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Apple on Tuesday took the wraps off a rare brand-new app: Invites. And it’s more like an Evite competitor, not something designed for business meetings. Invites lets you create events to which you can — yes, you guessed it — invite guests, complete with a playlist and a shared photo album. Events can be customized with a background photo.

US District Court Judge Amit Mehta denied Apple’s emergency request to halt the Google Search monopoly trial that could dismantle their lucrative search that’s reportedly worth as much as $18 billion a year. The order came in late Sunday, with Judge Mehta saying Apple hasn’t demonstrated satisfactory reasons for its emergency motion to stay that was filed on January 30th.

In a paper released on Monday, the San Francisco-based start-up outlined a new system called “constitutional classifiers”. It is a model that acts as a protective layer on top of large language models such as the one that powers Anthropic’s Claude chatbot, which can monitor both inputs and outputs for harmful content.

The Sims was a sandbox for the American dream when it was released on Feb. 4, 2000, with Wright pulling inspiration from biology, architecture, comics and psychology to dictate the rules of his virtual dollhouse. It was an unusual proposal at a time when most games were goal-oriented and linear, and a predecessor to create-your-own-adventure games like Minecraft that give players a pick axe and carte blanche.

Now, the app is live on the App Store and available for both iPhone and iPad. Its purpose? “Tapestry weaves your favorite blogs, social media, and more into a unified and chronological timeline.”

In what he described as an “AI-first strategy,” sources say, Shedd provided a handful of examples of projects GSA acting administrator Stephen Ehikian is looking to prioritize, including the development of “AI coding agents” that would be made available for all agencies. Shedd made it clear that he believes much of the work at TTS and the broader government, particularly around finance tasks, could be automated.

“What we're seeing is unprecedented in that you have these actors who are not really public officials gaining access to the most sensitive data in government,” says Don Moynihan, a professor of public policy at the University of Michigan. “We really have very little eyes on what's going on. Congress has no ability to really intervene and monitor what's happening because these aren't really accountable public officials. So this feels like a hostile takeover of the machinery of governments by the richest man in the world.”

The Republican Senator from Missouri Josh Hawley has introduced a new bill that would make it illegal to import or export artificial intelligence products to and from China, meaning someone who knowingly downloads a Chinese developed AI model like the now immensely popular DeepSeek could face up to 20 years in jail, a million dollar fine, or both, should such a law pass.

Perhaps even more important, he mentioned that the iPhone 16 is selling better in countries where AI is available than ones where it’s not.

The glimpse of what’s to come is courtesy of Future You, a new interactive artificial-intelligence platform developed by psychologists, researchers and technologists that allows users to create a virtual older self—a chatbot that looks like an aged version of the person and is based on an AI text system known as a large language model, then personalized with information that the user puts in. The idea is that if people can see and talk to their older selves, they will be able to think about them more concretely, and make changes now that will help them achieve the future they hope for.

But nobody has seen a week like the past one: DeepSeek, a disruptive new Chinese AI company, emerged seemingly out of nowhere; the world’s most valuable company lost nearly $600 billion of market value in a day; and it emerged that the developer of ChatGPT was in talks for a fundraising round that would value it at an eye-popping $300 billion.

A notable change coming to AppleCare+ next week: Apple is dropping the 2-3 year pay in advance option at physical retail stores and on devices and will only offer monthly and annual subscriptions. You’ll still be able to get those multi-year plans on the online store.

Apple set to launch “Confetti,” a new iCloud-based events and invite service. As early as this coming week, Apple plans to introduce a new iCloud-based service dubbed “Confetti” internally. As the festive code name implies, the service offers a new way to invite people to parties, functions and meetings. For years, Apple has been seeking to revamp its calendar app — and this new initiative could be the beginning of a broader effort. The release is tied to iOS 18.3, which just started rolling out last Monday.

Altman admitted that DeepSeek has lessened OpenAI’s lead in AI, and he said he believes OpenAI has been “on the wrong side of history” when it comes to open sourcing its technologies. While OpenAI has open sourced models in the past, the company has generally favored a proprietary, closed source development approach.

The latest update Apple rolled out for the iPhone allows T-Mobile customers — a select few, for now — to be able to send text messages even in locations where they have no coverage. iOS 18.3 adds support for SpaceX and T-Mobile's direct-to-cell satellite service, which is currently being trialed after the companies opened signups for beta testing in December. As Bloomberg notes, the service used to be only compatible with certain Android phones, including Samsung models like the Z Fold and S24 along with select devices running Android 15. Meanwhile, Apple already has a partnership with Globalstar that provides users with texting capabilities when they're out of coverage.

The company shuttered the program this week, according to people with knowledge of the move. The now-canceled product would have looked like normal glasses but include built-in displays and require a connection to a Mac, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the work wasn’t public. An Apple representative declined to comment.