1
00:00:00,160 --> 00:00:06,160
Real quick, there won't be a tech link this coming Monday because I would much

2
00:00:04,000 --> 00:00:10,559
rather try and fail to cover all the Computex news on Wednesday. What a

3
00:00:08,240 --> 00:00:15,839
thrill that'll be. Apple is up to its old tricks, slapping big red warning

4
00:00:13,040 --> 00:00:20,640
symbols on some iOS apps in the EU like Instacart that don't use App Store

5
00:00:18,320 --> 00:00:25,519
payments, something they've been allowed to do for more than a year. And well,

6
00:00:23,279 --> 00:00:29,039
Apple's used these warnings since then, too. It's just that a bunch of people

7
00:00:26,960 --> 00:00:33,200
notice them now that some apps are actually starting to implement external

8
00:00:31,119 --> 00:00:37,200
payments. It's Apple's typical playbook of technically complying with new

9
00:00:35,440 --> 00:00:41,200
regulations, forcing them to allow third party payments, but doing it angrily

10
00:00:39,440 --> 00:00:46,399
like a nurse that you've offended somehow. Is this the wound? Here's a

11
00:00:44,079 --> 00:00:51,280
band-aid. That attitude can also be seen in Apple telling Patreon that its

12
00:00:48,719 --> 00:00:56,480
external payments link can't open in an inapp browser window. The link has to go

13
00:00:53,600 --> 00:01:01,039
out of the Patreon app to Safari, which might as well be the elephant graveyard.

14
00:00:58,559 --> 00:01:05,840
No, don't go there, Simba. But when it comes to App Store related shenanigans,

15
00:01:03,120 --> 00:01:10,560
Apple isn't the only sketchy player. After resubmitting Fortnite to the US

16
00:01:08,400 --> 00:01:16,159
version of the iOS App Store last week, Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney announced

17
00:01:13,040 --> 00:01:17,960
that Fortnite's next update must drop on

18
00:01:16,159 --> 00:01:22,000
all platforms simultaneously. That's important. He

19
00:01:20,240 --> 00:01:27,600
then went on a little tweet storm directly asking his fellow Tim Cook to

20
00:01:24,960 --> 00:01:31,360
let the kids play as racist Darth Vader. Wait, no, that that's that's for later

21
00:01:28,960 --> 00:01:36,479
in the episode. Sweeney pointed out that Fortnite's not allowed on the App Store,

22
00:01:33,759 --> 00:01:41,840
but a game called Fort Battle Royale Epic Shoot was. When Apple took that

23
00:01:39,520 --> 00:01:46,799
down, Sweeney recommended another knockoff. But Apple neither accepted or

24
00:01:44,560 --> 00:01:51,759
rejected the official Fortnite update, which Sweeney said put the Games Friday

25
00:01:49,200 --> 00:01:57,439
update in jeopardy. Now, this morning, Epic Games claimed Apple blocked its

26
00:01:54,399 --> 00:01:59,680
Fortnite submission. Shocker. And for

27
00:01:57,439 --> 00:02:05,920
some reason, this means Fortnite can't be released to the US App Store or to

28
00:02:02,880 --> 00:02:08,399
the iOS Epic Game Store in the EU where

29
00:02:05,920 --> 00:02:14,319
it was already available. And now, quote, "Sadly, Fortnite on iOS will be

30
00:02:11,520 --> 00:02:20,160
offline worldwide until Apple unblocks it." Now, Fortnite was unavailable to

31
00:02:17,280 --> 00:02:25,840
download for iOS today in the EU, but in statements to Bloomberg, Apple denied

32
00:02:22,720 --> 00:02:27,760
blocking Fortnite on Epic's own store.

33
00:02:25,840 --> 00:02:32,640
It says it just asked Epic's EU developer account to resubmit the app

34
00:02:29,760 --> 00:02:38,160
update without also bundling it with the US App Store submission, which it

35
00:02:35,599 --> 00:02:42,720
doesn't want to allow. So, TLDDR, either Apple's lying or Tim Sweeney took

36
00:02:40,480 --> 00:02:47,200
Fortnite off Epic's own store on purpose to make Apple look bad. Unfortunately,

37
00:02:45,040 --> 00:02:50,239
neither of those are that far-fetched. Like, Tim's trying to open up the App

38
00:02:48,800 --> 00:02:55,120
Store, which is good, but he doesn't really care about who he misleads along

39
00:02:52,959 --> 00:02:59,599
the way. He's like Luan Rail from the best Star Wars thing ever made and/or

40
00:02:57,360 --> 00:03:03,760
season 2 finale streaming now on Disney Plus. Disney sucks, but the show

41
00:03:01,440 --> 00:03:08,239
doesn't. I love Tim Sweeney retweeting an American Fortnite player who's sad

42
00:03:05,760 --> 00:03:12,720
about being this close to playing Fortnite on iOS again only to get

43
00:03:10,440 --> 00:03:16,720
rugpulled. And the only reason he had that hope in the first place is because

44
00:03:14,800 --> 00:03:20,959
Tim Sweeney promised that Apple would approve Fortnite this time. He also

45
00:03:18,879 --> 00:03:25,040
retweeted an AI video saying that elephants evolved from Demetradon. I

46
00:03:23,519 --> 00:03:29,840
think we all know what that says about him. So, you guys like dinosaurs, right?

47
00:03:27,040 --> 00:03:32,319
It's not a dinosaur. Shut up. Now, I spent way too long talking about that,

48
00:03:31,200 --> 00:03:39,599
so I'm going to have to speed through this next stuff. Video cards with a z.com spotted a reference to an Intel

49
00:03:36,400 --> 00:03:41,360
Arcpro B60, whatever that is, on the Mac

50
00:03:39,599 --> 00:03:45,760
Sun website. So, I guess we'll probably at least get to see that at Comp

51
00:03:43,120 --> 00:03:51,200
Computex next week along with maybe a Radeon RX960 XT, which will not look

52
00:03:49,440 --> 00:03:55,040
like the reference design in this tweet from AMD. That's just a mockup that

53
00:03:53,440 --> 00:03:58,080
won't go on sale, but which they nevertheless wanted to show you because

54
00:03:56,640 --> 00:04:02,720
they're proud of the intern that made it. Congrats, Kevin. Listings for eight

55
00:04:00,480 --> 00:04:06,799
and 16 GB versions of the card have already been spotted, so it seems like

56
00:04:04,400 --> 00:04:12,799
this thing might launch next week. We probably won't get to see AMD's rumored

57
00:04:09,040 --> 00:04:15,519
Medusa Point Ryzen APU with 22 cores or

58
00:04:12,799 --> 00:04:21,120
the ARMPowered PC processor cenamed Soundwave that will reportedly take on

59
00:04:17,680 --> 00:04:23,520
NVIDIA's own ARMPowered N1 chip in 2026.

60
00:04:21,120 --> 00:04:28,800
Though, unless Kevin makes a banging mockup for those

61
00:04:25,160 --> 00:04:31,520
two, good luck, dude. OpenAI finally

62
00:04:28,800 --> 00:04:36,080
made its GPT 4.1 models available in chat GPT this week and then announced a

63
00:04:33,919 --> 00:04:42,240
new cloud-based coding agent called Codeex, not to be confused with Codeex

64
00:04:38,960 --> 00:04:44,960
CLI, the open-source agent for terminal

65
00:04:42,240 --> 00:04:49,600
apps that launched last month. Uh, no. If if you'd like to be confused, let me

66
00:04:46,960 --> 00:04:54,479
tell you about how XAI's chatbot Grock suddenly started rambling about white

67
00:04:51,680 --> 00:04:59,280
genocide in South Africa anytime someone tweeted for its opinion on literally

68
00:04:56,720 --> 00:05:04,639
anything that wasn't that. Sometimes it answered the question it was actually

69
00:05:00,800 --> 00:05:07,280
being asked and then went now regarding

70
00:05:04,639 --> 00:05:10,479
South Africa. Other times it completely ignored the prompt and just jumped right

71
00:05:09,120 --> 00:05:14,960
into it. I mean, that's what we're all here for, right? After taking the bot

72
00:05:12,240 --> 00:05:18,720
offline for a bit, XAI brought it back, said they'll be publishing Grock's

73
00:05:16,479 --> 00:05:23,919
system prompts to GitHub going forward, and blamed the issue on an unauthorized

74
00:05:21,360 --> 00:05:28,800
modification made presumably by someone with permissions to do so that also has

75
00:05:26,240 --> 00:05:34,080
strong opinions about South Africa. When asked who it thought the rogue employee

76
00:05:30,960 --> 00:05:36,880
was, new feeling much better now, Grock

77
00:05:34,080 --> 00:05:42,560
said, "Come on, guys. I mean, obviously it wasn't noted CEO of XAI, originally

78
00:05:40,400 --> 00:05:47,360
from South Africa, Elon Musk. He wouldn't risk his company's rep for

79
00:05:44,479 --> 00:05:50,680
that, right? He's never done racially charged things in front of large groups

80
00:05:49,039 --> 00:05:57,440
of people before. And I've never had a worse segue

81
00:05:53,759 --> 00:06:00,720
to our sponsor, MSI, and their MPG Velox

82
00:05:57,440 --> 00:06:03,919
300R Airflow PZ, a PC chassis that's

83
00:06:00,720 --> 00:06:07,280
built to be cool, just like you. It

84
00:06:03,919 --> 00:06:08,800
comes equipped with two 160 mm ARGB dual

85
00:06:07,280 --> 00:06:13,360
layer blade fans in the front and another 120 mil in the rear, which add

86
00:06:11,039 --> 00:06:17,759
inner and outer rings to the fan, improving rigidity and minimizing

87
00:06:15,360 --> 00:06:23,120
vibration for more efficient air flow. That sounds cool. The case also supports

88
00:06:19,840 --> 00:06:26,039
up to 13 fans, three 360 mil radiators,

89
00:06:23,120 --> 00:06:30,479
and all motherboard sizes from EATX to miniITX, including back connect boards.

90
00:06:28,560 --> 00:06:35,840
And don't forget the quick snap and lock PSU cover, removable dust filters, and

91
00:06:32,880 --> 00:06:41,759
the included one to4 ARGB fan control board. Okay, and then go check out the

92
00:06:38,400 --> 00:06:43,280
MSI MPG Veloc 300R Airflow PZ at the

93
00:06:41,759 --> 00:06:47,840
link in the description. It's the Quickbits

94
00:06:44,759 --> 00:06:50,319
now. There's just no time. Spotify has

95
00:06:47,840 --> 00:06:55,120
responded to backlash from podcasters upset over the company's recent update

96
00:06:52,720 --> 00:07:00,000
adding public play counts to every podcast. Spotify's new policy will be to

97
00:06:57,840 --> 00:07:04,960
show public play counts only for podcasts with more than 50,000 plays.

98
00:07:03,039 --> 00:07:08,319
That way, you won't be able to tell how many people are listening to all the

99
00:07:06,319 --> 00:07:11,919
fake podcasts discovered by Business Insider and CNN this week that are only

100
00:07:10,400 --> 00:07:15,680
like 10 seconds long because they're just a front for selling drugs.

101
00:07:13,759 --> 00:07:20,479
Everybody's happy. Reports circulated this week about a massive Steam data

102
00:07:17,919 --> 00:07:24,639
breach that supposedly compromised 89 million accounts. And full disclosure, I

103
00:07:23,120 --> 00:07:28,960
didn't include it on Techlink because something seemed off. And sure enough,

104
00:07:27,199 --> 00:07:33,440
Valve has confirmed that the only thing that was really compromised were a bunch

105
00:07:30,960 --> 00:07:37,280
of one-time login codes that don't work anymore. The company says there's no

106
00:07:35,199 --> 00:07:42,080
real reason to change your password. But do you need a reason? Do it

107
00:07:39,880 --> 00:07:46,720
anyway. Come up with a fun one. Australian startup Gilmore Space was due

108
00:07:44,720 --> 00:07:50,639
to launch the country's first orbital class rocket this week. But during

109
00:07:48,560 --> 00:07:55,440
launch preparations, the rocket's nose cone deployed prematurely. Uh there were

110
00:07:53,680 --> 00:08:02,160
no photos, but it probably looked something like this clip. Uh according

111
00:07:59,199 --> 00:08:05,440
to scientists, in other words, the top fell off, and they should probably build

112
00:08:04,000 --> 00:08:10,240
the next one, so that doesn't happen. Well, some of them are built so the front doesn't fall off at all. And

113
00:08:08,080 --> 00:08:14,960
Fortnite is back one more time because it gave Darth Vader, a boss character in

114
00:08:12,720 --> 00:08:20,800
the game Star Wars mode, an AI version of James Earl Jones's voice that players

115
00:08:17,520 --> 00:08:23,599
can talk to. Vader immediately started

116
00:08:20,800 --> 00:08:28,879
swearing freaking and being a little racist.

117
00:08:26,120 --> 00:08:34,080
Spanish, a useful tongue for smugglers and spice traders. To be fair, he's a

118
00:08:31,919 --> 00:08:38,719
space Nazi super soldier. It's not completely out of left field. Epic Games

119
00:08:36,399 --> 00:08:42,959
pushed a hot fix immediately and pointed out you can report it to them the next

120
00:08:41,039 --> 00:08:46,720
time the guy that literally slaughtered a temple full of younglings says

121
00:08:44,640 --> 00:08:51,279
something a bit edgy. And who knows, maybe I'll say something edgy when you

122
00:08:48,480 --> 00:08:54,399
come back on Wednesday, not Monday, for more tech news. I've got some dark

123
00:08:52,959 --> 00:08:58,880
thoughts in here. You wouldn't think so, but you don't even want to know what I

124
00:08:56,720 --> 00:09:03,760
think about the atomic purple Game Boy Color.

125
00:09:01,040 --> 00:09:03,760
Don't Don't do