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🎧 Sony Unveils $230 Clip-On Earbuds, Joining a Growing Wave The LinkBuds Clip joins a subcategory of open-style earbuds that sit outside the ear canal, promising better situational awareness than regular buds. This design, different brands claim, makes it easy to have conversations with those nearby or hear what's happening around you, even with music playing at moderate volume. Some people also find them more comfortable to wear throughout the day. What do you think about open-ear buds? ❤️ — Cool, really comfortable 🎃 — Bad, don't fit, can't hear anything!

🩹 New Spray Stops Bleeding Instantly Korean researchers have developed AGCL, a spray-on powder that quickly turns into a gel when it comes into contact with blood, sealing serious wounds in about 1 second. Made from alginate, gellan gum, and chitosan, AGCL speeds up clotting, fights bacteria, and supports tissue repair, outperforming existing products in mouse liver tests while remaining stable for up to two years at room temperature.

🛩 Musk Hints At Ryanair Takeover After Starlink Row Elon Musk has escalated his clash with Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary by suggesting on X that he might buy the budget airline after O'Leary rejected installing Starlink satellite internet on its 650 planes, warning of 2% extra fuel burn and $200M–$250M in added annual fuel costs on top of a $5B bill. Musk called that view "misinformed," traded "idiot" insults with O'Leary, ran a poll on whether he should buy Ryanair that drew strong support, and faced questions over whether EU ownership rules would allow such a deal. Read More

👐 OpenAI Confirms First Hardware Device on Track for Late 2026 Debut OpenAI is "on track" to unveil its first consumer hardware device in the second half of 2026, the company's chief global affairs officer Chris Lehane announced Monday at Axios House Davos, marking a major step in the AI company's expansion beyond software into physical products.​ The confirmation comes as OpenAI pursues an ambitious domestic manufacturing strategy, having issued a 10-year Request for Proposals last week seeking U.S.-based partners to produce components for robotics, data center infrastructure, and consumer electronics.​ Read More

🗺 Visualizing the Geographic Migration of Words The developer vibe-coded an app to map the evolution of language through time and space. It uses Gemini to trace linguistic roots and D3.js to animate the geographic migration of words through history. ➡️ You can try it here. Read More

🚇 Subway Surfers City Announced A sequel to the popular mobile game featuring new graphics and mechanics. Although the core gameplay remains the same: running around and jumping from lane to lane. The release of the companion app for watching movies on smartphones is scheduled for February 26. The game page has already appeared on Google Play and the App Store, where pre-registration is available. The launch arrives as "Subway Surfers" approaches its 15th year, backed by more than 4.5 billion lifetime downloads. Yes, we got Subway Surfers 2 before GTA 6. Read More

💰 ChatGPT Is Getting Ads Initially, only for free users and subscribers on the Go plan from the U.S. OpenAI insists that the ads will be non-intrusive, clearly labeled, will not influence the content of the bot's answers, and conversations with the AI will not be shared with advertisers. The appearance of advertising itself did not come as a surprise—rumors about this have been circulating for the last few months. At the same time, for a long time, leadership—including OpenAI CEO Sam Altman—stated that introducing ads into ChatGPT was an extreme and undesirable measure. But without this step, the company likely has no future. Currently, out of 900 million ChatGPT users, only about 5% are paid subscribers. According to The Information, OpenAI hopes to turn a profit by at least 2030. Still, by then it will have posted a loss of $115 billion. Advertising is one option to at least partially cover cloud computing costs, estimated at $450 billion. Will ads affect your use of ChatGPT? ❤️ — No, I will use it with ads 🔥 — Yes, I will buy a paid subscription 🎃 — Yes, I will switch to another service

😎 Amazon Turns Fallout Into Reality Competition Amazon has announced Fallout Shelter—a reality series that will place contestants inside the franchise's iconic vaults and test their survival skills in a staged re-creation of the post-apocalyptic world. The reveal comes via a casting call and arrives while season 2 of Fallout is airing. The show is being produced by the team behind Squid Game: The Challenge and The Traitors, suggesting a high-stakes competitive format; producers have not yet announced a premiere date. Presumably there will be no Deathclaws. Read More

💕 The World's First Café for AI Dates EVA AI, maker of relationship-focused chatbots, will open a café in New York where customers can "go on a date" with their AI companion. The venue will feature single-seat tables with phone stands so guests can place their AI across from them. EVA AI argues that the café addresses a practical limitation of AI companions—their inability to be taken out—and promises a space to "laugh together, gossip, vent about your day, or share emotional moments." The company notes there are still boundaries: the AI can't meet friends or join real-world introductions, but the pop-up aims to normalise going out with an AI partner. Read More

🚫 Philippines Becomes Third Southeast Asian Nation to Ban Grok The Philippines on Thursday said it would block Elon Musk's Grok AI chatbot "by tonight," becoming the third Southeast Asian nation in less than a week to restrict the platform amid a global backlash over its use to generate sexualized deepfakes of women and children. The announcement came hours after X, the social media platform that hosts Grok, said it was implementing new restrictions to prevent the chatbot from undressing images of real people. However, Philippine officials said X's pledges would not deter their plans. Read More

🤖 Mech Builder 3D Released on Steam It's a 3D model-building game inspired by Gunpla. Assemble, paint, pose, and display your creations in detailed environments—without worries like missing parts or time limits. The game features a wide variety of kits, primarily robots, as well as monsters and armor sets, all designed with a focus on a relaxing, low-pressure experience. There is 20% off on Steam until 20th January. Read More

🚭 Quit-Smoking Apps Triple Chances Of Quitting Smokers who use smartphone "quit smoking" apps are about three times more likely to stay off cigarettes for at least six months than those relying on minimal support or sheer willpower, shows a new meta-analysis in BMJ Evidence Based Medicine. On average, for every 1,000 people trying to quit, app use led to roughly 40 additional long‑term quitters compared to basic advice or no help, and up to 196 extra successful quit attempts when apps were combined with medications like nicotine patches or pills. At the same time, the authors warn that overall evidence quality remains low and call for more rigorous trials to determine which app features actually work, for which groups of smokers, and how long the digital support keeps cravings in check. Read More

😵 Are You Dead? App Goes Viral In China A bleakly named app, Are You Dead?, has surged to the top of China's app charts as young people living alone download it en masse. The app requires users to tap a large check-in button every two days to confirm they are alive; if they fail to do so, it automatically alerts a pre-selected emergency contact that something may be wrong. Launched quietly in May last year, the app has gone viral in recent weeks amid growing concern about isolation in Chinese cities, becoming the country's most downloaded paid app. The trend reflects a broader demographic shift: research cited by state-run Global Times suggests China could have up to 200 million one-person households by 2030. Read More

🚰 Water Heater Mines Bitcoin Superheat H1 is a 50-gallon electric boiler with a built-in ASIC computer that mines Bitcoin and uses the waste heat to warm household water. The unit draws about as much power as a typical electric water heater, developers claim. It's designed for homes and commercial buildings and will cost around $2,000, about twice the price of a standard electric model without mining capabilities. Read More

📈 RAM Prices Jump 60–70% in Early 2026 Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, which together control approximately 70% of the global DRAM market, have informed major customers that server memory prices are expected to rise by 60–70% in the first quarter of 2026. Both companies are shifting away from long-term contracts and transitioning to quarterly pricing, anticipating that prices will continue to rise through 2027. The increase—which has been building for more than a year—is being driven by surging demand for high-bandwidth memory (HBM) used in AI servers. To capitalize on higher margins, manufacturers are redirecting production capacity from standard DRAM to HBM. The impact won't be limited to servers and PCs. Higher memory costs are expected to push up prices for smartphones and a wide range of consumer electronics. Industry insiders say console makers are even discussing delaying the next-generation PlayStation and Xbox due to rising component costs. Gamers are effectively paying an "AI tax." Is it worth it? ❤️ — Yes, progress comes at a price 🎃 — No, the AI bubble is making everything worse

♻️ Urban Air Packed With Micro- And Nanoplastics Chinese researchers at the Institute of Earth Environment report that urban air in Guangzhou and Xi'an contains roughly 140,000–180,000 microplastic and nanoplastic particles per cubic metre—levels far higher than those previously measured and, the team says, up to a million times greater than estimates from traditional methods. The study is also the first to detect nanoplastics as small as ~200 nanometres in complex environmental samples, identifying city atmospheres as primary reservoirs of plastic particulates and underlining the need to reassess how airborne plastic pollution is monitored. Read More

🎮 Fortnite x South Park Goes Live The long-rumored Fortnite × South Park collab is official: Epic dropped a short film that shows the boys being sucked into the metaverse and teases new gameplay. The event adds a new five-player Battle Royale mode, a free mini-pass through which players can earn South Park cosmetics, and at least five skins in the item shop — plus Wonkeeland on the BR map is temporarily rebranded as Cartmanland. The crossover content and limited-time mode run through February 5. Do you play Fortnite? ❤️ — Yes, of course! 😎 — No, it's for kids 🎃 — I don't like video games Read More

🖥 Gaming Industry Faces Memory Crunch The global gaming industry is heading into a memory crisis as surging chip prices threaten delays to next-generation consoles and force developers to rethink game design. Samsung's 16GB DDR5-5600 memory now sells for about $207 in early January 2026, up nearly sixfold from roughly $35 in December 2024, according to Korea's Danawa platform. The shortage is caused by Samsung, SK hynix, and Micron shifting production toward high-bandwidth memory for AI accelerators instead of standard DRAM used in gaming hardware.

"In 2026, there's going to be issues around semiconductor supplies, and it's going to affect everyone," Samsung global marketing president Wonjin Lee said this week.

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🥇 Lego Unveils Smart Bricks At CES Lego has introduced new Smart Bricks with built‑in microchips at CES, calling them the company's biggest evolution in decades. A classic 2x4 brick can detect NFC tags in special tiles and minifigures, track the movement and position of other Smart Bricks, and add light and sound effects to physical builds. ​ In Lego Star Wars sets, the system can, for example, play "The Imperial March" when Emperor Palpatine is seated on his throne, let ships "battle" each other, and make cars register who crosses the finish line first or trigger an alert when they flip over. The new bricks form a Bluetooth mesh network and are set to debut in Star Wars kits starting March 1, 2026. Read More

💊 AI-Designed Drug Nears Phase 3 Trials Insilico Medicine says its drug Rentosertib—the first medicine fully discovered and designed using artificial intelligence—could enter Phase 3 clinical trials within the next 18 months, marking the final stage before regulatory approval. The drug targets idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, a deadly lung disease that kills around 40,000 people in the US each year. In a Phase 2 trial involving 71 patients in China, Rentosertib improved lung function with few side effects. Read More