GM to pay $220 million to resolve claims it sold driving habits data
General Motors has agreed to pay $220 million to settle claims that it illegally sold driver and location information to data brokers, as reported earlier by Reuters. The agreement, which resolves a complaint from a coalition of 36 US attorneys general, requires GM to limit the driving data it collects and obtain "express consent" from drivers before collecting their information.
The allegations surround GM's now-discontinued Smart Driver program, which collected data about driving habits, including acceleration, braking, and trip length. GM allegedly passed this information to data brokers, enabling insurance companies to purchase the data …
You can generate and edit Google Docs files directly in Gemini chats now
Now you can generate, preview, and edit PDFs, Google Docs, Google Sheets, slide decks, Markdown files, TXT files, and code directly within Google Gemini. The new file editing capabilities are available starting today for all Gemini users, and while PDF previews/editing works on both the web and mobile, all other file formats are only in the web version for now.
Google added support for generating and downloading files in Gemini earlier this year, but now you can tweak those files without leaving the Gemini app. Google says you can expand documents to edit them in full-screen mode and highlight text in files to ask Gemini questions or prompt …
Ikea’s colorful donut-shaped smart lamp is $20 off
With its playful design, versatility, and relatively affordable price, the Ikea Varmblixt quickly became one of my colleague Jennifer Pattison Tuohy’s new favorite smart light products when she tested it in April. Now, the donut-shaped lamp is on sale for $79.99 ($20 off) through November 11th at Ikea.
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Don’t let us tell you where you can or cannot put your Varmblixt. But it’s meant to sit on a table or be mounted on a wall (it can hang from a drilled-in screw, nothing fancy). At just 180 lumens, it isn’t particularly bright, so it’s better suited for use as a bedside lamp or for mood lighting than being tasked to illuminate a room. The newer model lets you cycle through 12 preset colors, including shades of pink, blue, green, and white, as opposed to just orange with the predecessor. The included wireless remote lets you switch between colors, adjust the brightness, and turn the lamp on or off without needing an app or a separate hub (there’s a power button on the lamp itself) . You can also use the remote to control other compatible Ikea lights.
For those who want to embed the Varmblixt into their smart home setup, the lamp supports Matter, allowing it to work with compatible smart home platforms including Apple Home, Google Home, and Amazon Alexa. In addition to letting you control the lights with your voice, this gives you access to hundreds more colors, lets you set lighting schedules and sleep or wake-up routines, and allows you to connect the lamp with motion sensors and other smart lights you may have. You can unlock those features with Ikea’s Dirigera hub, as well, which also offers a feature through its Home Smart app that gradually adjusts the shade of white throughout the day akin to natural daylight.
Read our Ikea Varmblixt review.
Apple’s new laptop supports one of the coolest features for color pros
The new MacBook Pro brings with it a bunch of firsts for Apple laptops, the two flashiest being an OLED display and touchscreen functionality. But as an image-accuracy enthusiast, trained calibrator, and resident display expert, what excites me most about the MacBook Pro with PROLED XDR Display is the technology it uses to display an accurate picture. It's the first laptop, and only the second product overall, to support Apple CMF 2026 color modes. It could be the future for displays.
CMFs, or color-matching functions, mathematically represent how we perceive color, and there are a few different variations. The specification that's been the …
Utah charges Kalshi and its CEO with illegally promoting online gambling
Utah has filed criminal charges against Kalshi and its executives, accusing the prediction market of breaking anti-gambling laws, as reported by The Salt Lake Tribune and the Associated Press. The state has filed 14 charges against Kalshi, as well as CEO Tarek Mansour and COO Luana Lopes Lara, including 12 counts of illegally promoting online gambling.
The move marks an escalation in a nationwide battle against prediction market platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket. Utah has already sued Kalshi over claims that it's operating illegally in the state, joining several other states, including New York, Nevada, New Mexico, Washington, Connecticu …
Data centers could send US climate pollution skyrocketing
The US power sector could release 42 percent more planet-heating carbon dioxide pollution by 2030 than it did in 2025 as it builds out more fossil fuel infrastructure to meet data center electricity demand, according to a new analysis by the Sierra Club. That would essentially wipe out 15 years of greenhouse gas reductions.
CO2 emissions from electricity generation would increase by 618 million tons by the end of the decade if planned AI projects are constructed. That's roughly equivalent to carbon pollution from the electricity use of 128,788,523 homes in a year.
The Sierra Club's estimate is higher than some previous projections
The Sie …
This open-source project lets you sync Withings data to other apps without a subscription
When it was revealed earlier this month that Withings would require new users to subscribe to a Withings Plus subscription to sync heath data from the company's devices to third-party apps, Tom Anthony, who was already fed up with the Withings mobile app which they describe as a "bloated mess," became motivated to "free" their scales. Anthony's solution was to create an open-source project called YourOwnWeigh that reroutes your data away from Withings' servers so it can be wirelessly synced to other apps and platforms for free.
You can read more about the project on GitHub, where you'll also find quick-start guides on how to get YourOwnWeig …
Joshua Kushner’s Thrive Holdings is acquiring ADT for $7.6 billion
The Joshua Kushner-led Thrive Holdings is acquiring ADT in an all-cash deal valued at $7.6 billion. The deal is expected to close in the first quarter of 2027 and will take ADT private, as reported earlier by Bloomberg.
Joshua Kushner is the brother of President Donald Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner. Thrive Holdings was founded last year, serving as an offshoot of Joshua Kushner's venture capital firm Thrive Capital Management. TechCrunch likens Thrive Holdings to a "private equity firm for AI," as it purchases "traditional" businesses, like accounting and IT services, and applies AI to their workflows.
Though ADT operates a standalone …
Microsoft’s AI future has fewer jobs
To anyone listening closely to what Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has been saying over the past couple of years, this week felt like the clearest sign yet that AI is about to fundamentally change the size of Microsoft's workforce. Microsoft is now offering voluntary buyouts to around 60,000 employees across the US, UK, Canada, and India.
It's the first time the company has presented such an offer to so many employees, expanding greatly upon the retirement offer that was limited to around 9,000 employees earlier this year. It's all part of an ongoing effort to avoid reducing investment in AI infrastructure by lowering Microsoft's operating cos …
The NYT Cooking app is testing AI recipe modifications
The New York Times is testing a new AI feature for its Cooking app that helps users to modify recipes, and it has sparked some drama among users. Last Friday, NYT Cooking senior editor Genevieve Ko announced the feature, which can be used to recommend substitutions for ingredients and cooking equipment, scale recipes to any number of servings, and "generally make our recipes work for what a cook needs at that moment."
One of the examples given in the article shows a user asking to use baby spinach instead of kale, with the Cooking app feature advising that because baby spinach wilts faster, it should be added during a later step of the reci …