• Outside Parties is the creepiest Playdate game yet, and I’m kind of obsessed

    January 25, 2026

    Never underestimate the chilling powers of grainy grayscale imagery and ethereal whooshing sounds. Outside Parties asks, “What if I Spy, but in an alien hell dimension?”, and it is impressively unnerving despite the fact that nothing’s really happening at any given time. It goes all in on atmosphere, to great effect. This is the Playdate horror game that I’ve been waiting for. Adams Immersive’s Outside Parties is a sort of scavenger hunt across a massive image of a realm called the Outside, which can only be visited by astral travel, according to the lore. There are lots of unknowns about…

  • Google says it’s fixed Gmail issues with spam and misclassification

    January 25, 2026

    If your Gmail account didn’t seem to be working properly Saturday, you were not alone. But Google says the issue has been be resolved. The official status dashboard for Google Workspace suggests that problems began at around 5am Pacific on Saturday morning, with users experiencing both “misclassification of emails in their inbox and additional spam warnings.” For me, that meant my Primary inbox was filled with messages that would normally appear in the Promotions, Social, or Updates inboxes, and that spam warnings were appearing in emails from known senders. Other users complained on social media that “all the spam is…

  • StepFun AI Introduce Step-DeepResearch: A Cost-Effective Deep Research Agent Model Built Around Atomic Capabilities

    January 25, 2026

    StepFun has introduced Step-DeepResearch, a 32B parameter end to end deep research agent that aims to turn web search into actual research workflows with long horizon reasoning, tool use and structured reporting. The model is built on Qwen2.5 32B-Base and is trained to act as a single agent that plans, explores sources, verifies evidence and writes reports with citations, while keeping inference cost low. From Search to Deep Research Most existing web agents are tuned for multi-hop question-answering benchmarks. They try to match ground truth answers for short questions. This is closer to targeted retrieval than to real research. Deep…

  • Which ute should you buy for under $60,000?

    January 25, 2026

    The Ford Ranger and Toyota HiLux may sit comfortably atop Australia’s new-vehicle sales charts, but there has been a huge shift in the ute segment over the past year. The BYD Shark 6 has proved a disruptive force, outselling even long-running nameplates like the Nissan Navara and Volkswagen Amarok – not bad for the Chinese brand’s first ute. Other new arrivals on the scene include MG’s first ute here, the U9, plus its LDV Terron 9 twin. They join the growing ranks of affordable Chinese options here, which have also swelled to include the JAC T9 and reborn Foton Tunland.…

  • Microsoft releases second emergency Windows 11 update to fix Outlook crashes

    January 25, 2026

    Microsoft issued another out-of-band update to fix a bug that caused Outlook to crash for Windows 11 users. This second emergency patch addresses issues seen with Outlook and files stored in the cloud following Microsoft’s January 2026 Windows security update. According to Microsoft, this update fixes a bug where some apps that “open or save files stored in cloud-backed locations” became unresponsive or displayed error messages. Some users also experienced Outlook crashing or not opening when PST files are stored in cloud-based options like OneDrive. This is the second time this year that Microsoft had to issue a last-minute fix…

  • What is Bending Spoons? The little-known firm behind Vimeo’s sweeping layoffs

    January 25, 2026

    Vimeo was hit by a massive round of layoffs this past week, according to a report by Business Insider. Staffers posting on various social media sites that the layoffs impacted most of the company, including the entire video team. Vimeo is a video-hosting platform, so that sounds bad. The layoffs are the latest restructuring by Bending Spoons, the Milan-based tech conglomerate that acquired Vimeo for $1.38 billion in an all-cash deal that closed in the latter half of 2025. While Bending Spoons may be unknown to many, it’s quietly become one of the tech industry’s most prolific buyers, now owning…

  • Apple reportedly plans to reveal its Gemini-powered Siri in February

    January 25, 2026

    A new and improved Siri may finally make an appearance, but this time, it could be with a Google Gemini glow up. According to Bloomberg‘s Mark Gurman, Apple wants to announce a new Siri in “the second half of February” that will show off the results of its recently announced partnership with Google and offer demonstrations of the Gemini-powered capabilities. After this reveal, Gurman reported that the new Siri will make its way to iOS 26.4, which is also slated to enter beta testing in February before its public release in March or early April. Apple has been meaning to…

  • Apple will reportedly unveil its Gemini-powered Siri assistant in February

    January 25, 2026

    We’re about to get our first real look at the results of the recently announced AI partnership between Apple and Google, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman. Gurman reports that Apple is planning to announce a new version of Siri in the second half of February. Using Google’s Gemini AI models, this Siri update will reportedly be the first to live up to the promises Apple made in June 2024, with the ability to complete tasks by accessing user’s personal data and on-screen content. And that’s ahead of an even bigger upgrade that Apple plans to announce in June, at its…

  • TechCrunch Mobility: RIP, Tesla Autopilot, and the NTSB investigates Waymo

    January 25, 2026

    Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility — your central hub for news and insights on the future of transportation. To get this in your inbox, sign up here for free — just click TechCrunch Mobility! A quick bit of breaking news that hit just as we were about to send this newsletter out. The National Transportation Safety Board has opened an investigation into Waymo after its robotaxis have been spotted illegally passing stopped school buses numerous times in at least two states. Read the full story here. Now onto our regular programming … Tesla made a couple of moves this week…

  • Yoshi and Birdo arrive in new trailer for The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, along with an earlier release date

    January 25, 2026

    There’s a new trailer for the upcoming Super Mario movie, The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, and it confirms some beloved characters are joining the crew for its latest adventure. The trailer provides our first official look at Yoshi in the new movie, whose appearance was leaked back in the fall by a Pillsbury cookie box design. And, just as exciting, we also see Birdo in the mix. The trailer was released during Nintendo’s The Super Mario Galaxy Movie Direct. The short event also confirmed that the movie is now in post-production. While a previous trailer set the release date at…