36 – Breaking News & Latest Updates 2026
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Chris Welch

Chris Welch

Former Senior Reviewer

Former Senior Reviewer

    More From Chris Welch

    Chris Welch
    Chris Welch
    Sonos leans into the leaks and teases upcoming products.

    Sonos’ long-rumored wireless headphones will finally see the light of day in 2024, and the company has a loaded product pipeline in development beyond that.

    Today, Sonos posted a video to its social media channels and wrote “there’s a lot of noise about the next Sonos launch.” It also launched this website where customers can “hear from the source” about new hardware. (The video used in the clip already appeared in a prior teaser for the Sub Mini, so I wouldn’t read into that much.)

    Know more about upcoming Sonos devices? I’m always a message away on Signal at (845) 445-8455.

    Chris Welch
    Chris Welch
    Developers can now build Google’s Gemini Pro AI into their apps.

    Google is moving full steam ahead with its Gemini AI large language model. A week after launching Gemini Pro and Gemini Nano to the public, today the company introduced a Gemini API that will let app makers access Gemini Pro, which runs off-device in Google’s data centers.

    The model supports 38 languages across over 180 countries and territories worldwide, and Google says its free access tier is “suitable for most app development needs.” A new Gemini Pro Vision endpoint allows for both text and image input compared to the text-only prompts that were available last week.

    Leverage Gemini in your Android apps

    [Android Developers Blog]

    Chris Welch
    Chris Welch
    Here’s a first glimpse at Google’s massive Chicago office opening in 2026.

    Google’s next extravagant office will open in Chicago’s Loop — and today the company is offering a preview of what’s to come.

    Google has said it expects to start occupying the renovated Thompson Center in 2026, with construction activity set to begin early next year.

    The company’s real estate ambitions haven’t fared so well elsewhere: last month, Google scrapped a $15 billion deal to build out four major campuses across Silicon Valley.

    A photo of Google’s Chicago office.
    Image: Google
    Chris Welch
    Chris Welch
    You can now subscribe to Max and stream its content right from YouTube.

    Max just became the latest addition to YouTube’s Primetime Channels. As of today, you can subscribe to the ad-free tier of Max directly from YouTube.

    It still costs the same $15.99 per month that you’d pay anywhere else, but the key benefit is that you can stream Max shows and movies right from YouTube itself after subscribing — no need to open the Max app anymore.

    Chris Welch
    Chris Welch
    Instagram’s other potential names for Threads were, uh, much worse.

    As Threads continues to rally more users and add new features, Instagram boss Adam Mosseri today shared some other names for the platform that his team previously toyed with.

    I don’t know about you, but I can’t imagine that Epigram would’ve had quite the same impact. And Textagram sounds a little too similar to Telegram.

    Let’s all be glad that the marketing team eventually moved away from the very forced “-gram” suffix.

    Chris Welch
    Chris Welch
    The latest Pixel Fold update lets you make any app use the full inner screen.

    Google’s new December Pixel software update includes the “experimental” ability to force any app into fullscreen mode on the Pixel Fold or Pixel Tablet — even those that wouldn’t usually support it.

    How about that, Instagram? Does this look completely silly? Well, sure. But it works. It’s a fullscreen Instagram app for a tablet. Victory is mine.

    I’m certain there are better examples of where this might be useful.

    A photo of Instagram running fullscreen on the Pixel Fold.
    Instagram doesn’t natively support the Pixel Fold, but now you can force it to.
    Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge