Daily Tech News Show

AI is disrupting a lot of industries but will it also disrupt your paycheck? The Information reports that Meta told Quest Pro suppliers it would not need new components. Is this an early sign that VR is dying? Do couples who engage in “phone snubbing”—the act of cutting off conversations with others IRL using text or messaging instead, have a less fulfilling relationship?Starring Tom Merritt, Sarah Lane, Megan Morrone, Roger Chang, Joe.Link to the Show Notes. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The UK government is looking to update its 2016 Investigatory Powers Act that would require companies to comply immediately if the UK’s Home Office demands technology companies disable security features before shipping them to consumers. Amazon says it’s bringing its Amazon One palm recognition technology to all of its 500 + Whole Foods stores in the US. In Netflix’s latest quarterly earnings, the company saw its second straight quarter of subscriber growth, up 5.9 million worldwide to 238.4 million.Starring Sarah Lane, Rich Stroffolino, Justin Robert Young, Roger Chang, Joe.Link to the Show Notes. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Why are TikTokers acting like NPCs in a video game? Netflix has removed the basic plan in the U.S. and the U.K. And we have the latest on the soap-opera that is the Microsoft-Activision acquisition.Starring Tom Merritt, Sarah Lane, Scott Johnson, Roger Chang, Joe.Link to the Show Notes. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

How can chatbots replace human subjects in scientific research? Microsoft announced details on some new chatbot features coming to Microsoft 365 business users. And are people warming to “Apple’s Most Hated Product.” Apple Maps?Starring Tom Merritt, Sarah Lane, Dr. Niki Ackermans, Roger Chang, Joe.Link to the Show Notes. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Sony agrees to keep all of Duty available for PlayStation for 10 years after the Microsoft Blizzard acquisition closes. A Financial Times report found that the .mil domain used by the US military often gets typo’d as .ml the country code domain for the West African country Mali possible to data leaks. And TechRadar's Christian Guyton cites several users claiming that ChatGPT output quality decreased since switching to OpenAI’s GPT-4 model.Starring Tom Merritt, Rich Stroffolino, Roger Chang, Joe.Link to the Show Notes. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What's the deal with carmakers signing deals to use Tesla's SuperCharger network? Twitter has begun compensating some of its popular creators with a share of ad revenue from ads served in tweet replies. Will this be enough to turn the company around? And is Dutch ebike maker VanMoof approach to the market a little too smart for its own good?Starring Sarah Lane, Rich Stroffolino, Bodie Grimm, Roger Chang, Joe.Link to the Show Notes. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Rolls-Royce introduces the first EV in its 150 year history, the Spectre. Tom’s Hardware notes that the IEEE has added the 802.11bb standard for light-based wireless communication. Yep. LI-FI. And Chatbots face a rocky road as new obstacles cloud their advancement.Starring Tom Merritt, Sarah Lane, Tim Stevens, Roger Chang, Joe.Link to the Show Notes. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Video Game History Foundation and Software Preservation Network claim that 87% of classic video games (that means games released before 2010) in the US are “critically endangered”. What’s being done to preserve these games? Meta announced that open beta for Roblox on the Quest 2 and Quest Pro headsets will launch in the “coming weeks.” Reuters reports that industry sources say Huawei has designed its own 5G chips and is working with China’s SMIC to produce them. SMIC’s N+1 process can make chips with the equivalent performance of 7 nanometer processes.Starring Tom Merritt, Scott Johnson, Roger Chang, Joe.Link to the Show Notes. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Thinking about upgrading your PC but not sure where to start? Will Smith is here to give us pointers on your PC upgrade path. A judge has ruled *against* a preliminary injunction to stop Microsoft and Activision-Blizzard from completing their merger. Did Microsoft win? And a Pew Research Center study indicates 59% of US adults surveyed see TikTok as either a major or minor threat to national security.Starring Tom Merritt, Sarah Lane, Will Smith, Roger Chang, Joe.Link to the Show Notes. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Wall Street Journal’s sources say Google is testing a language model called Med-PaLM 2 with some health care companies, including the Mayo Clinic. Is the start of AI integration into healthcare? We discussed Engadget’s article about NYU Media Lab’s AI & Local News Initiative. And Instagram head Adam Mosseri confirmed that Meta’s Threads app surpassed 100 million accounts since launching on July 5th. Is this the start of a new social media platform comparable to Twitter?Starring Tom Merritt, Rich Stroffolino, Justin Robert Young, Roger Chang, Joe.Link to the Show Notes. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.