Retail Sales Inched Up In Dec., Ending Record Year

The Democratic Republic of Congo has taken legal action against Apple subsidiary firms in France and Belgium, alleging the tech giant has embedded the use of conflict minerals in its supply chain.   The Central African country is a major regional source of tin, tantalum, and tungsten, with the components widely used in the manufacturing of smartphones and computers.  However, the contention arises from some mining sites being operated by militias, said to be responsible for widespread massacres, mass rapes, and other serious crimes, according to UN experts.  As reported by Reuters, international lawyers representing Congo have made their case that Apple is benefiting from the minerals obtained in the country and then laundered through well-established supply chains.  The U.

Meta has introduced several new features to its Ray-Ban Meta glasses, including live translation, live AI, and Shazam song identification. Meta’s smart glasses, designed and produced in partnership with eyewear fashion giants Ray-Ban, have continued to be a focus for the tech giant, and they were highlighted at Meta Connect earlier this year. The v11 software update has begun rolling out today (December 17), and members of Meta’s early access program (available in the US and Canada) can begin to experience the new features included, before rolling out to the wider user base. Live AI is one of the key new features, adding Meta AI to the glasses.

Farming Simulator 25 has been a huge success for Giants Software and while the devs probably always suspected it would be, given the remarkable success of previous games in the series, having the name alone is no guarantee the ball will not be dropped (we are looking at you Cities Skylines 2) Earlier in the year, before Farming Simulator 25 game was out we reported on the annual gathering of Farm Sim enthusiasts known as Farmcon as excitement towards the new release built. Now obviously with the success story in mind, there was going to be a Farmcon 25, and if you fancy finding yourself in picturesque Austria in July 2025 you too could be one of the attendees. Tickets for the event at Kundl are available already and will see the family-friendly event held on the weekend of July 5th and 6th. The annual event for fans, modders, and influencers to meet the team and creative minds behind Farming Simulator will take place at the Innovation Center of the renowned agricultural manufacturer and long-time partner Lindner in Kundl, Austria. “We’re thrilled with the amazing reactions from the community to Farming Simulator 25!

Google has released a new artificial intelligence (AI) image generation tool called Whisk, which lets you submit prompts as images and refine them with text. According to a blog post, users can submit an image to act as the subject, the scene, and the style, and Whisk will use those inputs to remix (AI generates) something new based on the prompts, “from a digital plushie to an enamel pin or sticker”, or presumably, pictures of those things. How does Whisk work? Behind the scenes, Whisk is using Google’s Gemini AI to create detailed text prompts from the images you input.

The RPG gacha game, Honkai: Star Rail, is getting a physical edition exclusive to PlayStation 5 at the end of January. The free-to-play game was released in April 2023 across PC, mobile, and PS5 and has seen pretty decent success. The Honkai: Star Rail Trailblazer Edition physical disc bundle comes with a physical copy of the game as well as a whole host of collectible goodies. The bundle launches on January 15th, 2025 in the following countries: Hong Kong SAR, Macao SAR, and Taiwan Region, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. Western countries can expect the physical edition release at a later date, however.

An investigation has uncovered details of an illegal gambling ring that is enticing children to bet, using their accounts on the popular gaming platform, Roblox.  Illegal casinos are manipulating minors, as young as 12, to bet their Roblox credit, known as Robux, on slots and blackjack.  The extent of the problem has been made clear with Sky News reporting one of the illegal gambling outlets, Bloxmoon, has facilitated user losses of $11.4m (£8.8m) since it went live in late 2022. Sky News also probed BloxFlip and RBLXWild, showing that collectively the sites received around 2.8 million visitors each month, with millions staked in bets.  Taking the lead from the investigation, the Gambling Commission has acted to launch a report of its own, while banning the illegal casino outlets from operating in the U.