After a year of stalled negotiations, TikTok owner ByteDance has reportedly agreed to Donald Trump’s deal giving US owners majority ownership of the app.

By signing the agreements, ByteDance has ended a prolonged period of uncertainty for millions of Americans who rely on TikTok for news, entertainment, social connection, and income. Under a law that Trump declined to enforce—which lawmakers convinced the Supreme Court was critical for national security—TikTok risked a US ban next year if the sale did not go through.

According to Reuters, terms of the deal match what was reported in September when Trump controversially confirmed that ByteDance would keep the algorithm. Under the deal, US investors and allies—including cloud computing firm Oracle, private equity group Silver Lake, and Abu Dhabi-based MGX—will likely license the algorithm.

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It may be happening quietly, but there is a revolution taking place with in-space transportation, and it opens up a world of possibilities.

Back in January, a small spacecraft built by a California-based company called Impulse Space launched along with a stack of other satellites on a Falcon 9 rocket. Upon reaching orbit, the rocket’s upper stage sent the satellites zipping off on their various missions.

And so it went with the Mira spacecraft built by Impulse, which is known as an orbital transfer vehicle. Mira dropped off several small CubeSats and then performed a number of high-thrust maneuvers to demonstrate its capabilities. This was the second flight by a Mira spacecraft, so Impulse Space was eager to continue testing the vehicle in flight.

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You can do a lot with Android Auto, but what you can’t do is install a web browser—at least not with the default, out-of-the-box configuration. It is actually possible to get a window on to the web with a little bit of tweaking, and the help of the open source AA Browser built especially for Android Auto.

Getting a web browser up on your car dashboard may not seem like much of an improvement over browsing on your phone screen, but it also enables another feature on your vehicle’s display: video playback. Through AA Browser you can get at pretty much any streaming site you want and load up some video.

Some serious safety warnings are required here, though. You should only load up videos on your car’s Android Auto screen when you’re parked, stationary, and not going anywhere. Watching anything on the move—whether it’s on your phone or on your vehicle dashboard—not only risks your life, it risks the lives of everyone else on the road with you.

In fact, AA Browser will disable itself while your vehicle is moving, but it’s worth giving out the warning in any case, for this and any other app. With that out of the way, here’s how you can load up a web browser on Android Auto, and make your parked-up time inside your car more entertaining.

Browser setup and installation

Like Android as a whole, Android Auto has a developer mode that gives you access to a selection of extra settings. From Settings on Android, tap Connected devices > Connection preferences > Android Auto (Pixels) or just Connected devices > Android Auto (Galaxy phones). Scroll down to the bottom of the screen, tap Version, then tap Version and permission info seven times.

You should then see a pop-up asking you if you’re sure you want to enable developer settings for Android Auto, so tap OK to confirm. You then need to open up the AAAD (Android Auto Apps Downloader) app APK in your phone’s browser, tapping through the security warnings about running non-Play Store apps on your device if they show up.

AAAD will give you access to the AA Browser.
Credit: Lifehacker

AAAD gives you access to a selection of Android Auto apps that haven’t been specifically approved by Google, including AA Browser. Tap through the various introduction screens, give the app the permissions that it needs to install other apps, and then find AA Browser in the list of available apps. Tap Install and then tap through the confirmation pop-ups to get the app on your phone.

You’ll be asked if you want to open AA Browser straight away: You can use it as a normal web browser on your phone, though there’s not really much to look at. It’s designed to be used primarily on your Android Auto screen, and it should now show up as an available app when your phone is connected to your vehicle.

Using AA Browser in your car

Provided you’re safely stopped in your vehicle, you can launch AA Browser from the main apps list on the Android Auto interface (you may also get a prompt to launch it the first time you connect, after installing the app). You get taken to the Google Search homepage to begin with, and from there you can go anywhere you like.

As with any other Android Auto app, if you tap inside an input field, you’ll see a keyboard pop up on screen that you can use to enter web addresses and login credentials, and you can use the touchscreen to navigate around. To get to the URL address bar, tap anywhere on screen, then tap the blue arrow in the lower left corner.

Entering and editing URLs in AA Browser.
Credit: Lifehacker

The next screen also gives you options for going back through your browser history and accessing your bookmarks—a handy way of making sure you can jump back to the sites you need without having to tap our their URLs every time. There’s also the option to request the desktop versions of sites rather than the mobile versions.

While certain sites don’t seem to like the AA Browser, most of the pages I’ve visited work fine on Android Auto. To quit the browser, you can either tap the Exit button in the top right corner (if it’s visible), or swipe up or down from the top or bottom edges of the Android Auto screen to go back to your other apps.

Apple released an updated developer license agreement this week that gives the company permission to recoup unpaid funds, such as commissions or any other fees, by deducting them from in-app purchases it processes on developers’ behalf, among other methods. From a report: The change will impact developers in regions where local law allows them to link to external payment systems. In these cases, developers must report those payments back to Apple to pay the required commissions or fees.

The changed agreement seemingly gives Apple a way to collect what it believes is the correct fee if the company determines a developer has underreported their earnings. […] In its new developer agreement, Apple states it will “offset or recoup” what it believes it is owed, including “any amounts collected by Apple on your behalf from end-users.” This means Apple could recoup funds from developers’ in-app purchases — like those for digital goods, services, and subscriptions — or from one-time fees for paid applications.

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This week, Engadget Managing Editor Cherlynn Low joins us to look back at some of the highlights (and lowlights) of 2025. We dive into our favorite gadgets of the year, the many ways Big Tech bowed to Trump, the disappointment of AI PCs and the rise of smart glasses. We also learn way too much about our skincare routines.

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• Our favorite gadgets of 2025: Kindle Scribe Colorsoft, Airpods Pro 3, bluetooth lav mics and more – 2:26

• Favorite Media of 2025: Andor, self-improvement via podcast, and a shoutout to your library – 34:30

• iRobot declares bankruptcy – 47:29

• Warner Bros. Discovery board rejects Paramount’s hostile bid, shareholders yet to vote  – 53:47

• The Oscars will air on Youtube starting in 2029 – 56:05

• Ford to turn its F-150 Lightining into a gas generator EV – 57:41

• Around Engadget: smart glasses had a great run in 2025, against social media age verification – 58:20

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Hosts: Devindra Hardawar and Cherlynn Low
Producer: Ben Ellman
Music: Dale North and Terrence O’Brien

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/engadget-podcast-2025-was-the-year-of-ai-smartglasses-and-spineless-big-tech-143000338.html?src=rss

The Danish government has accused Russia of being behind two “destructive and disruptive” cyberattacks in what it describes as “very clear evidence” of a hybrid war. From a report: The Danish Defence Intelligence Service (DDIS) announced on Thursday that Moscow was behind a cyberattack on a Danish water utility in 2024 and a series of distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks on Danish websites in the lead-up to the municipal and regional council elections in November.

The first, it said, was carried out by the pro-Russian group known as Z-Pentest and the second by NoName057(16), which has links to the Russian state. “The Russian state uses both groups as instruments of its hybrid war against the west,” DDIS said in a statement. “The aim is to create insecurity in the targeted countries and to punish those that support Ukraine. Russia’s cyber operations form part of a broader influence campaign intended to undermine western support for Ukraine.” It added: “The DDIS assesses that the Danish elections were used as a platform to attract public attention — a pattern that has been observed in several other European elections.”

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The Nest Doorbell (Wired, 3rd Gen) is currently selling for $132, down from $179.99, and price trackers confirm this is the lowest it has ever dropped.

Google Nest Doorbell (Wired, 3rd Gen)

$132.00
at Amazon

$179.99
Save $47.99

$132.00
at Amazon

$179.99
Save $47.99

This is Google’s newest wired doorbell, and it’s clearly designed for people who already use Google Home. The hardware looks familiar if you’ve seen the battery-powered Nest Doorbell. It keeps the same slim, vertical shape but is a bit shorter, measuring about 5.1 inches tall. It’s rated IP65 for weather resistance and feels well-built, but this is a wired-only model. You’ll need existing doorbell wiring and a compatible transformer. Google includes the chime connector, mounting hardware, and a wedge mount, but there’s no getting around the fact that installation assumes your home is already set up for a wired doorbell. 

Video quality is where this model makes its case. The camera records 2K HDR video at a 1:1 aspect ratio, which gives you a full head-to-toe view of your doorstep. That makes it easier to see packages on the ground and faces near the door in one frame. Daytime footage looks sharp and well-balanced, and night video holds detail using infrared LEDs, with color video kicking in when there’s enough ambient light. Motion alerts are quick, and the 166-degree field of view feels wide without heavy distortion, notes PCMag in its “excellent” review of this doorbell. It connects over dual-band wifi and Bluetooth, and it supports Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa for voice control. Two-way audio works reliably for quick conversations, though there’s no mechanical pan or tilt.

The software experience is very Google. The doorbell lives inside the Google Home app, where you get a clean live view, event clips, and clear controls. Gemini-powered features are the highlight. Event descriptions explain what triggered a recording, and video search lets you find things like package deliveries or familiar faces without scrubbing through footage. The downside is storage. Everything is cloud-based, and without a subscription, you only get short preview clips. The Standard plan costs $10 a month or $100 a year, while the Advanced plan doubles that. There’s no local storage option at all. It also skips Apple HomeKit and IFTTT support, so smart homes outside Google’s orbit might find it limiting. But for those already using Google Home and willing to pay for cloud features, this price drop makes the third-gen wired Nest Doorbell a strong pick for smarter doorstep monitoring.

Riot Games has confirmed that it’s working on a massive update for League of Legends after Bloomberg published a report saying that the company has plans to remake the game. Back in November, a Chinese esports insider also reported that a League of Legends 2 is in development and is coming as early as the second half of 2026. In a video announcement discussing Riot’s plans for League after 2026, executive producer Paul Belleza denied that the developer is working on League 2 like rumors have been suggesting, but he admitted that it is working on a big update that will arrive in 2027.

Andrei van Roon, Head of League Studio, then enumerated some of the things his team is already working on, including a brand new around-game client that’s fully integrated with the in-game experience, a full visual overhaul of the Summoner’s Rift, changes to Runes and an overall improvement to the player experience. The update is looking to be as big as the one from back in the mid-2010s when Riot reworked League’s graphics and is meant to bring in new players.

Belleza and van Roon said they’ll share more details between MSI in the summer and Worlds in the fall of 2026. While the timeline is pretty vaugue, the window of release for a major update like this is most likely the end of November until early January when competitive league is on break.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/a-total-league-of-legends-revamp-is-coming-in-2027-130000644.html?src=rss

An anonymous reader quotes a report from KrebsOnSecurity: Direct navigation — the act of visiting a website by manually typing a domain name in a web browser — has never been riskier: A new study finds the vast majority of “parked” domains — mostly expired or dormant domain names, or common misspellings of popular websites — are now configured to redirect visitors to sites that foist scams and malware. When Internet users try to visit expired domain names or accidentally navigate to a lookalike “typosquatting” domain, they are typically brought to a placeholder page at a domain parking company that tries to monetize the wayward traffic by displaying links to a number of third-party websites that have paid to have their links shown.

A decade ago, ending up at one of these parked domains came with a relatively small chance of being redirected to a malicious destination: In 2014, researchers found (PDF) that parked domains redirected users to malicious sites less than five percent of the time — regardless of whether the visitor clicked on any links at the parked page. But in a series of experiments over the past few months, researchers at the security firm Infoblox say they discovered the situation is now reversed, and that malicious content is by far the norm now for parked websites. “In large scale experiments, we found that over 90% of the time, visitors to a parked domain would be directed to illegal content, scams, scareware and anti-virus software subscriptions, or malware, as the ‘click’ was sold from the parking company to advertisers, who often resold that traffic to yet another party,” Infoblox researchers wrote in a paper published today.

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The best phone of 2025: The iPhone 17 Pro, Pixel 10 Pro? Perhaps the Galaxy Z Fold 7? All three rank as some of the best tech we reviewed in 2025.

Engadget

We have compiled all the best gear with our highest review scores in each category, after thousands of hours of testing. We’ve got the Switch 2, AirPods Pro 3 and DJI’s top drone for most of you. Anecdotally, Anker’s Laptop Power Bank, with two built-in charging cables, has been the sleeper hit of the Engadget team, with four editors making it their power bank of choice. I think it’s the retractable cable.

— Mat Smith

OpenAI just launched an app store inside ChatGPT

Some use locally stored data, and others let you organize Apple Music songs.

OpenAI has introduced an app directory right inside ChatGPT. The new apps section (on iOS, Android and web) divides into Feature, Lifestyle and Productivity categories, letting you connect to commonly used apps and even websites like Booking.com, Spotify and Dropbox.

With Dropbox, for instance, you can “gather insights, prepare briefs and summarize reports or internal documents,” using ChatGPT’s smarts, according to the description. OpenAI says developers can only monetize apps by linking out from the ChatGPT app to a native app or website, but the company is exploring internal monetization options as well.

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Trump Mobile’s T1 still doesn’t exist, but the company is now selling refurbished phones

Who wouldn’t want to overpay for an old phone?

The T1 smartphone from Trump Mobile remains non-existent vaporware, but you can still give the company your money. If you want, you can buy a refurbished phone from Trump Mobile. The business’s website lists Samsung S24 and S23 and the iPhone 15 and 14. Gizmodo noted Trump Mobile is selling other brands’ phones at the same price as or higher than other retailers.

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Sony is buying Snoopy, Charlie Brown and the rest of Peanuts

It will own 80 percent of the franchise.

Peanuts

It’s the wildcard news story no one saw coming. Sony, of Walkman and PlayStation fame, is buying an 80 percent stake of Peanuts for a cool $460 million. Sony already bought 39 percent of the franchise back in 2018 — something most of us were entirely unaware of.

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The other big stories (and deals) this morning

• Don’t panic! The 12 best last-minute Christmas gifts for 2025

• Avatar Fire and Ash review: Maybe it’s time to sunset Pandora

• Big Tech bent the knee for Trump in 2025

• OnePlus 15R review: A 165Hz display and big battery for $700

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/general/the-morning-after-engadget-newsletter-121536612.html?src=rss

SpaceX said it experienced an anomaly with one if its Starlink satellites that was likely caused by a small explosion. “The anomaly led to venting of the propulsion tank, a rapid decay in semi-major axis by about 4 km [2.5 miles] and the release of a small number of trackable low relatively velocity objects,” Starlink wrote in a post on X. Orbital tracking company LeoLabs assessed that the issue was caused by an “internal energetic source rather than a collision with space debris or another object.” 

SpaceX said it’s working with NASA and the US Space Force to track the remains of the object. “The satellite is largely intact, tumbling and will reenter the Earth’s atmosphere and fully demise within weeks,” the company said. It’s trajectory is well below the International Space Station (ISS) so it poses no risk to the lab or its crew. Starlink has yet to say how many pieces it’s tracking.

The incident happened just days after a Starlink satellite narrowly avoided a collision with a rival Chinese satellite from CAS Space last week. Starlink vice president Michael Nicholls said that the incident happened due to a lack of coordination between the two companies. “When satellite operators do not share emphemeris for their satellites, dangerously close approaches can occur in space,” he wrote on X. 

Starlink’s constellation consists of almost 9,300 active satellites making up around 65 percent of all orbiting spacecraft, not including defunct units. That number grew by more than 3,000 this year alone, launched aboard 121 separate SpaceX missions — around one every three days. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/science/space/a-starlink-satellite-just-exploded-and-left-trackable-debris-120002814.html?src=rss

Google’s AI Mode is synthesizing “Frankenstein” recipes from multiple creators, often stripping away context and accuracy and siphoning traffic and ad revenue away from food bloggers in the process. Many recipe writers warn this shift amounts to an “extinction event” for ad-supported food sites. The Guardian reports: Over the past few years, bloggers who have not secured their sites behind a paywall have seen their carefully developed and tested recipes show up, often without attribution and in a bastardized form, in ChatGPT replies. They have seen dumbed-down versions of their recipes in AI-assembled cookbooks available for digital downloads on Etsy or on AI-built websites that bear a superficial resemblance to an old-school human-written blog. Their photos and videos, meanwhile, are repurposed in Facebook posts and Pinterest pins that link back to this digital slop.

Recipe writers have no legal recourse because recipes generally are not copyrightable. Although copyright protects published or recorded work, they do not cover sets of instructions (although it can apply to the particular wording of those instructions). Without this essential IP, many food bloggers earn their living by offering their work for free while using ads to make money. But now they fear that casual users who rely on search engines or social media to find a recipe for dinner will conflate their work with AI slop and stop trusting online recipe sites altogether. “For websites that depend on the advertising model,” says Matt Rodbard, the founder and editor-in-chief of the website Taste, “I think this is an extinction event in many ways.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Tony Isaac shares a report from CNN: President Donald Trump’s social media and crypto company is making a huge bet on a far different industry — nuclear fusion, a potentially lucrative albeit commercially unproven energy technology that could help power a suddenly electricity-starved economy. Trump Media and Technology Group Thursday announced a surprise merger with TAE Technologies, in an all-stock deal valued at more than $6 billion that would create one of the first publicly traded fusion companies. News of the deal shares of Trump Media (DJT) 35% higher in early trading Thursday.

After the deal closes, shareholders of Trump Media and TAE would own about 50% of the combined entity. The combined companies plan to begin construction as soon as next year of the world’s first fusion reaction that could produce electricity on utility scale, rather than just in laboratory settings. The combination with TMTG could give TAE political clout. But it could also make it more politically controversial, particularly if it looks to receive any kind of federal government support, such as grants, low-interest loans or permitting approvals.

It could also give TAE access to capital that it needs. Under terms of the deal, TMTG would provide $300 million in cash for TAE’s plans. But that is likely a fraction of the cash available from some of TAE’s current investors, such as Google parent company Alphabet, as well as its bevy of private equity investors. But that $300 million is only a fraction of the money that TAE needs, or expects to be able to access, once it has become a public company with this deal. Staying a private company, even with deep pocketed investors, is no longer sufficient TAE CEO Michl Binderbauer told CNN Thursday. “It’s a multi-billion dollar undertaking,” said Binderbauer. “The velocity you can get the capital is differentiating. If I raise $2 billion over five years I can’t built the plant sufficiently fast.” He said the company has raised about $1.3 billion over the course of its 25-year history.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Guardian: Actors have voted to refuse digital scanning to prevent their likeness being used by artificial intelligence in a pushback against AI in the arts. Members of the performing arts union Equity were asked if they would refuse to be scanned while on set, a common practice in which actors’ likeness is captured for future use — with 99% voting in favor of the move. The vote was an indicative ballot designed to demonstrate the strength of feeling on the issue, with more than 7,000 members polled on a 75% turnout. However, actors would not be legally protected if they refused to be scanned.

The union said it would write to Pact, the trade body representing the majority of producers and production companies in the UK, to negotiate new minimum standards for pay, as well as terms and conditions for actors working in film and TV. Equity said it may hold a formal ballot depending on the outcome of the negotiations, which, if backed, would give actors legal protection if they were being pressed to accept digital scanning on set. The general secretary, Paul Fleming, said: “Artificial intelligence is a generation-defining challenge. And for the first time in a generation, Equity’s film and TV members have shown that they are willing to take industrial action. Ninety per cent of TV and film is made on these agreements. Over three-quarters of artists working on them are union members. This shows that the workforce is willing to significantly disrupt production unless they are respected, and [if] decades of erosion in terms and conditions begins to be reversed.”

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Four small satellites rode a Rocket Lab Electron launch vehicle into orbit from Virginia early Thursday, beginning a government-funded technology demonstration mission to test the performance of a new spacecraft design.

The satellites were nestled inside a cylindrical dispenser on top of the 59-foot-tall (18-meter) Electron rocket when it lifted off from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility at 12:03 am EST (05:03 UTC). A little more than an hour later, the rocket’s upper stage released the satellites one at a time at an altitude of about 340 miles (550 kilometers).

The launch was the starting gun for a “proof of concept” mission to test the viability of a new kind of satellite called DiskSats. These satellites were designed by the Aerospace Corporation, a nonprofit federally funded research and development center. The project is jointly financed by NASA and the US Space Force, which paid for DiskSat’s development and launch, respectively.

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Sony is paying approximately $460 milliion to purchase Peanuts [PDF] and its characters, including Snoopy and Charlie Brown, created by Charles M. Schulz. That’s a 41 percent stake Sony is buying from Canadian firm WildBrain. Since Sony bought 39 percent of the franchise back in 2018, this will give the company an 80 percent stake. The deal is still subject to regulatory approvals, but Peanuts will become Sony’s consolidated subsidiary once it’s closed. Schulz’s family still owns the remaining 20 percent stake in the franchise.

Schulz launched the Peanuts universe in comic strips 75 years ago, back in 1950. The franchise has grown massively since then, spawning animated series, cartoon musicals and movies that made Snoopy a household name. The company said that it has focused on expanding the Peanuts IP since it bought 39 percent of the brand years ago. “With this additional ownership stake, we are thrilled to be able to further elevate the value of the ʻPEANUTSʼ brand by drawing on the Sony Groupʼs extensive global network and collective expertise,” Sony Music Entertainment Japan CEO Shunsuke Muramatsu added.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/sony-is-buying-peanuts-022341467.html?src=rss

alternative_right shares a report from ScienceAlert: A new study adds to the growing body of evidence that swearing can help us unleash our inner strength, improving physical performance, it seems, by helping people break through certain psychological barriers. […] [Psychology researcher Richard Stephens of Keele University in the UK] and his colleagues at Keele and the University of Alabama wanted to test whether swearing could not only improve physical performance, as they had done in previous research, but also see whether it does so by changing a person’s psychology in the moment, especially when it comes to letting go of inhibitions.

Eighty-eight participants, aged 18 to 65, all in good enough shape to exert themselves physically, were recruited at a university campus to participate in the first experiment. They each selected a pair of words based on the following prompts: a swear word you might utter after bumping your head, and a neutral word you might use to describe a table. Then, they undertook a chair push-up, which involves sitting in a chair and, holding each side of the seat, using your arms to lift your entire body weight (bottom off the chair, feet off the floor). […]

Both experiments suggested that swearing offers an advantage in physical performance, with participants achieving longer chair push-up hold times as they repeated their foul-mouthed mantras. Scores for positive emotion, humor, distraction, and novelty were also elevated in the swearing tests, which suggests invoking their favorite four-letter word might enable people to transition into more action-oriented states, and perhaps actually enjoy their workout more. The research is published in American Psychologist.

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