year, Recall was lambasted by cybersecurity experts and online communities due to major security concerns. Recall a CoPilot+ PC exclusive – for now – and leverage the particular hardware of these devices to capture everything you do.

It was almost seven months ago when OpenAI first demoed Advanced Voice Mode with vision and it’s now finally here. The feature was officially launched on day six of the company’s ‘12 Days of OpenAI,’ with users now able to utilize the chatbot through spoken input, images, and video. In a podcast-style video, Kevin – who leads product at OpenAI – says: “We’re excited to announce that we’re bringing video to advanced voice mode.” Just in time for the holidays, video and screensharing are now starting to roll out in Advanced Voice in the ChatGPT mobile app.