Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Biden FTC Chair Lina Khan are facing backlash after regulatory opposition helped derail Amazon’s bid for iRobot, resulting in the Roomba maker falling into Chinese ownership.

Like toddlers, some dogs can learn words by simply listening to humans talk. Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. Just like with toddlers, it's often better to spell out certain words when a dog is nearby. Saying words "park" or "walk" can make the family pet excited the way that the mere mention of a "cookie" will for a young child. By the age of one-and-a-half, toddlers learn new words by listening to other people.

Will Your Favorite Apps Be Along for the Ride? Tech companies are calling AI the next platform. But some developers are reluctant to let AI agents stand between them and their users. Silicon Valley giants like Amazon, Meta, and OpenAI are racing to develop "operating systems" for AI-powered devices--and 2026 is likely the year these efforts will start to take off. The devices are largely built around a future where AI agents can take actions on a user's behalf, without requiring them to visit an app or website.

I can't get over this goofy, long-necked'cyber pet' robot at CES Cute, alien-inspired companion robots are a fixture at CES, but have I ever seen one with a furry telescoping neck that's also warm to the touch? No, I can't say I have before this year. OlloBot -- which had possibly the cutest booth at CES 2026 -- is a home robot and cyber pet that looks something like if you put ET's head on a penguin's body, plus a splash of fur and color. Its face is essentially a large tablet that displays its expressions, pictures and videos, and allows it to communicate with people in the home. OlloBot speaks its own language, but will put text on the screen when it has a message that's meant to actually be understood.

America's new dietary guidelines ignore decades of scientific research An emphasis on fruit, vegetables, and whole foods is welcome--but it's wrong to suggest steak and beef tallow should be prominent. The new year has barely begun, but the first days of 2026 have brought big news for health. On Monday, the US's federal health agency upended its recommendations for routine childhood vaccinations--a move that health associations worry puts children at unnecessary risk of preventable disease. There was more news from the federal government on Wednesday, when health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his colleagues at the Departments of Health and Human Services and Agriculture unveiled new dietary guidelines for Americans . And they are causing a bit of a stir. RFK Jr's plan to improve America's diet is missing the point That's partly because they recommend products like red meat, butter, and beef tallow--foods that have been linked to cardiovascular disease, and that nutrition experts have been recommending people in their diets.

CES 2026 health tech products showcase AI-powered mirrors, walking exoskeletons, allergen detectors and smart scales in Las Vegas. Samsung Brain Health leads innovation.

'Nearly three-quarters of posts collected and analyzed by a researcher were requests for nonconsensual images of real women or minors.' 'Nearly three-quarters of posts collected and analyzed by a researcher were requests for nonconsensual images of real women or minors.' Sample of roughly 500 posts shows how frequently people are creating sexualized images with Elon Musk's AI chatbot Thu 8 Jan 2026 12.00 ESTLast modified on Thu 8 Jan 2026 12.01 EST New research that samples X users prompting Elon Musk's AI chatbot Grok demonstrates how frequently people are creating sexualized images with it. Nearly three-quarters of posts collected and analyzed by a PhD researcher at Dublin's Trinity College were requests for nonconsensual images of real women or minors with items of clothing removed or added. The posts offer a new level of detail on how the images are generated and shared on X, with users coaching one another on prompts; suggesting iterations on Grok's presentations of women in lingerie or swimsuits, or with areas of their body covered in semen; and asking Grok to remove outer clothing in replies to posts containing self-portraits by female users. Among hundreds of posts identified by Nana Nwachukwu as direct, nonconsensual requests for Grok to remove or replace clothing, dozens reviewed by the Guardian show users posting pictures of women including celebrities, models, stock photos and women who are not public figures posing in snapshots.

When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. From smart locks powered by light waves to a robot lawn mower that can pick fruit, these are the coolest new smart products we saw in Las Vegas this year. The latest edition of the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas is already drawing to a close, and once again, we've seen some truly impressive smart home and home security innovations--and as usual, some are more likely to ship than others. We're not counting on the robot lawn mower that picks fruit and lobs tennis balls to canines to actually land in stores, but it certainly counts as one of the biggest attention-getters in Vegas this week. We also saw some far more practical smart products that wowed us, from the smart lock that's powered by light waves to the new go-almost-anywhere Ring sensors that connect to Amazon's growing patchwork of Sidewalk neighborhood networks.

Online detectives are inaccurately claiming to have identified the federal agent who shot and killed a 37-year-old woman in Minnesota based on AI-manipulated images. Federal agents push through a crowd of bystanders as they leave the scene where a woman was fatally shot by an agent in Minneapolis, Minn., on January 7, 2026. In the hours after a masked federal agent shot and killed Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old woman in Minneapolis, social media users have been sharing AI-altered images they falsely claim "unmask" the officer, revealing their real identity. The agent was later identified by Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin as an Immigrations and Customs Enforcement officer. The shooting occurred on Wednesday morning, and social media footage of the scene shows two masked federal agents approaching an SUV parked in the middle of the road in a suburb south of downtown Minneapolis.

Campaigners have accused the government of dragging its heels on implementing a law which would make it illegal to create non-consensual sexualised deepfakes. It comes amid a backlash against images created using Elon Musk's AI Grok to digitally remove clothing - with one woman telling the BBC more than 100 sexualised images have been created of her. It is currently illegal to share deepfakes of adults in the UK, but new legislation that would make it a criminal offence to create or request them is still not in force despite passing in June 2025 . But it is unclear whether all of the unclothing images created by Grok would fall foul of this law. The BBC has contacted the government for comment.