Apple is threatening to pull services in the UK if the government weakens end-to-end encryption,
because what happens in iPhone stays on iPhone Gabnah. I'm sorry, I'm James Strybe, this is
TechLinked, and this is a proposed amendment to the Investigatory Powers Act, causing a bunch of
tech companies to threaten to brexit themselves, including Wikipedia, Signal, and WhatsApp.
And you know you've got a problem when meta thinks you're being weirdly intrusive.
The acting question already required messaging service to receive government approval before
releasing new security features, but the change here is that now they'll have to immediately
disable features upon request without any appeal process, effectively eliminating oversight.
It's unclear from the bill's wording whether communications providers could be ordered to
simply not use encryption, and it's not even clear how many times the Investigatory Powers
Act has already been used. It's okay, UK government, we totally get the whole
having to justify your reasons for staring through unlimited bedroom Windows is a huge drag.
I just want to watch when they're dancing when no one's watching.
Major gaming platform and vomit onomatopoeia Roblox suffered a major data breach that leaked
the personal information of nearly 4,000 people that attended the invite-only Roblox developer
conference from 2017 to 2020. According to HaveIbeenPone.com, 3,943 unique email accounts,
names, phone numbers, IP addresses, and even physical addresses were circulated on a fork.
Think of the exploited teenagers. Not even t-shirt sizes were safe.
If you ever went to a developer conference, be wary of anyone who knows your size, especially your
mom. Seriously though, this leak dates back to December 2020, but it was apparently unnoticed
and unreported until now. Roblox gave a statement to PCGamer saying that they are
aware of a third-party security issue that caused this breach. Further saying,
we engaged independent experts to support the investigation led by our information
security team. They need the help, since not only did this breach occur three years ago,
but the information was originally spread within niche cheating communities within Roblox,
as early as 2021. I'm sure Roblox would have caught it if it spread to the mainstream
cheating communities, but these niche ones. Google and Apple are both taking steps to treat the
whole large language model thing more seriously, even if it means taking a break from creating
subscription services named one. According to the Wall Street Journal,
Google co-founder Sergey Brin, who is my favorite Sergey, has come out of semi-retirement to help
researchers develop Gemini, the tech giant's answer to open AI's chat GPT-4. What happened
to Bard? Helping here means dropping in on meetings, recruiting top-tier researchers,
and presumably asking how AI can help him darken the skies with airships. Meanwhile,
courtesy of Apple leaker Mark Squirman-German, we're finally hearing about Apple developing
a generative AI chatbot named Ajax, but whose friends call it Apple GPT. Unfortunately,
the only friends it has are a specific substitute of Apple employees who must go through an
application approval process to talk to it, which sounds normal for Riley. Ajax-powered Apple services
probably won't roll out until next year, but when they do, chat GPT will be facing some
fierce competition from fan-favorite underdogs Google and Apple. Watch out, Reloyal.
The only thing magnetic about these quick bits is my personality,
and the BB embedded in my left butt cheek, don't ask.
The FTC has withdrawn their upcoming antitrust lawsuit to block Microsoft's purchase of Activision
Blizzard after the Xbox company filed a motion to dismiss the proceedings on July 18th. While the
FTC can still refile the complaint or try for a settlement, it's looking more and more like the
merger will go through, because this is America, and there's no such thing as antitrust.
This is excited Ubisoft's CEO who has been trying to get someone, anyone, to buy his company since
last year. Always a bribesmate, hey Ubisoft, maybe you can catch Activision's bouquet.
Meta has reportedly discontinued the Quest Pro and stopped all development on the upcoming Quest
Pro 2, this is crazy. Manufacturers will continue to build Quest Pro headsets only as long as their
current materials last. Maybe this is unsurprising if you remember when Meta launched the Quest Pro
for $1500, got laughed out of the room, and dropped the price to $1000. Like Meta is a VR
company in the same way that McDonald's is a restaurant, you don't go there for a pricey steak.
Speaking of spatial computing, Microsoft is due to deliver an
improved version of the HoloLens really for another round of US Army testing, oh,
by the end of this month. The Army wants the mixed rally headset to improve battlefield awareness,
but what the HoloLens wound up doing during previous testing was causing 80% of troops to
experience mission affecting physical impairments, which is military speak for throwing up so hard
you think you're gonna meet Jesus in person. We want you to keep your lunch inside.
Haha. Chip manufacturer TSMC is delaying the start of mass production at its Arizona plan to 2025
due to insufficient amount of skilled workers. Yikes, America. The company is currently trying
to get the US government to fast-track non-immigrant visas for 500 Taiwanese engineers,
and I'm sure this has nothing to do with the horrible reviews of TSMC by its US employees,
which caused the company's chairman to remark, those who are unwilling to take shifts should not
enter the industry. Maybe American engineers just took his advice. And a world of Warcraft
players can barely contain their excitement for the introduction of GLORBO, according to an article
on gaming site ZLEAGUE.GG written by something named Lucy Reed, an entity so powerful it can
churn out 50 articles per day. If you haven't figured it out, Lucy is an AI that scrapes Reddit
for wow-related stories and was unsurprisingly unable to differentiate between real news and
an ironic post meant to trick, said AI, into writing about GLORBO, finally being brought into
the game after being hinted at in Hearthstone back in 1994. Even a wow dev celebrated the small
victory against the machines by tweeting about the event, making GLORBO nearly as celebrated as
Emmy award-winning TV series Monk Dammit, starring Tarly Shalupe. Another one for the good guys.
And make sure to prepare for the upcoming war against our AI overlords. Come back on Monday
for more tech news. I can't even finish the damn episode. It's getting ridiculous.