Nothing to launch Phone 3a Community Edition on December 9
| Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
After launching the Phone 3a Lite on November 27, the London-based company Nothing on Wednesday (December 3, 2025) announced the launch of Phone 3a Community Edition on December 9. The company said that it had received 700 submissions from its community members and will award £1,000 cash prize for the winning creators.
The Community Edition is expected to use the same specifications as Nothing Phone 3a Lite.
The Phone 3a was launched with a 6.77 inch flexible AMOLED display with a 120 Hz refresh rate and 3,000 nits peak brightness.
Nothing has used a 5,000 mAh battery in the Phone 3a. It supports up to 33W charging.
(For top technology news of the day, subscribe to our tech newsletter Today’s Cache)
Phone 3a had Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 with up to 12 GB RAM and up to 256 GB storage. It operates on Nothing OS 3.5 based on Android 15 out of the box.
Nothing Phone 3a sports a 50 MP main sensor, with an 8 MP ultrawide lens and a 50 MP telephoto camera. It has a 32 MP front lens for selfies.
Nothing Phone 3a Community Edition is likely to have a mid segment price tag in India.
A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent is seen in Park Ridge, Ill., Sept. 19, 2025.
| Photo Credit: AP
The maker of an iPhone app that flagged sightings of U.S. immigration agents sued the Trump administration for free speech violations on Monday (December 8, 2025), alleging that U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi used her “state power” to force Apple to remove the app.
Apple in October removed ICEBlock and other apps from its app store after Bondi said they put Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers at risk by enabling people to track ICE activity in their neighborhoods.
The lawsuit from ICEBlock app maker Joshua Aaron argued that the government’s actions violated the First Amendment.
The lawsuit also asks a federal judge to protect the Texas-based software developer from prosecution, alleging “unlawful threats made by Attorney General Bondi, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, ICE Acting Director Todd M Lyons, and White House Border Czar Tom Homan to criminally investigate and prosecute Aaron for his role in developing ICEBlock”.
The Department of Justice didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
ICEBlock was the most widely used of the ICE-tracking apps in Apple’s app store until Bondi said in October that her office reached out to Apple “demanding that they remove ICEBlock” and claiming that it “is designed to put ICE agents at risk just for doing their jobs”.
Apple soon complied, sending an email to Mr. Aaron that said it would block further downloads of the app because new information “provided to Apple by law enforcement” showed the app broke the app store rules.
According to the email, which Mr. Aaron shared with The Associated Press in October, Apple said the app violated the company’s policies “because its purpose is to provide location information about law enforcement officers that can be used to harm such officers individually or as a group.”
Nothing will produce only 1,000 units of Phone 3a Community Edition globally.
The London-based tech startup said it received over 700 submissions across design, software, accessories, and visual storytelling for this phone.
It selected four winners: Emre Kayganacl (hardware design), Ambrogio Tacconi and Louis Aymond (accessory) Jad Zock (lock screen clock and wallpaper design), and Sushruta Sarkar (marketing campaign).
(For top technology news of the day, subscribe to our tech newsletter Today’s Cache)
The company also introduced a £1,000 cash prize per category to support creators in developing their work.
Phone 3a Community Edition has a 6.77 inch flexible AMOLED display with a 120 Hz refresh rate and 3,000 nits peak brightness.
Nothing has used a 5,000 mAh battery in the Phone 3a Community Edition, supported by a 33W charging. Charger is not included in the box.
Phone 3a Community Edition runs on Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 processor with 12 GB RAM and 256 GB storage. It operates on Nothing OS 3.5 based on Android 15 out of the box.
Nothing Phone 3a Community Edition sports a 50 MP main camera, with an 8 MP ultrawide lens and a 50 MP telephoto camera. It has a 32 MP front lens for selfies.
Nothing Phone 3a Community Edition will be available at ₹28,999, and will arrive in India on December 13 exclusively at a special drop event in Bengaluru.
The H200 chip, unveiled two years ago, has more high-bandwidth memory than its predecessor, the H100, allowing it to process data more quickly. File
| Photo Credit: Reuters
U.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday (December 8, 2025) that he will allow Nvidia to ship its H200 chips to approved customers in China and other countries, under conditions that he said would allow for continued strong national security.
The decision appears to settle a U.S. debate about whether Nvidia and rivals would maintain their global lead in AI chips by selling to China or withholding chips, though Beijing has told companies not to use U.S. technology, leaving it unclear whether Trump’s decision would lead to new sales.
Nvidia shares rose 2% in after-hours trading after Trump made the announcement on Truth Social, following a 3% rise during the day on a report by Semafor. Trump said that he had informed President Xi Jinping of China, where Nvidia’s chips are under government scrutiny, about the move and he “responded positively,” according to Mr. Trump’s post.
Mr. Trump said the U.S. Commerce Department was finalizing details of the arrangement and the same approach would apply to other AI chip firms such as Advanced Micro Devices and Intel. Trump’s post said the fee to be paid to the U.S. government was “$25%” and a White House official confirmed he meant 25%, higher than the 15% proposed in August.
“We will protect National Security, create American Jobs, and keep America’s lead in AI,” Mr. Trump wrote on Truth Social. “NVIDIA’s U.S. Customers are already moving forward with their incredible, highly advanced Blackwell chips, and soon, Rubin, neither of which are part of this deal.”
Mr. Trump did not say how many H200 chips would be authorized for shipment or what conditions might apply, only that exports would occur “under conditions that allow for continued strong National Security.”
Administration officials consider the move a compromise between sending Nvidia’s latest Blackwell chips to China, which Mr. Trump has declined to allow, and sending China no U.S. chips at all, which officials believe would bolster Huawei’s efforts to sell AI chips in China, a person familiar with the matter said.
“Offering H200 to approved commercial customers, vetted by the Department of Commerce, strikes a thoughtful balance that is great for America,” Nvidia said in a statement. Intel declined to comment.
The U.S. Commerce Department, which oversees export controls, and AMD did not respond to requests for comment.
A White House official said that the 25% fee would be collected as an import tax from Taiwan, where the chips are made, to the United States, where the chips will undergo a security review by U.S. officials before being exported to China.
Intel and Tata Electronics will also explore the opportunity to rapidly scale AI PC solutions for consumer and enterprise markets in India [File]
| Photo Credit: REUTERS
The electronics-manufacturing arm of the 156-year-old salt-to-software Tata group is investing about $14 billion to build India’s first semiconductor fabrication facility in Gujarat state and a chip assembly and testing facility in the state of Assam.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been pushing for India to rival global semiconductor powerhouses such as Taiwan, aiming to make the country a chipmaker for the world despite initial setbacks.
Intel and Tata Electronics will also explore the opportunity to rapidly scale AI PC solutions for consumer and enterprise markets in India, which they say is projected to be a global top-five market by 2030.
The move followed talks with the company, which was found in breach of digital competition rules over its “pay for privacy” system earlier this year [File]
| Photo Credit: REUTERS
Meta will allow European users of Facebook and Instagram to share less data and see fewer personalised ads after it was fined for breaking EU digital rules, Brussels said Monday.
The European commission said the U.S. tech giant undertook to make the option available from January to settle a legal dispute over its “pay or consent” system that saw it hit with a 200-million-euro ($233 million) fine.
“Meta will give users the effective choice between: consenting to share all their data and seeing fully personalised advertising, and opting to share less personal data for an experience with more limited personalised advertising,” the commission said.
It was the “first time” that such a choice was offered on Meta’s social networks, the body that acts as the 27-nation bloc’s digital and antitrust regulator said.
The move followed talks with the company, which was found in breach of digital competition rules over its “pay for privacy” system earlier this year.
Under the system, which has been vehemently criticised by rights groups, users have to pay to avoid data collection, or agree to share their data with Facebook and Instagram to keep using the platforms for free.
A commission probe concluded in April that Meta did not provide users with a less personalised but equivalent version of the platforms.
Meta was fined and warned it could face daily penalties under the landmark Digital Markets Act (DMA) unless it complied with the law.
The company had started giving European users the possibility of seeing less personalised ads already in November last year. But this did not spare it the fine.
A commission spokesman declined to detail how the new offering improved on that but added that while the firm’s undertaking did not automatically close the case against it, it represented a “very good step forward” and “positive news” for EU consumers.
Brussels would now monitor its “effective implementation” and “seek feedback and evidence from Meta and other relevant stakeholders on the impact and uptake of this new ad model”.
Acknowledging the commission’s statement, Meta said: “Personalized ads are vital for Europe’s economy-last year, Meta’s ads were linked to EUR213 billion in economic activity and supported 1.44 million jobs across the EU.”
FILE PHOTO: SoftBank Group and Nvidia are in talks to invest in Skild AI, in a more than $1 billion funding round that could value the maker of foundation models for robots at around $14 billion.
| Photo Credit: Reuters
Japan’s SoftBank Group and Nvidia are in talks to invest in Skild AI, in a more than $1 billion funding round that could value the maker of foundation models for robots at around $14 billion, according to sources and a term sheet seen by Reuters.
If successful, the funding will be at nearly triple Skild’s valuation from the $4.7 billion it commanded in a $500 million Series B round earlier this year that saw participation from Nvidia, LG’s venture capital arm and Samsung, among others, according to PitchBook data.
Founded in 2023 by former Meta AI researchers and backed by Amazon.com and Lightspeed Venture Partners, Skild is trying to overcome a key hurdle that has slowed the broader deployment of general-purpose machines in factories and homes by developing universal software designed to serve as the brain for robots.
The company focuses on AI models for robots of all form factors rather than building any hardware of its own, and has said its technology uses vast data to teach robots perception and decision-making skills similar to those of humans.
The talks underscore surging investor interest in humanoid robotics firms as advances in artificial intelligence make such robots increasingly capable of performing complex tasks.
Still, experts caution that truly general-purpose robotic applications remain technically challenging and could still be years away from widespread adoption.
Skild AI and SoftBank did not immediately respond to a request for comment, while Nvidia declined to comment. The talks remain fluid and some details could change, a source said, adding that the deal is expected to close before Christmas.
SoftBank was impressed by Skild’s technology in pilot projects, a person familiar with the matter said, requesting anonymity as the matter was private.
Robotics is a key part of CEO Masayoshi Son’s plan for SoftBank. The company scooped up the robotics business of Swiss engineering group ABB in a $5.4 billion deal in October.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick is pushing to accelerate robotics development through meetings with industry CEOs, as the Trump administration weighs an executive order on robotics next year, Politico reported last week.
Skild AI unveiled its first general-purpose AI model in July, saying the system can adapt to a wide range of environments and tasks from warehouse logistics to household chores.
The company raised $300 million at a $1.5 billion valuation as part of its Series A round last year, which saw investments from Jeff Bezos, SoftBank Group and Khosla Ventures among others.
Poco C85 5G has a 6.9 inch HD+ display with a 120 Hz adaptive refresh rate. It is IP64 rated for dust and water resistance.
Poco C85 5G holds a 6,000 mAh battery along with a 33W charger inside the box. It also supports 10W wired reverse charging.
Poco C85 5G runs on MediaTek Dimensity 6300 with up to 8 GB RAM and 128 GB storage. It also offers up to 16 GB virtual RAM. The budget segment phone operates on HyperOS 2.2 based on Android 15 out of the box. It will get 2 Android upgrades and 4 years of security updates.
(For top technology news of the day, subscribe to our tech newsletter Today’s Cache)
Poco C85 5G sports a 50 MP rear camera, and an 8 MP selfie lens.
Poco C85 will sell exclusively on Flipkart starting December 16, at an introductory price of ₹10,999 for the 4 GB/128 GB variant, ₹11,999 for the 6 GB/128 GB variant, and ₹13,499 for the 8 GB/128 GB variant.
It comes in Mystic Purple, Spring Green, and Power Black.
Bekki Holzkamm has been trying to hire a lab technician at a hospital in rural North Dakota since late summer.
Not one U.S. citizen has applied.
West River Health Services in Hettinger, a town of about 1,000 residents in the southwestern part of the state, has four options, and none is good.
The hospital could fork over $100,000 for the Trump administration’s new H-1B visa fee and hire one of the more than 30 applicants from the Philippines or Nigeria. The fee is the equivalent of what some rural hospitals would pay two lab techs in a year, said Holzkamm, who is West River’s lab manager.
West River could ask the Department of Homeland Security to waive the fee. But it’s unclear how long the waiver process would take and if the government would grant one. The hospital could continue trying to recruit someone inside the U.S. for the job. Or, Holzkamm said, it could leave the position unfilled, adding to the workload of the current “skeleton crew.”
The U.S. health care system depends on foreign-born professionals to fill its ranks of doctors, nurses, technicians, and other health providers, particularly in chronically understaffed facilities in rural America.
But a new presidential proclamation aimed at the tech industry’s use of H-1B visas is making it harder for West River and other rural providers to hire those staffers.
“The health care industry wasn’t even considered. They’re going to be collateral damage, and to such an extreme degree that it was clearly not thought about at all,” said Eram Alam, a Harvard associate professor whose new book examines the history of foreign doctors in the U.S.
Elissa Taub, a Memphis, Tennessee-based attorney who assists hospitals with the H-1B application process, has been hearing concerns from her clients.
“It’s not like there’s a surplus of American physicians or nurses waiting in the wings to fill in those positions,” she said.
Until recently, West River and other employers paid up to $5,000 each time they applied to sponsor an H-1B worker. The visas are reserved for highly skilled foreign workers.
The new $100,000 fee — part of a September proclamation by President Donald Trump — applies to workers living outside the U.S. but not those who were already in the U.S. on a visa.
Subscribe to KFF Health News’ free Morning Briefing.
West River lab tech Kathrine Abelita is one of nine employees — six technicians and three nurses — at the hospital who are current or former H-1B visa holders. Abelita is from the Philippines and has worked at West River since 2018. She’s now a permanent U.S. resident.
“It’s going to be a big problem for rural health care,” she said of the new fee. She said most younger American workers want to live in urban areas.
Sixteen percent of registered nurses, 14% of physician assistants, and 14% of nurse practitioners and midwives who work in U.S. hospitals are immigrants, according to a 2023 government survey. Nearly a quarter of physicians in the U.S. went to medical school outside the U.S. or Canada, according to 2024 licensing data.
“A blanket exception for healthcare providers is the simplest path forward,” the National Rural Health Association and National Association of Rural Health Clinics wrote in a joint letter.
The proclamation allows fee exemptions for individuals, workers at specific companies, and those in entire industries when “in the national interest.” New guidance says the fee will be waived only in an “extraordinarily rare circumstance.” That includes showing that there is “no American worker” available for the position and that requiring a company to spend $100,000 would “significantly undermine” U.S. interests.
Taub called those standards “exceptionally high.”
Representatives of the NRHA and the American Medical Association, which organized a letter from the medical societies, said they’ve received no response after sending requests to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in late September and early October. The AHA declined to say whether it had heard back.
Homeland Security officials directed KFF Health News’ inquiries to the White House, which did not answer questions about individual waiver timelines or the possibility of a categorical exemption for the health care industry.
Instead, White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers sent a statement defending the new fee, saying it will “put American workers first.” Her comments echo Trump’s proclamation, which focuses on accusations that the tech industry is abusing the H-1B program by replacing American workers with lower-paid foreign ones. But the order applies to all trades.
Alam, the Harvard professor, said the U.S.’ reliance on international providers does raise legitimate concerns, such as about how it takes professionals away from lower-income countries facing even greater health concerns and staffing shortages than the U.S.
This decades-long dependency, she said, stems from population booms, medical schools’ historical exclusion of nonwhite men, and the “much, much cheaper” cost of importing providers trained abroad than expanding health education in the U.S.
Internationally trained doctors tend to work in rural and urban areas that are poor and underserved, according to a survey and research review.
Nearly 1,000 H-1B providers were employed in rural areas this year, the two rural health organizations wrote in their letter to the Trump administration.
J-1 visas, the most common type held by foreign doctors during their residencies and other postgraduate training in the U.S., require them to return to their home country for two years before applying for an H-1B.
But a government program called the Conrad 30 Waiver Program allows up to 1,500 J-1 holders a year to remain in the U.S. and apply for an H-1B in exchange for working for three years in a provider shortage area, which includes many rural communities.
Trump’s proclamation says employers that sponsor H-1B workers already inside the U.S., such as doctors with these waivers, won’t have to pay the six-figure fee, a nuance clarified in guidance released about a month later.
But employers will have to pay the new fee when hiring doctors and others who apply while living outside the U.S.
Alyson Kornele, CEO of West River Health Services, said most of the foreign nurses and lab techs it hires are outside the U.S. when they apply.
Ivan Mitchell, CEO of Great Plains Health in North Platte, Nebraska, said most of his hospital’s H-1B physicians were inside the U.S. on other visas when they applied. But he said physical therapists, nurses, and lab techs typically apply from abroad.
Holzkamm said it took five to eight months to hire H-1B applicants at her lab before the new fee was introduced.
Bekki Holzkamm, lab manager at West River Health Services in rural North Dakota, has been trying to hire a technician since late summer. But not one U.S. citizen has applied. West River will have to pay a new $100,000 H-1B visa fee — or request an exemption — if it wants to hire one of its foreign applicants.(Kathrine Abelita)
Bobby Mukkamala, a surgeon and the president of the American Medical Association, said Republican and Democratic lawmakers are concerned about the ramifications for rural health care.
They include Senate Majority Leader John Thune, who said he planned to reach out about possible exemptions.
“We want to make it easier, not harder, and less expensive, not more expensive, for people who need the workforce,” the Republican told KFF Health News in September.
Thune’s office did not respond to questions about whether the senator has heard from the administration regarding potential waivers for health workers.
The Trump administration is facing at least two lawsuits attempting to block the new fee. One group of plaintiffs includes a company that recruits foreign nurses and a union that represents medical graduates. Another lawsuit, by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, mentions concerns about the physician shortage and health systems’ ability to afford the new fee.
Kornele said West River won’t be able to afford a $100,000 fee so it’s doubling down on local recruiting and retention.
But Holzkamm said she hasn’t been successful in finding lab techs from North Dakota colleges, even those who intern at the hospital. She said West River can’t compete with the salaries offered in bigger cities.
“It’s a bad cycle right now. We’re in a lot of trouble,” she said.
Phillip Reese is a data reporting specialist and an associate professor of journalism at California State University-Sacramento.
The Commission, which acts as the EU competition enforcer, said it was concerned that Google may be using publishers’ online content without compensating them adequately [File]
| Photo Credit: REUTERS
Alphabet’s Google faces an EU antitrust investigation into its use of web publishers’ online content and YouTube videos to train its artificial intelligence models, the European Commission said on Tuesday.
The Commission, which acts as the EU competition enforcer, said it was concerned that Google may be using publishers’ online content without compensating them adequately and without giving them the option to refuse the use of their content.
It expressed the same concerns regarding Google’s use of YouTube videos uploaded by its users.
“Google may be abusing its dominant position as a search engine to impose unfair trading conditions on publishers by using their online content to provide its own AI-powered services such as ‘AI Overviews’, which are AI-generated summaries,” EU antitrust chief Teresa Ribera told a conference.
“This case is once again a strong signal of our commitment to protecting the online press and other content creators, and to ensuring fair competition in emerging AI markets,” she said.
Last week, the European Commission launched an investigation into Meta’s plans to block AI rivals from its WhatsApp messaging system, underscoring increasing regulatory scrutiny into this area.
The U.S. tech giant risks a fine as much as 10% of its global annual revenue if found guilty of breaching EU antitrust rules.
