Trump and Mid-Atlantic governors want tech companies to pay for new power plants
The Trump administration and a bipartisan group of governors are pressuring the PJM Interconnection, the biggest electricity market in the US, to hold a power auction meant to spur a massive buildout of new power plants.
Together, they're "urging" PJM to hold an "emergency" auction for companies to procure electricity over 15-year contracts. The unusually long length of the contracts would ostensibly make it easier to build out new infrastructure by guaranteeing revenue and discouraging speculative requests to connect to the grid by data center developers.
The move comes as power grids scramble to meet increasing electricity demand from A …
Fortnite blocks creators from selling prize wheel spins
Epic Games is making a big change to the rules for Fortnite creators just days after allowing them to publish experiences with in-game transactions. Beginning January 20th, experiences - which Epic Games calls "islands" - will not be able to offer in-island transactions as "a 'spin' or 'increased luck' for a prize wheel," according to an Epic staffer on Reddit.
Epic is adding the rule after Steal The Brainrot, one of the biggest non-Epic games available to play in Fortnite, implemented a prize wheel that let players pay V-Bucks (Fortnite's in-game currency) for spins and luck to acquire in-game items. Steal The Brainrot also added lootboxes …
Google brings its AI videomaker to Workspace users
Google is expanding access to its AI videomaking tool. Launched last May, Flow was initially only available to Google AI Pro and AI Ultra subscribers, but now, those with Business, Enterprise, and Education Workspace plans can access it, too.
Flow uses Google's AI video generation model Veo 3.1 to generate eight-second clips based on a text prompt or images. You can stitch together the clips to create longer scenes, as well as access a bunch of other tools that allow you to change the lighting, adjust the "camera" angle, and insert or remove objects in scenes. Earlier this week, Google added vertical video support inside Flow.
Google broug …
The two things AMD subtly revealed at CES that actually excite me
As we predicted, the world's biggest consumer electronics show was a bit of a bust for gamers this year! CES 2026 brought us several neat gamepads, but barely any handhelds and no new desktop GPUs - not from Nvidia, not from Intel, and not from AMD.
But if you dig deep, AMD said two things at this year's show that are worthy of attention. Did you catch that the company's about to make socketed mobile chips again? Or that its answer to Intel is to lower the price of its monster Strix Halo silicon?
Publicly, AMD barely acknowledged consumers at the Consumer Electronics Show. "AMD failed us," decried Gamers Nexus, pointing out that the compa …
Verizon-owned Visible is offering outage credits, too
Customers of Visible Wireless, which is owned by Verizon, may be getting a $5 credit toward their next bill in response to a Verizon cell service outage earlier this week. Verizon customers were offered a $20 credit after the outage.
As spotted by 9to5Google, a message sent to Visible customers explains: "Yesterday we let you down and for that we are sorry. We are giving you a $5 credit towards your next month of service that can be redeemed after Jan 16 when paying with a credit card online."
The same message was shared by a user on the Visible subreddit on Thursday, although the user mentioned that they didn't have issues related to the …
Ted Sarandos says Netflix will commit to 45-day theatrical releases
Though Netflix's plan to buy Warner Bros. Discovery has prompted concerns about how the deal might hurt the movie theater business, the streamer's co-CEO says that there is nothing to worry about.
In a new interview with The New York Times, Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos said that, should the WBD acquisition go through, the streamer will commit to 45-day theatrical release windows for the legacy studio's upcoming releases. Sarandos insisted that Netflix has no intentions of disrupting "a theatrical distribution engine that is phenomenal and produces billions of dollars," and that he believes there is value in the movie theater experience.
"I' …
Ads are coming soon to ChatGPT, starting with shopping links
ChatGPT will soon start showing you sponsored products or services if they're related to your conversation. In an announcement on Friday, OpenAI says it will start testing ads in the coming weeks for logged-in users in the US who use the app for free or have a ChatGPT Go subscription.
The "clearly labeled" ads will surface in a separate area at the bottom of your chat. OpenAI says it will "keep your conversations with ChatGPT private from advertisers," adding that it will "never sell your data" to them. Advertisers also won't influence the answers you see, which will remain "optimized based on what's most helpful to you," according to OpenA …
OpenAI releases a cheaper ChatGPT subscription
OpenAI is expanding a low-cost subscription tier called ChatGPT Go to the US and the rest of the world. Go was released in India in August and later became available in another 170 countries prior to Friday's global release. "In markets where Go has been available, we've seen strong adoption and regular everyday use for tasks like writing, learning, image creation, and problem-solving," the company's announcement stated.
For $8 per month, Go subscribers get more messages, file uploads, and image generation than the free ChatGPT tier subscribers. The price slots Go between the free version of the AI chatbot and the $20-a-month "Plus" subscri …
X is still having issues following an hour-long outage on Friday
On Friday morning, X and Grok went offline for users around the world on both the websites and apps. Outage reports began spiking on DownDetector around 10:00AM ET, while Cisco's ThousandEyes outage map noted over 600 X servers around the world that were having problems.
Attempts to load the site with either the Twitter.com or X.com addresses were showing a Cloudflare connection error or failing to show any posts or feeds initially. It's currently unclear what caused the outage, and while the site is back up for many users, it's still not working normally yet, frequently displaying "Something went wrong. Try reloading."
The website and app …
Canada is going to start importing Chinese EVs — will the US follow?
Is the North American blockade on Chinese EVs softening? Today, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney announced a deal with China to slash tariffs on electric vehicles in exchange for lowering duties on canola products. Canada will initially allow up to 49,000 Chinese EVs at a 6.1 percent tariff, Carney said, though the exact timeline was unclear.
The news comes a few days after President Donald Trump signaled a willingness to allow Chinese EVs in the US, despite his administration's ongoing trade war with China and long-standing concerns about the potential impact on domestic automakers in the US. At an event in Detroit, Trump said Chinese …