Apple TV+ costs more, Grok AI leaks your deepest secrets and more in my quick news wrap.
In Tech News Today, I muse over news stories from the past 24 hours that catch my attention.
Apple TV+ gets a price hike
Apple TV+ is joining the rest of the streaming service giants in raising its prices to consumers by a pretty hefty chunk.
Here in Australia, the price rise is to $15.99/month for the basic month-to-month plan, up from $12.99/month, though Apple does also bundle it in as part of its pricier Apple One subscription, with pricing there starting at $24.95/month.
Alex’s Quick Thoughts:
It is, it seems, the way of the streaming world, with Netflix recently also announcing price hikes for its streaming services in Australia.
Apple TV+ has always had something more of a boutique feel to it, however, with far fewer series but (mostly) content that had higher production values than your traditional streaming service.
Also, based on my own quick observations this morning (bearing in mind I’m not currently subscribed to Apple TV+), it looks like there’s no capability for a cheaper annual subscription for Australian users as you see with some streamers, though Apple might (it seems) offer that deal in other countries.
Update: There is (at least now, definitely wasn’t there earlier) — with thanks to reader Gordon S, who pointed out to me that the annual price is now $129.99, up from $99.99. If you’re keen on Apple TV+ all year long, that does still represent a saving.
Ultimately, the smartest play with every streaming service, Apple TV+ included, is to jump and switch around based on what you’re watching at that time.
New season of Ted Lasso? That’s probably worth a month’s subscription, but wait until it’s all there and watch it (and everything else on Apple TV+) and then jump to Netflix, or Stan or Amazon Prime, lather, rinse, repeat.
Grok sure is one chatty little AI… in the worst way
The Grok chatbot from xAI – AKA, Elon Musk’s chatbot, more or less – is, like most chatbots, one that you can invoke for “private” queries… only it turns out that those queries might not be so private after all, with reportedly more than 300,000 of them being indexed on Google and open to the wider world.
Alex’s Quick Thoughts:
Ask stupid questions, get stupid answers have those questions indexed on the Internet for eternity…
That aside, if there’s any positive aspect to this, it’s that it does (once again) throw the subject of privacy around AI into the foreground, because while I’m not a big user of AI chatbots myself, it’s pretty clear from the reporting that plenty of folks are both relying on them and giving them a lot of personal information.
Maybe it’s time to revisit that thinking.
ROG Xbox Ally/ROG Xbox Ally X arrives in October
While their existence isn’t news, Asus’ new Xbox-branded handhelds will be available from October 16th 2025. Still no word on pricing, but Press Start has a nice rundown on the new announced features for the latest crop of essentially-Windows handheld gaming machines if you’re keen.
Alex’s Quick Thoughts:
The shift of Xbox from its own console to a brand applied across the board intensifies – and of course, the fact that the ROG Xbox Ally works from an Xbox-style interface rather than Windows does rather fire a shot across the bows of the Steam Deck.
How much power does your AI use?
Amidst all the AI hype is a lot of concern over the environmental impact of all that computing power being used to create terrible AI art generate answers to queries put to AI engines. The problem was that researchers had very little data to go on.
As per MIT Technology Review, Google’s just released figures in a technical report showing that the median AI query consumes just 0.24 watt-hours of energy, or about the same as running a microwave oven for a second.
Alex’s Quick Thoughts:
On the one hand, good on Google for actually providing some measurable figures, though as with all figures they do need context. Being in the median doesn’t automatically give us a full picture of usage, because some queries would logically use a whole lot more, and without the full data set it’s hard to see where other useful figures like the mean and mode would fall.
Still, though, it does give me pause for thought, because even though a second’s worth of microwave oven usage might not seem like much, most of us typically don’t run microwave ovens for hours at a time, but logically with the expanding use of AI (and its promotion by Google, especially in its shiny new Pixel 10 phones) means that we’re still burning a lot of juice asking AI simple questions, like, say the name of Secret Squirrel’s sidekick.
Here, I’ll save you a whole second of microwave power and let you know: It was Morocco Mole. I feel like I’ve now done my bit to try to save the planet, at least for today.
I give up, you can play DOOM on ANYTHING
Via (to give credit where it’s due) Hack A Day, this is Doom running on… a desktop power station.
Alex’s Quick Thoughts:
I’m a big retro gaming fan, so the more things we can play DOOM on, the better. End of story.
Yes, I’m experimenting with a format. Let me know your thoughts below!
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