After a year tangled in political drama, AI hype, and regulation battles, the TWiT crew explains how many of tech's "biggest stories" simply fizzled into nothing or left us with new headaches by year's end.

• Year-end tech trends: AI, politics, and security dominated 2025
• Major stories faded fast: TikTok saga, political tech drama, DOGE scandal
• TikTok's ownership battle—Oracle, Trump donors, and US-China tensions
• China tech fears: banned drones, IoT vulnerabilities, secret radios in buses
• Rising political pressure for internet privacy and media literacy reform
• Surveillance and kill switch concerns in US grid and port infrastructure
• Convenience vs. privacy: Americans trade data for discounts and ease
• Age verification, surveillance, and flawed facial recognition across countries
• Discord's ID leak highlights risks of rushed compliance with privacy laws
• Social media's impact on kids pushes age-gating and verification laws
• ISPs monetize customer data, VPNs pitched for personal privacy
• Global government crackdowns: UK bans VPN advertising, mandates age checks
• The illusion of absolute privacy: flawed age gates and persistent tracking
• AI takes over: explosive growth, but profits elusive for big players
• Arms race in LLMs: DeepSeek's breakthrough, OpenAI/Meta talent bidding war
• Ad-driven models still rule; Amazon's playbook repeated in AI
• Humanoid robots and AGI hype: skepticism vs. Silicon Valley optimism
• AI-generated art, media, and the challenge of deepfake detection
• Social platforms falter: Instagram and X swamped by fake or low-value content
• Google's legal, regulatory, and technical woes: ad tech trial, Manifest V3 backlash
• RAM price spikes and hardware shortages blamed on AI data center demand
• YouTube overtakes mobile for podcast and video viewing, Oscars move online
• The internet's growth: Cloudflare stats, X vs. Reddit, spam domain trends
• Weird tech stories: hacked crosswalks, Nintendo Switch 2 Staplegate, LEGO theft ring
• Sad farewell: Lamar Wilson's passing and mental health awareness in tech
• Reflections on the year's turbulence and hopes for a better 2026

Host: Leo Laporte

Guests: Mikah Sargent, Paris Martineau, and Steve Gibson

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On Hands-On Tech, Richie asks Mikah Sargent about saving their TiVo recordings to their PC after TiVo discontinued its TiVo Desktop software.

Don't forget to send in your questions for Mikah to answer during the show! hot@twit.tv

Host: Mikah Sargent

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Club TWiT members can discuss this episode and leave feedback in the Club TWiT Discord.

Jennifer Pattison Tuohy from The Verge joins Mikah Sargent for the final episode of Tech News Weekly for 2025! Are AI health coaches the future for wearables? A look back at smart home news and devices in 2025. And how AI image generators have changed over time.

• Mikah talks about an article written by CNET's Vanessa Hand Orellana about AI health coaches in wearables and how it showcases innovation within healthcare, but also the data concerns if data breaches or unauthorized access to the data occur.
• Jennifer reflects on the smart home news and smart home devices highlighted in the past year and shares her excitement about news such as IKEA releasing Thread-supported devices, but also laments on companies like iRobot filing for bankruptcy.
• And Allison Johnson of The Verge joins the show to talk about how AI image generators are improving as various models have learned from their mistakes & fumbles that occurred in their early beginnings.

Hosts: Mikah Sargent and Jennifer Pattison Tuohy

Guest: Allison Johnson

Download or subscribe to Tech News Weekly at https://twit.tv/shows/tech-news-weekly.

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Support what you love and get ad-free audio and video feeds, a members-only Discord, and exclusive content. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit

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