• GM to end Chevy Bolt EV production next year, move China-made Buick to U.S. factory

    January 23, 2026

    General Motors is shuffling where its vehicles are made in a move that will shift production away from China and Mexico and to a U.S. factory in Kansas. That change will also mean the end of its rebooted Chevrolet Bolt EV, the only vehicle currently built at the Fairfax Assembly Plant in Kansas. The factory musical chairs reflect an economic and political environment, shaped by the Trump administration’s tariff policy and its decision to end the federal EV tax credit, which provided up to $7,500 off qualifying electric vehicles. These changes have made it more expensive to build vehicles in…

  • Ford F-150 Lightning recalled | CarExpert

    January 22, 2026

    The Ford F-150 Lightning electric pickup has been recalled due to an issue that may cause the reversing lights to operate intermittently or fail completely. “Due to a manufacturing defect, moisture may enter the rear light bar assembly unit. This can cause the reverse lamps to become inoperative or to flicker intermittently,” the recall notice said. “If traffic behind is unable to identify that the vehicle is reversing, this could increase the risk of an accident causing serious injury or death to vehicle occupants and/or other road users.” CarExpert can save you thousands on a new car. Click here to get a…

  • Polestar predicts huge sales growth to end, but smooth sailing ahead

    January 22, 2026

    Polestar was one of Australia’s fastest-growing auto brands last year in terms of sales, and while it doesn’t expect the same growth in 2026, the Sino-Swedish brand is confident its expanding local dealer network and increasing customer awareness will keep people interested in its electric vehicles (EVs). Marking an impressive 38.5 per cent sales increase over 2024, Australian sales for the Geely-owned EV brand were propelled by demand for its two relatively new SUVs, the Polestar 3 and Polestar 4, which helped push its total sales to 2373 in 2025. They also contributed to a 36 per cent increase in…

  • Darth Maul’s standalone series premieres on Disney+ on April 6

    January 22, 2026

    Darth Maul, the beloved, sometimes spider-legged former Sith Lord first introduced in Star Wars: Episode 1 — The Phantom Menace, is officially getting his own animated spin-off on April 6, 2026, based on a new teaser trailer published by Disney. Star Wars: Maul — Shadow Lord was originally announced at Star Wars Celebration in 2025, and is set after Maul’s arc in Star Wars: The Clone Wars but before his appearance in Star Wars: Rebels. The 10-episode series covers Maul’s plot to rebuild his criminal syndicate “on a planet untouched by the Empire,” according to Lucasfilm. “There, he crosses paths…

  • Voice AI engine and OpenAI partner LiveKit hits $1B valuation

    January 22, 2026

    LiveKit, a developer of infrastructure software for real-time AI voice and video applications, has announced the raise of $100 million in funding at a $1 billion valuation. The round, which comes 10 months after LiveKit’s previous fundraise, was led by Index Ventures with participation from existing investors, including Altimeter Capital Management, Hanabi Capital, and Redpoint Ventures. LiveKit powers OpenAI’s ChatGPT voice mode. The startup’s other customers include xAI, Salesforce, Tesla, as well as 911 emergency service operators and mental health providers. The company was founded in 2021 by Russ d’Sa and David Zhao as an open source software project for…

  • Polestar slams Australia’s top auto industry body for lack of EV support

    January 22, 2026

    Polestar Australia has stood its ground on refusing to rejoin Australia’s leading automotive industry organisation, the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries (FCAI), this time citing its perceived lack of support for electric vehicles (EVs) as the overriding factor. Polestar, alongside fellow EV-only brand Tesla, opted to leave the FCAI in early 2024 in protest against the body’s criticism of Australia’s New Vehicle Efficiency Standard (NVES), which has now been implemented in a bid to cut new-vehicle emissions. The FCAI has argued that the NVES “could result in a lower-than-anticipated uptake of low-emission technologies” and could therefore “have the opposite effect…

  • Polestar opposes looming changes to Australian EV incentives

    January 22, 2026

    Polestar Australia has called on the Australian Government to leave its long-standing electric vehicle (EV) incentives alone, following an announcement in December last year that its EV subsidy scheme would be reviewed. Since July 1, 2022, EVs priced below the Luxury Car Tax (LCT) threshold for fuel-efficient vehicles ($91,387 for 2025-26) have been exempt from Fringe Benefits Tax (FBT), potentially saving novated lessees thousands each year. The Australian Treasury estimates that roughly 100,000 EV buyers have benefited to date. Following the review, which was promised when the discount was legislated, the government could end, renew or modify the scheme. According…

  • JBL made a pair of AI-powered practice amps

    January 22, 2026

    JBL is trying its hand at something new, with a pair of AI-powered practice amps. The BandBox Solo and BandBox Trio include an onboard Stem AI that purportedly lets you separate or remove vocals and instruments from any music streamed over Bluetooth. So, say you’re a young guitarist learning “Stairway to Heaven” (as one does). At least in theory, you could use the speaker to remove Jimmy Page’s part and hone your chops with the rest of the band. The $250 BandBox Solo, designed for individual musicians, has a single guitar / mic input. And the $600 BandBox Trio, better…

  • Are AI agents ready for the workplace? A new benchmark raises doubts.

    January 22, 2026

    It’s been nearly two years since Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella predicted AI would replace knowledge work — the white-collar jobs held by lawyers, investment bankers, librarians, accountants, IT and others. But despite the huge progress made by foundation models, the change in knowledge work has been slow to arrive. Models have mastered in-depth research and agentic planning, but for whatever reason, most white-collar work has been relatively unaffected. It’s one of the biggest mysteries in AI — and thanks to new research from the training-data giant Mercor, we’re finally getting some answers. The new research looks at how leading AI…

  • Microsoft Releases VibeVoice-ASR: A Unified Speech-to-Text Model Designed to Handle 60-Minute Long-Form Audio in a Single Pass

    January 22, 2026

    Microsoft has released VibeVoice-ASR as part of the VibeVoice family of open source frontier voice AI models. VibeVoice-ASR is described as a unified speech-to-text model that can handle 60-minute long-form audio in a single pass and output structured transcriptions that encode Who, When, and What, with support for Customized Hotwords. VibeVoice sits in a single repository that hosts Text-to-Speech, real time TTS, and Automatic Speech Recognition models under an MIT license. VibeVoice uses continuous speech tokenizers that run at 7.5 Hz and a next-token diffusion framework where a Large Language Model reasons over text and dialogue and a diffusion head…