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Today’s Storystream

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Netflix’s Christmas NFL stream is working fine so far.

The Chiefs just beat the Steelers, and we’re not hearing about any Paul vs Tyson-level issues other than scattered reports of weird buffering blips and TV going-to-sleep bugs.

But the real test for Netflix's live broadcast ambitions will come when Beyoncé performs during halftime of the Ravens-Texans game (if you miss it, the stream will be available for three hours after the broadcast ends.)

One way or another, Netflix’s help page is setting expectations early with a warning message.


Due to today’s livestream, wait time for live help may be longer than usualWe’re getting more customer requests than normal right now. Search our Help Center for answers or check back later.
Screenshot: The Verge
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The NBA subs in Mickey Mouse and Daffy Duck to help take on the NFL.

As the NFL’s Netflix broadcasts threaten to dominate Christmas and people fret over ratings drops, today’s slate of NBA games includes a “Dunk the Halls” simulcast — similar to other overlay broadcasts we’ve seen recently — available on Disney Plus.

Instead of Jalen Brunson and the Knicks vs. Victor Wembanyama and the Spurs, it’s their cartoon avatars, with occasional drop-ins from recognizable characters. Are any of you watching this instead of Patrick Mahomes and Russell Wilson?


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Netflix teases Happy Gilmore 2 ahead of today’s NFL stream.

There will be a lot of eyes on Netflix today for the 1PM ET Chiefs/Steelers game, and the company is using that big holiday spotlight to remind viewers of some original content coming next year.

This first look at Happy Gilmore 2 includes familiar faces (like Shooter McGavin) and a very timely cameo. The movie’s release is expected later in 2025.


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Apple would like to step in to defend its Google search deal.

Apple filed papers on Monday to participate in the Department of Justice’s victorious antitrust case against Google, which is now in its penalty phase. Google will need to make significant business changes, such as ending default search deals on devices like iPhones, which Google is OK with.

Apple? Well, its agreement with Google reportedly was worth $20 billion in 2022.


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Netflix is suing Broadcom over VMware virtual machines.

Netflix filed the lawsuit in Califonia federal court Monday, claiming Broadcom subsidiary VMware has cloud software that infringes on five Netflix patents. As reported by Reuters, Netflix says VMware’s vSphere platform for deploying and managing virtual machines infringes on Netflix patents related to virtual-machine communications.


The NYT was building an “internal ChatGPT equivalent” in 2023.

Microsoft is still asking a judge in its AI copyright tussle to produce discovery on how New York Times reporters use chatbots, and it introduced an interesting 2023 Slack chat in a memorandum: apparently the Times product team told developers to avoid using other LLMs because it was rolling out its own. It’s not clear if this would become one of the tools the company has since announced.


Screenshot text from Slack dated 11/15/2023. Jeff Sisson: So wait, from the XFun all-hands just now... there’s an internal ChatGPT equivalent that’s been built? And a new policy that we’re rolling out which means developers shouldn’t use the OpenAI ChatGPT (or similar LLM) for anything, from now on? Reply from Gaby Marraro: some details (with a link to an internal slack URL)
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AI hallucinations are driving new scientific discoveries.

This interesting overview by The New York Times explains how incorrect or misleading results from AI models are helping scientists to track cancer, design drugs, invent medical devices, and uncover weather phenomena by “dreaming” up new concepts to test.

Amy McGovern, a federal AI institute computer scientist says:

“The public thinks it’s all bad.But it’s actually giving scientists new ideas. It’s giving them the chance to explore ideas they might not have thought about otherwise.”


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Gordon Mah Ung, legendary tech journalist, has died at 58.

Gordon was executive editor for hardware at PCWorld, and he spent 16 years before that at Maximum PC. I’m incredibly lucky to have known him. I’m gonna miss the hell out of him.


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HP Omen Max leak shows off another Nvidia 50-series laptop.

If there were any doubt we’d see a new generation of Nvidia graphics hardware at its CES 2025 LAN party, that’s evaporated.

The latest hint comes from @MysteryLupin on X, who’s had early leaks before, with these pictures showing a 16-inch HP Omen Max and specs including an Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX CPU and the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5080 GPU.


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xAI raises another $6 billion.

Following a $6 billion investment round announced in June, Elon Musk’s AI company has announced a new round of funding.

Other than the usual investors, the note also mentions participation from “strategic investors” Nvidia and AMD, as it also says xAI will double the size of its AI computer, Colossus, to a total of 200k Nvidia Hopper GPUs to power Grok, Aurora, and other efforts.


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Trump’s censor in chief puts Disney on notice.

Incoming FCC chair Brendan Carr is excited to start using the spectrum licensing system to punish broadcasters for airing criticism of his boss, and now he wants Disney CEO (and ABC owner) Bob Iger to know it. Nice TV network you’ve got there, Bob. Sure would be a shame if something happened to it.


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Just thinking about TikTok.

Trump said he’s “gonna have to start thinking about TikTok” this weekend while speaking at an event in Phoenix, Arizona. He added, “Maybe we gotta keep this sucker around for a little while.”

The US is set to ban the platform on January 19th, though there’s a chance the Supreme Court could reverse that.


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Amazon Kindle Paperwhite (2024) review: slightly larger, slightly faster, slightly better

Performance upgrades and screen improvements make the new Paperwhite’s minor updates feel more substantial.

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Christopher Nolan is taking on The Odyssey.

After plenty of rumors, Universal announced that Nolan’s next film is The Odyssey, a story based on Homer’s ancient Greek epic. Here’s how Universal describes it:

Christopher Nolan’s next film ‘The Odyssey’ is a mythic action epic shot across the world using brand new IMAX film technology. The film brings Homer’s foundational saga to IMAX film screens for the first time and opens in theaters everywhere on July 17, 2026.

It stars Matt Damon, Tom Holland, Anne Hathaway, Zendaya, Robert Pattinson, Lupita Nyong’o, and Charlize Theron.


Tesla gives Solar and Powerwall users a 2024 wrap-up.

“Tesla Recharged” gives customers year-end insights in the Tesla app for stats such as how often users’ homes are powered off-grid.

As Not a Tesla App reports, Tesla Energy users get trophies like “Solar Punk” if they’re in the top 25 percent generating solar energy for the year or “Team Player” for being in the top 1 percent of sending electricity back to the grid.


Tesla in app award for “Trickster” showing a Joker had trophy for being in the top 1% of users who have gone off-grid.
The awards only apply to Tesla Energy customers.
Image: Alex Guichet
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Oh, the misery.

According to a report in Bloomberg, Arcane racked up the views on Netflix but couldn’t translate that success into profit. The show’s two seasons cost Riot Games roughly $250 million to produce with a Riot spokesperson sharing that the second season was successful enough to, “at least break-even for us financially.”


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Go read this report on Arizona data centers and those without power in the state.

The state’s utility board approved an 8 percent rate hike to increase energy production for data centers, while Navajo Nation residents live without electricity, writes The Washington Post:

But it rejected a plan to bring electricity to parts of the Navajo Nation land ... because of “concerns about how the funds would be used,” adding that customers are not “responsible for extending electricity to all tribal areas of the state.”