Rob Dunwood (2:36)
These are the Daily Tech Headlines for Tuesday, December 23rd, 2025. I'm Rob Dunwood. Federal Communications Commission has banned the import and sale of new drone models in critical equipment from foreign manufacturers, including the market leading dji, by adding them to the covered list over national security concerns. This decision aims to limit the use of Chinese made drones in the US fulfilling a p from the White House administration to secure airspace and boost domestic production. Existing approved models and previously purchased drones are exempt from the ban. Dji, which dominates the global market, has criticized the move as unsubstantiated protectionism, a view echoed by China's foreign ministry. Generative AI chatbots like Gemini and ChatGPT are being exploited by users who share tips online to bypass safety guardrails and create non consensual deepfake images of fully clothed women appearing to wear bikinis, a form of digital harassment by policies and tools against sexually explicit content and platform efforts to remove harmful communities. The ease of creating hyper realistic nudified deep fakes with advanced imaging models highlights a significant problem with non contextual intimate media, requiring accountability for both users and the corporations providing the technology. OpenAI views prompt injection, a security risk involving malicious hidden instructions manipulating AI agents, as a persistent and possibly unavoidable problem for its ChatGPT Alice browser and other AI agents on the web. To counter this, OpenAI employs a proactive defense strategy, including an LLM based automated tracker to simulate sophisticated attacks and strengthen security. However, security experts caution that the high access nature of agentic browsers like Atlas introduces a significant risk that may not be worth the current value they provide to the average user. Alphabet announced its plan to acquire clean energy developer Intersect for $4.57 billion plus assembled debt to secure the massive computing and power capacity needed for artificial intellig intelligence development. The acquisition will add Intersect's $15 billion in operating or under construction energy assets to Alphabet's holdings, with projects expected to generate 10.8 gigawatts of power by 2028. This move is part of a growing trend among technology giants to invest in energy firms to meet the escalating electricity demands of generative AI, given the strain on US power grids in compliance with the European Union's Digital Markets Act, Apple is updating iOS 26.3 exclusively for Europe to support proximity pairing and notifications. This change will make it easier to connect devices like Sony headphones to iPhones and will allow non Apple smartwatches, such as Those running Wear OS, to display iPhone notifications, a feature previously restricted to the Apple Watch. The proximity pairing uses a simple one tap connection via nfc. The notification functionality will, however, disable Apple Watch notifications when active. The feature is expected to be fully available in 2026, though critics suggest Apple's compliance is the bare minimum. Investigative reporter John Kerrio and five other offers have filed a lawsuit in California federal court against major AI companies including Xai, Anthropic, Google, OpenAI, Meta and Perplexity, for allegedly using their copyrighted books without permission to train their large language models. This is the first suit to name XAI and is part of a growing trend of copyright challenges. The authors are not seeking class action status, arguing that settlements in such cases, like Anthropic's $1.5 billion settlement, unfairly benef benefit defendants. Russia's communications regulator Raskomnador is threatening to completely block WhatsApp in Russia, claiming the messenger service violates Russian law and is used for criminal and terrorist activities. Roskonador has already begun restricting the service, causing outages and slowdowns for many Russian users. WhatsApp condemned these actions, asserting that the government is attempting to deny over 100 million people access to secure end encrypted communication just before the holiday season and that forcing users onto less secure government mandated apps will reduce safety for the Russian public. And finally, a bit of sad news. Vince Zampella, a highly influential game developer known for his work on major first person shooter franchises, has died at the age of 55 in a car crash. Zampella co founded Infinity Ward, where he co created the Call of Duty series and later co founded Respawn Entertainment, the studio behind Titanfall and Apex Legends. At the time of his death, he was leading Dice's Los Angeles studio and heading the Battlefield franchise. Electronic Arts released a statement mourning the loss and recognizing Zampella's profound impact on interactive entertainment. For more analysis of the tech news of the day, subscribe to dailytechnews show.com and if you enjoy the show, remember to tell a friend to check us out. Thanks for listening. We'll talk to you next time.
