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Max has been available in a handful of European countries since earlier this year, but now that Warner Bros. Discovery and Sky have re-upped their distribution partnership, the one to watch is finally launching in the UK and Ireland some time in 2026.

In case you haven’t gotten your fill from Spotify Wrapped and Google Photos’ yearly recaps, you’ll be able to swipe up on your Snapchat camera to see all your highlights from 2024 starting December 17th.

The “Grok 2 + Aurora” option has vanished from Grok’s model selector menu only a day after it appeared, Engadget reports, replaced by “Grok 2 + FLUX beta” instead. The model still makes photorealistic images, but it was less willing to reproduce celebrities when I asked.

X owner Elon Musk wrote yesterday that the photorealistic and largely unrestricted model is a beta “internal image generator.”

Update: Added testing detail.

Microsoft had stopped offering 24H2 to gamers with certain Ubisoft games installed, but now it will for Avatar: Frontlines of Pandora and Star Wars Outlaws, Microsoft writes in an update spotted by XDA Developers.

Windows Update will offer the download within 48 hours of applying a “temporary” patch, the company says. Assassin’s Creed games like Valhalla remain affected and would preclude your system, though.

It’s been two years since Apple dropped its plan to detect child abuse imagery using client-side iCloud scanning.

Now, the New York Times reports on a class-action lawsuit filed in California saying it harmed a group of 2,680 victims by failing to "implement those designs or take any measures to detect and limit" CSAM, like using Microsoft's PhotoDNA.

Under law, victims of child sexual abuse are entitled to a minimum of $150,000 in damages, which means the total award...could exceed $1.2 billion

Trump mentioned his dinner with the billionaire Amazon founder and Washington Post owner during his interview with Kristen Welker for Meet the Press today, according to NBC News.

He’s heard from Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon and owner of The Washington Post: “We’re having dinner,” he said.

Bezos, who didn’t get along with the President-elect before, recently said he feels “optimistic” about his second term.

A new Apple TV Plus movie called The Gorge sees Miles Teller (Top Gun: Maverick) and Anya Taylor-Joy (Furiosa) standing guard on opposite sides of a mysterious gorge.

They’re only supposed to prevent whatever’s in the gorge from escaping, and they’re not to have any contact with one another — a rule they break, of course. The Gorge debuts on February 24th.

Whimsical flags for made-up organizations are a common protest prop in South Korea, originating as a satirical response to accusations of astroturfing. This Star Wars flag made a showing at Saturday’s protests, as the Korean legislature failed to impeach Yoon over his attempted coup on Tuesday night.

While investigating apps that let livestream viewers pay to watch child abuse, The New York Times reports that it found “more than 80 apps that advertised children” on the Apple and Google app stores.

The livestream apps downloaded from Apple and Google illustrate an even darker aspect of the social media technology boom, particularly for children living in poverty in developing countries. There, with the ease of a smartphone, parents and other adults can connect with pedophiles in the United States and elsewhere who pay to watch — and direct — criminal behavior.

Trigger warning: This Times story includes descriptions of child sexual abuse.

Frog Design’s Hartmut Esslinger once created a slick, but unrealistic-for-the-time handheld Mac concept using Frog’s Snow White design language.

One 3D-printed chassis, a Raspberry Pi 4, and a 3rd-generation iPad display later, YouTuber Kevin Noki shows a functional version they made, using measurements apparently provided by Esslinger himself — with a floppy drive, a full complement of ports, and a pleasingly clicky keyboard, to boot.

Two days after someone shot and killed UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in Manhattan, police located the “distinctive” backpack the attacker was wearing. They removed it from Central Park, unopened, using an excavator.

As many people, including Peak Design CEO Pete Dearing, noticed, it appears to be the company’s Everyday V1 backpack, as shown in a photo obtained by ABC News.

Whether it’s during Bandcamp Friday or not, buying music sends more money to musicians than playing a subscription stream. So, it might be worth celebrating this event where Bandcamp waives its cut of the money you spend one last time for 2024 as it continues for the next seven hours or so.

Bandcamp has changed hands twice and had significant layoffs since the pandemic tradition started; we’ll see if it continues in 2025.

TikTok is running out of time and legal recourse to avoid a US ban unless its China-based parent company ByteDance sells it. Here’s the tl;dr on why a three-judge panel unanimously ruled to uphold the law that could expel TikTok, and what comes next.