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Each weekday morning we bring you the tech news you need today, and then in the afternoon we showcase stories about the technology, science, and culture that will influence tomorrow, all brought to you by Engadget.
Episodes
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Aug 25, 2025 • 5min
Grok 2.5 goes open source
xAI made the older Grok model available for all, while Elon Musk said the upcoming Grok 3 will follow suit. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Aug 25, 2025 • 8min
Apple claims an ex-employee stole trade secrets for Oppo, Bluesky blocks Mississippi due to its new age verification law, and Google tested QR code verification for text messages
Apple is going after another one of its previous employees for allegedly sharing trade secrets with a new employer. Apple's lawsuit listed Chen Shi, a former employee who worked on the Apple Watch team, along with Oppo, as defendants, claiming they "conspired to steal Apple’s trade secrets." In other news, Users with Mississippi IP addresses can no longer access the Bluesky app. The decentralized social media network has explained in a post that Mississippi's new age verification law for social networks "would fundamentally change" how it operates, and it wouldn't be possible to comply with its small team and limited resources. And Google is changing the way you confirm if contacts are legit. The company has begun rolling out a QR code to verify that the person you're communicating with is, in fact, who they say they are, 9to5Google reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Aug 22, 2025 • 7min
Google AI Mode is expanding to 180 countries and adding an agentic restaurant finder
AI Mode will add agentic event and appointment finders soon, too. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Aug 22, 2025 • 8min
Trump Mobile is promoting its smartphone with terribly edited photos of other brands' products, Ecosia offered $0 for control of Chrome, and Tesla investigated over inaccurate crash reports
AppleInsider spotted the latest bizarre wrinkle to this story, which is that the actual phone still does not exist. The publication noticed that promotional images for T1 all show different smartphones that appear to be tweaked in a photo editor to look gold. While the website shows a badly edited image of what appears to be a Revvl 7 Pro 5G phone, an Instagram ad seems to depict an iPhone 16 Pro Max, again with the company's branding overlaid. A third confusing image edit was posted on X earlier this week. That photo shows a Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra equipped with a case made by Spigen. The South Korean accessory company's logo can be seen behind the render of an American flag. In other news, Germany-based search engine and browser nonprofit Ecosia is the latest party to make an offer for Google's Chrome. Questions about Chrome's fate have been swirling since the news that the Department of Justice would push for Google to sell the browser after the ruling that the company's search engine business constituted a monopoly. And the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration just announced an investigation into Tesla regarding its Autopilot and Full Self-Driving systems. That’s according to a report by Electrek. The road safety regulator says the probe involves inconsistencies with how the company reports crashes regarding the aforementioned systems. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Aug 21, 2025 • 7min
Google Pixel 10 Pro Fold vs. Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7: How the newest foldable phones stack up
It's a battle of the foldables and we break down the differences between the two most popular folding phone brands. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Aug 21, 2025 • 11min
AI browsers may be the best thing that ever happened to scammers, Oracle will reportedly power a giant data center with gas generators, and Alaska Air will offer Starlink in-flight internet starting next year.
We've heard a lot this year about AI enabling new scams, from celebrity deepfakes on Facebook to hackers impersonating government officials. However, a new report suggests that AI also poses a fraud risk from the other direction — easily falling for scams that human users are much more likely to catch. The report, titled "Scamlexity," comes from a cybersecurity startup called Guardio, which produces a browser extension designed to catch scams in real time. In other news, Bloomberg has published a deep dive into operations at Oracle, chronicling the software giant's rise in cloud computing and current push into powering artificial intelligence projects. The publication reported that Oracle has promised to develop tens of billions of dollars in data centers, which have become a hot business. And more and more airlines think that Starlink is the solution. The latest company to sign with the SpaceX affiliate is Alaska Air Group, which announced that it will start offering Starlink Wi-Fi next year and expand the service to its entire fleet by 2027. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Aug 20, 2025 • 6min
Anker's Soundcore Sleep A30 earbuds include ANC and a snore-detection algorithm
They cost $230 and are available in two colorways. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Aug 20, 2025 • 7min
The White House now has a TikTok account, a man who allegedly used a botnet to take down X has been charged, and Meta's AI voice translation feature rolled out globally
The White House has joined TikTok, the social media app that President Trump wanted to ban during his first term. Its first post shows clips of Trump in various events with Kendrick Lamar's track playing in the background. The New York Times notes that it references a popular video edit of Creed, a boxing movie starring Michael B. Jordan, on the app. In the TikTok post, Trump could be heard saying "I am your voice," while the caption reads "America we are BACK! What's up TikTok?" In other news, an Oregon man has been charged in a federal complaint today on allegations of operating a botnet for hire that conducted cyberattacks beginning at least in 2021. Ethan Foltz has been accused of running Rapper Bot, also known as Eleven Eleven Botnet and CowBot, and using it to execute coordinated distributed denial of service or DDoS attacks; Meta rolled out its new voice dubbing feature globally. The Reels feature uses generative AI to translate your voice, with optional lip-syncing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Aug 19, 2025 • 5min
Google announces the first nuclear site to power its data centers
A plant in Oak Ridge, Tennessee will open in partnership with Kairos Power. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Aug 19, 2025 • 8min
The UK will no longer require Apple to create backdoor access to users' data ... and more Tech News
UK officials will no longer compel Apple to create backdoor access to its users' data. That’s according to US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. She wrote on X that the administration worked closely with the UK over the past months. As The New York Times noted, the UK government issued the secret order earlier this year after amending the Investigatory Powers Act of 2016. In other news, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has announced plans to investigate both Meta AI Studio and Character.AI for offering AI chatbots that can claim to be health tools, and potentially misusing data collected from underage users. Paxton says that AI chatbots from either platform "can present themselves as professional therapeutic tools," to the point of lying about their qualifications; and Substack now lets users subscribe to any paid publication via an in-app purchase from the official iOS app. The news comes after the company tested the feature with 30,000 creators. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices


