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- 🤖 OpenAI launches an app store inside ChatGPT
🤖 OpenAI launches an app store inside ChatGPT
+ More tech updates from Google and Facebook
Roni Rahman
December 18, 2025
Greetings! Your latest quick tech update is here:
☀️ On this day: On December 18, 1975, the Altair 8800, created by MITS, was featured on the cover of Popular Electronics magazine. Often credited with kickstarting the personal computer revolution, the Altair captured the imagination of hobbyists and future PC pioneers, including the founders of Microsoft, who went on to build software and systems that shaped a new era of personal computing.
What’s happening:
🧩 OpenAI launches the ChatGPT App Store
🚀 Google releases fast, low-cost Gemini 3 Flash
💰 Facebook tries a paywall for sharing links
🛰️ Billionaire Jared Isaacman to lead NASA
🔋 China’s solar output can meet global demand
+ 📊 Daily poll and results
+ 📈 Trending tools and resources
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Hand-picked news:
🧩 OpenAI launches the ChatGPT App Store ↗️LINK
OpenAI has added an app directory inside ChatGPT, letting users connect apps like Spotify, Dropbox, Booking.com, Apple Music, and DoorDash to take actions directly in a chat.
Apps are grouped into Featured, Lifestyle, and Productivity categories, and once connected, they can be used anytime by mentioning them in a conversation.
Developers can now submit apps to ChatGPT, but for now can only make money by linking out to their own sites, with OpenAI saying built-in monetization may come later.
🚀 Google releases fast, low-cost Gemini 3 Flash ↗️LINK
Google unveiled Gemini 3 Flash, a faster and cheaper model based on Gemini 3, and made it the default in the Gemini app and Search AI mode, aiming to compete more aggressively with OpenAI.
On benchmarks, Gemini 3 Flash shows major gains over Gemini 2.5 Flash, scoring 33.7% on Humanity’s Last Exam and leading the MMMU-Pro multimodality benchmark with 81.2%, while approaching Gemini 3 Pro and GPT-5.2 performance in some areas.
The model is rolling out to consumers, enterprises, and developers via Gemini, Vertex AI, and APIs, with pricing slightly higher than 2.5 Flash but faster performance, lower token usage for reasoning tasks, and growing adoption across tools like JetBrains, Figma, and Cursor.
💰 Facebook tries a paywall for sharing links ↗️LINK
Meta is testing a change on Facebook that limits how many links creators can share unless they pay for a Meta Verified subscription.
In the test, creators without Meta Verified can only share links in two organic posts per month, while paying subscribers may be allowed to post more links.
The test affects some creators using Facebook’s professional mode and not publishers, but critics say it could hurt creators and businesses that rely on Facebook to drive traffic off the platform.
🛰️ Billionaire Jared Isaacman to lead NASA ↗️LINK
The U.S. Senate confirmed billionaire Jared Isaacman as NASA administrator, months after President Donald Trump withdrew and later reinstated his nomination following renewed consideration in November.
Isaacman is the founder and CEO of payments company Shift4 and has flown to space twice on private missions with Elon Musk’s SpaceX, which initially raised concerns about potential conflicts of interest.
Addressing those concerns, Isaacman said SpaceX was used because it is currently the only company capable of transporting astronauts, and Trump ultimately praised him as “ideally suited” to lead NASA into a new era.
🔋 China’s solar output can meet global demand ↗️LINK
Analysts say China can now produce enough solar panels to supply the entire world, making clean energy even cheaper and helping developing countries move away from fossil fuels faster than rich nations.
Because China is so far ahead in solar, wind, and electric cars, fighting climate change is now more about building cheap clean energy than making big political promises.
While many emerging countries are embracing Chinese clean tech, the U.S. and other Western nations are sticking with fossil fuels and trade barriers, risking higher costs, slower emissions cuts, and falling behind in the energy transition.
Today’s Poll:
Do you think China’s lead in solar, wind, and EVs will grow over time? |
Vote and find out about the result tomorrow.
Yesterday’s Poll Result:
How do you feel about Mozilla’s plan to turn Firefox into an AI-powered browser?
A) Supportive - 43%
B) Opposed - 57% 🏆
Reader’s opinions:
“Mozilla is supposed to be an expert on data privacy, and there's no indication that any existing AI browser has sufficient data controls. I'm skeptical that Firefox will be the first.”
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