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PS Plus Game Catalog additions for January include Resident Evil Village and Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth

Engadget

Apple's Siri AI will be powered by Gemini Subscribers will also be able to play A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead and Expeditions: A MudRunner Game. Sony just announced January's Game Catalog and it's a fantastic lineup. All of these titles will be ready to play on January 20. It's a full game with plenty of jump scares and an engrossing narrative. It's set in a spooky village, thus the name, and a nearby castle.


He could just turn it off

Engadget

Apple's Siri AI will be powered by Gemini There's no good reason Grok should still be able to generate images. Generative AI, we are repeatedly told, is a transformative and complicated technology. So complicated that its own creators are unable to explain why it acts the way it does, and so transformative that we'd be fools to stand in the way of progress. Even when progress resembles a machine for undressing strangers without their consent on an unprecedented scale, as has been the case of late with Elon Musk's Grok chatbot. I have been informed this morning that X is acting to ensure full compliance with UK law.


AI is promising to revolutionise how we diagnose mental illness

New Scientist

As rates of mental health conditions like depression spike, we desperately need new ways of identifying and treating people in distress. The last big breakthrough in treating depression was all the way back in the 1980s. That was when Prozac, the first SSRI antidepressant, was released. It and its subsequent copycats soon swept the globe, and hundreds of millions of people have now taken this kind of medication. But while three-quarters of people say the pills have helped them feel better, they don't work for everyone.


We're getting intimate with chatbots. A new book asks what this means

New Scientist

AI chatbots can take on many roles in our lives. James Muldoon's Love Machines looks into the relationships we're forging with them Artificial intelligence is now unavoidable - although there are those among us who try. Even if you don't seek out a chatbot, you will see new icons in your current apps to bring them within a single click: WhatsApp, Google Drive, even Microsoft Notepad, the simplest program imaginable. The tech industry is making an enormous and costly bet on AI, and, in turn, is forcing it on users to make good on this investment. Many are embracing it to take over writing, admin or planning, and a minority are going a step further and forming intimate relationships with it.


Musk denies knowledge of Grok producing sexualised images of minors

Al Jazeera

X CEO Elon Musk has said he was not aware of any "naked underage images" generated by xAI's Grok chatbot, as scrutiny of the AI tool intensifies worldwide. "I [am] not aware of any naked underage images generated by Grok. Literally zero," Musk said in an X post on Wednesday. Musk reiterated that Grok is programmed to refuse illegal requests and must comply with the laws of any given country or state. "Obviously, Grok does not spontaneously generate images, it does so only according to user requests," Musk said.


What's coming up at #AAAI2026?

AIHub

We (AIhub) will be running a short course on science communication on Wednesday 21 January, from 13:00 - 14:30. In this brief tutorial, science communication experts will teach you how to clearly and concisely explain your research to non-specialists.


The latest Animal Crossing: New Horizons expansion has arrived earlier than expected

Engadget

Apple's Siri AI will be powered by Gemini You'll need to wait until January 15 for the Switch 2 update, though. For a number of very obvious reasons, we don't want to roll back the clock to early 2020. But if there was a feel-good lockdown story, it was the perfectly timed arrival of, which allowed friends who could no longer meet up IRL to do so virtually on their carefully pruned islands. The game will almost certainly never be as popular as it was back then again, but Nintendo is hoping a good chunk of lapsed islanders will return for its latest DLC drop, which has arrived a day earlier than planned. As spotted by, the free update is available to download now and, as previously announced, brings a host of new features to the cozy life sim, including a brand new resort hotel on the pier that you can help decorate.


White House defends Trump over middle-finger gesture at heckler

BBC News

'Appropriate and unambiguous': White House defends Trump over middle-finger gesture at heckler The White House has defended US President Donald Trump after he aimed an offensive gesture at a heckler during his appearance at a Ford factory in Detroit on Tuesday. Footage of the incident published by TMZ appears to show the president responding to a man who shouted at him from afar. The White House said: A lunatic was wildly screaming expletives in a complete fit of rage, and the President gave an appropriate and unambiguous response. The heckler has been suspended by Ford, the United Auto Workers union told the BBC's US partner, CBS News. A Ford spokesperson told CBS: One of our core values is respect and we don't condone anyone saying anything inappropriate like that within our facilities.


Gemini can now pull context the rest of your Google apps, if you let it

Engadget

Apple's Siri AI will be powered by Gemini The AI can search through your photos, Gmail and Search and YouTube history. Gemini is a feature that's designed to feel more tailored to individual users. Once enabled, Personal Intelligence can pull context from across your Google ecosystem, including Gmail, Google Photos, Search and YouTube History, to gain specific insight that will shape its answers and recommendations. Personal Intelligence is available starting today in the US for Google AI Pro and subscribers. The feature is opt-in only and is off by default.


Psychiatry has finally found an objective way to spot mental illness

New Scientist

"It seems like this past week has been quite challenging for you," a disembodied voice tells me, before proceeding to ask a series of increasingly personal questions. "Have you been feeling down or depressed?" "Can you describe what this feeling has been like for you?" "Does the feeling lift at all when something good happens?" When I respond to each one, my chatbot interviewer thanks me for my honesty and empathises with any issues. By the end of the conversation, I will have also spoken about my sleep patterns, sex drive and appetite for food.