An image of the new Apple TV 4K hardware appears to have leaked, showing that there’s nothing new on the outside. But big changes are rumored for the inside.

The current Apple TV 4K was released in October 2022, and a new model has been rumored to be in the cards for some time. The model on store shelves today features an aging A15 Bionic chip and just 4GB of RAM.

Now, the image file reported by MacRumors has revealed the new Apple TV 4K’s upgrades will all be internal, with Apple choosing to stick with its tried and tested design of a small, featureless black box.

The good news is that previous leaks have suggested it will be a box very much ready for 2027 and beyond. Rumored upgrades will make the new Apple TV 4K a more capable streaming and gaming device while bringing Siri AI to the TV for the first time.

The presence of the image file also suggests that the new Apple TV 4K will be released sooner rather than later. It was already expected to launch at some point this fall.

Much-needed upgrades

Previous Apple TV 4K rumors have pointed to some big improvements in terms of performance. The iPhone 18 Pro’s A20 Pro is expected to be a huge upgrade for gamers, while a doubling of RAM to 8GB will also be beneficial for larger apps.

Both of these upgrades will also allow Apple to bring Siri AI to the Apple TV 4K. Users will be able to ask Siri questions and have it find content or launch apps with a reliability not currently offered by the ailing digital assistant.

On the connectivity front, Apple’s N1 chip is set to bring super-fast Wi-Fi 7 to the Apple TV 4K for the first time. The same chip will be responsible for Bluetooth 6 support, allowing for a stronger, more reliable connection to accessories. One of those accessories is also set to be a revised Siri Remote.

One aspect of the new Apple TV 4K that remains unknown is its price. Apple hiked the price of the current model to $199 in June 2026. Streaming fans will hope for a price cut when the new model launches.

I’ve noticed a lot more businesses using AI agents to process customer support requests. But now it’s getting weird. 

Google’s Live Avatar feature is now available for those with Gemini Enterprise. This comes days after Google announced Gemini 3.8 Live and Gemini 3.8 Live Extended Thinking. 

What exactly is Live Avatar? It combines an interactive visual experience with a conversational AI agent to do things like filing insurance claims through a video chat — which was Google’s example in its announcement. Businesses or those with Google Enterprise can choose from a few avatars to put a face to an AI agent’s voice. 

Live Avatar seems pretty handy for businesses. It can create live video avatars with lip synching for conversational videos and process live audio, screen sharing and video feeds simultaneously. Live Avatar can run tools and API calls while continuing conversations with customers. But imagine a cartoon or realistic-looking avatar’s lips moving to match the bot’s voice to handle your request. Creepy. 

Live Avatar also aims to create more fluid dialogue with native speech-to-speech for “more natural interruption recovery without dropping conversation context or backend transactions.” 

Google didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on when it will be available to the general public or how it plans to safeguard the information the AI agent receives during video calls (like, in the insurance example, your address, name and live video when filing a claim). 

Google has a few safeguards in place to prevent misuse, like choosing from curated, prebuilt avatars. If you want to create a custom avatar, you’ll have to go through a verification process, Google’s announcement says. All audio and video are watermarked with SynthID to keep all AI content verifiable.

Dashia Milden

Senior Consumer Insights Editor

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Dashia is the consumer insights editor for CNET. She specializes in data-driven analysis and news at the intersection of tech, personal finance and consumer sentiment. Dashia investigates economic shifts and everyday challenges to help readers make well-informed decisions, and she covers a range of topics, including technology, security, energy and money. Dashia graduated from the University of South Carolina with a bachelor’s degree in journalism. She loves baking, teaching spinning and spending time with her family.

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OpenAI appears to be preparing a new ChatGPT Pro Max subscription that could cost $500 per month, but it’s unclear when it’ll begin rolling out.

OpenAI users, particularly power users, have been requesting more usage than the existing $200 plan offers for a while, so the $500 plan isn’t just coming out of nowhere.

Right now, we don’t know when you’ll be able to subscribe to the $500 plan, but as spotted by TestingCatalog, the unannounced plan has started appearing in ChatGPT’s subscription interface alongside Plus and existing Pro options.

One version of the page lists Pro Max at $500 per month, while another shows $600 after local taxes or VAT are included.

So far, the most interesting difference in OpenAI’s description is “Fastest Work and Codex.”

I also noticed that ChatGPT’s new plan teases access to the company’s most capable frontier models, maximum memory, 100GB of file storage, and early access to new features.

It is worth noting that the $200 plan also promises early access, so we are not sure if that capability is going away and becoming exclusive to the $500 plan.

OpenAI has not announced Pro Max, so we don’t know its exact usage limits yet. It could also offer substantially higher allowances than the existing Pro plans.

ChatGPT Pro Max could use Cerebras for faster AI

There’s another interesting possibility behind the “Fastest Work and Codex” wording, and the guess is that it could use Cerebras.

For those unaware, OpenAI has been deploying more Cerebras hardware for ultra-fast AI inference, but we haven’t seen anything recently from the company on that front.

The most recent development was from early this year, when Codex-Spark launched on Cerebras at more than 1,000 tokens per second, and OpenAI later demonstrated GPT-5.6 Sol running at up to 750 output tokens per second in its Cerebras-powered Ultrafast mode.

It is entirely possible that Cerebras is a likely candidate for powering at least some of Pro Max’s faster Work and Codex experience, although neither OpenAI nor Cerebras has confirmed that connection.

Right now, ChatGPT offers Pro tiers at $100 and $200 per month, but new sign-ups and upgrades to the ChatGPT Pro $200 plan have been temporarily paused since September 10.

Join Mikko Hyppönen and security leaders from the NFL, CHANEL, and Atlassian for a two-hour digital summit on what AI-speed attacks change, what defenders should stop doing, and how to validate, decide, fix, and re-validate at machine speed.

Save your seat

The Pentagon wants $30.3m over five years to build an AI lie detector that reads the body without touching it. The programme, called Polygraph+ or Polygraph Next, appears in the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency’s 2027 budget request.

Inside Defense first reported the plan. MIT Technology Review’s Amit Katwala asked experts whether it could work. The agency, known as DCSA, runs background checks for the federal government. It did not respond to MIT Technology Review’s request for details.

What the budget says

DCSA asks for $6.42m in 2027, then between $5.65m and $6.45m a year up to 2031. Congress has not yet approved the request.

The programme aims to “modernize federal polygraph and credibility assessment technologies”, the budget document says. It lists “standoff sensing”, or taking physical readings from a person without attaching a device, along with AI and machine learning scoring, automated scoring and decision aids.

The tools would be used to vet staff and for “insider threat detection”. DCSA also plans cloud storage and data analysis tools to refine the software.

Leak hunts and prototypes

Under Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, the Pentagon has turned more often to polygraph tests to find the sources of leaks to the press, MIT Technology Review reported. In September, The New York Times reported that about 50 officers on the Joint Staff had been tested.

The Pentagon has tested this kind of technology before. In 2023, its Defense Innovation Unit picked two companies to build prototypes. Presage Technologies says it can measure heart and breathing rates with ordinary cameras. Altec Research’s prototype tracks head movement, facial skin temperature and pore activity.

The science problem

A polygraph does not detect lies. It records breathing, pulse, blood pressure and sweat, and an examiner reads the changes. In 2003, the US National Research Council called the evidence for its accuracy “weak at best”.

The American Polygraph Association says the test is 80% to 94% accurate. At that level, a screening programme could still produce many errors. The Pentagon employs 2.8 million people, MIT Technology Review noted.

Kyri Kotsoglou, a legal scholar at Northumbria University in the UK, calls adding AI to the polygraph “the worst of both worlds”. It adds uncertainty on top of invalidity, Kotsoglou told MIT Technology Review.

“Even if you have all the records in the world from polygraph tests, you don’t know whether those polygraph tests are right or not,” Marion Oswald, a law professor who has written with Kotsoglou, told MIT Technology Review.

Sophie van der Zee, who studies deception at Erasmus University in Rotterdam, said AI could combine several measures into one score that is harder to game.

“There is still no Pinocchio’s nose,” van der Zee told MIT Technology Review.

Earlier AI lie detectors have not lasted, MIT Technology Review reported. The EU funded iBorderCtrl, a border pilot built on a system that scored deception from video. It faded away, like the US AVATAR border project.

Other tools that use AI to read people are already in use, from AI voice analysis of US prison calls to facial recognition alerts in UK shops and AI camera searches by US police.

Child predators are arguably the most reviled demographic in society.

So when someone like Chris Hansen, the former NBC Dateline journalist and host of the To Catch a Predator series, decides to take up the mantle of exposing them to the public, he is naturally praised as a hero.

But, as is revealed in Lance Oppenheim’s Primetime—a dramatized snapshot of Hansen’s life at the show’s peak—it’s not as simple as that. Exposing allegedly bad people for public entertainment brings up a lot of ethical concerns and unintended consequences. And while many of the vigilantes carrying out these sting operations claim they are doing a public service, their motivations become a lot more suspect when fame and money are involved.

To Catch a Predator launched in 2004. In the show, Hansen’s team would pair up with civilian watchdog group Perverted Justice, using adult “decoys” to pose as minors online and exchange messages with men in chatrooms and private DMs. After the conversations became sexual, the crew would set up a sting, inviting these men to a home to meet the decoy, only to have Hansen confront them, uttering his catchphrase, “Have a seat.” The men were technically free to leave instead of sitting for an on-camera interview, but often police were waiting outside to arrest them.

The show developed an intense fandom that remains active to this day in subreddits like r/tcap, which has 52,000 weekly visitors, despite the fact that NBC stopped airing the original series in 2007.

In A24’s Primetime, a darkly told character study in theaters September 25, Hansen (Robert Pattinson) clearly enjoys the praise and seems desperate for more accolades. He brags to his two young sons that he’s about to be on prime-time television, despite them not understanding the importance of that, and complains that the show has “never won an Emmy or any of the significance it deserves.” When a fan recognizes Hansen on a flight and becomes bloodthirsty, asking the TV host if he ever wants to “bleed” the predators he’s outing, Hansen smiles and admits that what he does by disgracing them on national television is “a little worse.”

In real life, Hansen cofounded the streaming service Trublu in November 2022, where he continues his investigations into alleged child predators. But these days, he’s far from alone. His work has inspired copycats, who thrive on social media and streaming platforms like YouTube, Kick, and Facebook. These groups and individuals are largely disorganized, and as such, hard to track, but a 2022 Washington Post investigation identified at least 160 in the US. Arguably, the people running these operations are more reckless, in part because they’re driven by virality.

One of them, who goes by Skeet Hansen, was featured in the 2025 MTV documentary Predators, about the Dateline show. In the film, directed by David Osit, Skeet Hansen responds to the criticism of the movement by saying, “There’s never been a detective that solved a murder that didn’t get paid for it. So why shouldn’t I be able to monetize off of catching these guys like the original show and making this content for people’s entertainment?”

One of many issues with that argument is that these hunters aren’t professional investigators—and sometimes they get things wrong.

In April, YouTuber and Kick streamer Vitaly Zdorovetskiy apologized after publicly—and wrongly— accosting a man of Indian descent. He accused the man of wanting to “rape a 16-year-old” in a mock Indian accent and called him “Mr. Mumbai.” In March 2025, The New York Times reported that Zdorovetskiy’s tactics for ambushing suspected creeps included beating some of them up, dressing like the Joker; the Times piece found that there have been more than 170 violent vigilante attacks by predator-hunting groups since 2023.

Apple’s diminutive speaker is returning for a second generation, sporting the same spherical design in a few new colors.

The upcoming HomePod mini lineup swaps the current-gen yellow and orange for a new powder pink and forest green. Blue, black, and white will be making a return, though.

The information originates from Apple’s code, spotted by MacRumors contributor Aaron Perris. It showcases the product in the aforementioned colors.

Apple has yet to announce the HomePod mini 2. However, the images in the code suggest a release could be coming soon.

The first-generation HomePod mini made its debut in October 2020. Shortly after, Apple retired the full-sized, first-generation HomePod.

Apple allowed the HomePod mini to carry the lineup for nearly two full years. In January 2023, it released a second-generation full-sized HomePod.

If you worry AI could eventually make your Walmart bill depend on who you are, or charge you more than the shopper next to you, Walmart wants to clear that up. CEO John Furner says Walmart will not use personal information to set different prices for individual shoppers.

What is Walmart promising about AI pricing?

Furner made three commitments in an open letter:

• First, your income, shopping history, urgency, or what Walmart thinks you can afford won’t change what you pay, and neither will the time of day.
• Second, Sparky, Walmart’s AI shopping assistant, won’t use what you tell it to raise your price or hide cheaper options.
• Third, you decide how much personal information to share, and Walmart says it will be clear about how that data is used.

The prices can still rise when items cost more to buy or ship. Furner also defended the digital shelf labels spreading across Walmart’s 4,600 stores, saying they keep shelf prices accurate while saving employees time previously spent replacing paper tags. Walmart adds that the labels have no cameras, microphones, or facial recognition.

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Why is Walmart saying this now?

The pledge comes as regulators and lawmakers examine how personal data could influence pricing. The letter arrived the same day public comments were due on a proposed Federal Trade Commission policy. It warns that businesses may be breaking the law if they don’t explain how personal data shapes prices. The concerns aren’t hypothetical either, as Instacart’s AI pricing tests showed.

Lawmakers from both parties are also pressing retailers, and Rep. Frank Pallone sent pricing questions to 25 companies, including Walmart. Meanwhile, Financial Times reported that Walmart received two patents this year for automated pricing tools. One described using data like payment methods and even ID numbers to recommend prices.

Furner says people will keep overseeing pricing, and Walmart will test its tech against these promises. For now, the bottomline is that AI can personalize your experience, but your data will not become a reason to charge you more.

Peter Thiel has called Pope Leo XIV a “useful idiot” for the Chinese Communist Party over the pope’s call to regulate AI. The PayPal and Palantir co-founder spoke to Axel Springer chief executive Mathias Döpfner on the MD Meets podcast, released on Thursday.

The interview came before Thiel received the Axel Springer Award in Berlin on Thursday. Axel Springer owns Politico, which reported the remarks first, and Business Insider. Fortune reported on his comments about Germany.

“The Communist Party of China is not going to listen to the pope. There’s a chance people in the U.S. will. And so in effect, the Pope’s encyclical was working for the Communist party,” Thiel said.

“I’m not saying he was an agent of the communists, but he was at least acting as a useful idiot for the CCP,” he added.

The encyclical

Pope Leo published his first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas, in May. In it, he called on world leaders to regulate AI. Thiel argued that the text would do nothing to slow China, Politico reported. Instead, it could lead the US and its allies to impose heavy rules on AI, he said.

The Vatican did not respond to requests for comment from Politico or Business Insider. The Vatican has since expanded its AI campaign with an AI4Peace association.

It is not the first time Thiel has attacked the pope over AI. Speaking in Colorado in July, he said the pope was acting as a “Chinese communist agent” by calling for regulation, Politico reported.

‘What we’re doing to ourselves’

Thiel also said Americans themselves, not China, are mostly to blame for the growing US backlash against AI. He was “inclined to believe” China could be fuelling some anti-AI content, he said. But China was not the main force behind the shift.

“This is mainly what we’re doing to ourselves. It’s often somewhat too easy to simply blame it on China,” Thiel said.

Germany’s ‘fear of success’

Thiel, who was born in Frankfurt, also criticised German entrepreneurs. German founders tend to sell their companies before they grow into global businesses, he said.

“If you have something that works, you’re not going to scale it to this extreme degree like an Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg,” he said.

Among the richest Germans of Generation X or younger, all had inherited their wealth, Thiel said. In the US, most had built it themselves.

Thiel is a partner at Founders Fund, which has invested in OpenAI, Palantir and Scale AI, among other AI companies.